Chapter 10 - MY MOTHER'S LAST FILE
I had never heard anyone say my parents were having problems.
Not once.
Mom and Dad fought like normal people.
Dad worked too much.
Mom hated his habit of leaving coffee cups everywhere.
But divorce?
“No,” I said.
Reagan smiled.
“You were sixteen. They protected you.”
Dad looked at me.
“Finnley, we can talk somewhere else.”
“That means she's telling the truth.”
“Partly.”
I felt something inside me crack.
Every answer seemed to create another lie.
“What happened?”
Dad sat in his old living room.
For the first time, he looked less like my father and more like an exhausted old man.
“Dennis Manufacturing had environmental violations.”
“What kind?”
“Chemical disposal.”
My grandfather's factories used industrial solvents.
Dad explained that twenty-two years ago, waste had been dumped illegally by a subcontractor.
“Evelyn discovered financial records showing somebody inside the company had authorized payments.”
“You?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“My brother.”
I had barely known Uncle Raymond.
He died when I was seventeen.
“Raymond handled operations,” Dad said. “He bribed inspectors.”
“Did you know?”
“Not initially.”
“Eventually?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do?”
Dad looked ashamed.
“I protected the company.”
That meant he helped cover it up.
Mom, with her forensic-accounting background, discovered what was happening.
“She wanted to report everything,” Dad said.
“And you stopped her.”
“I asked for time.”
“To hide it?”
“To protect thousands of employees.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That's what people always say.”
Dad flinched.
“She threatened divorce.”
Reagan had been telling the truth.
“At the time,” Dad continued, “I thought the scandal would destroy the company.”
“What happened to the contamination?”
“We paid for cleanup anonymously and ended the dumping.”
“That doesn't erase the crime.”
“No.”
Dad didn't defend himself.
Then he said something worse.
“Evelyn was collecting evidence when she died.”
Mom died in a car accident.
A truck crossed the center line during heavy rain.
The driver had alcohol in his system.
Accident.
At least, that was what I'd been told.
“You think someone killed her?”
“I didn't then.”
“And now?”
Dad looked toward Reagan.
“She found Evelyn's files.”
Reagan smiled.
“I found fragments.”
“What files?”
“Your mother kept backups.”
My chest tightened.
“Where?”
Reagan lifted her chin.
“You want information from me? Get these marshals out of my house.”
“Not your house,” Nora reminded her.
Reagan ignored her.
Dad stood.
“You're in no position to negotiate.”
“Neither are you.”
Then she looked at me.
“Robert Hale knows your mother discovered the first version of his money network.”
Silence.
Mom had known Hale.
“How?”
“Hale was Raymond's attorney.”
Everything connected farther back than I imagined.
Nora asked, “What did Evelyn find?”
Reagan considered.
“A ledger.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I spent years looking.”
Dad stared.
“That's why you married me.”
Reagan's smile faded.
At last, the deeper betrayal emerged.
“You thought I loved you?”
Dad looked wounded despite everything.
“I thought part of you did.”
“Maybe once.”
She shrugged.
“But Robert promised Carter would never have to worry about money again.”
“You used me to search for Evelyn's evidence.”
“Yes.”
I felt sick.
Reagan had entered our family deliberately.
Not randomly.
Not because she met Dad after Mom's death.
She had been sent.
“Did Hale have my mother killed?” I asked.
For the first time, Reagan looked uncertain.
“I don't know.”
“Did you know him then?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He represented my first husband.”
Carter's father.
Another hidden connection.
“Where are Mom's files?”
Reagan looked at me.
“She left you clues.”
“What clues?”
“Things Camden never understood.”
Dad frowned.
“Evelyn didn't—”
“Her books.”
I remembered Mom's library.
She wrote notes inside everything.
Birthdays.
Recipes.
Phone numbers.
After she died, Dad boxed up most of her books because looking at them hurt too much.
“Where are they?”
Dad stood suddenly.
“The lake house.”
We had a cabin near Big Bear when I was a child.
Dad sold it years ago.
Or I thought he had.
“I never sold it,” he admitted.
“Why?”
“Your mother owned it through the same trust.”
Of course she did.
We drove through the mountains that night.
The cabin hadn't been used in years.
Dust covered everything.
Mom's books filled two shelves.
I ran my fingers across the spines.
Mysteries.
History.
Finance.
Poetry.
Then I remembered a childhood game.
Whenever Mom traveled, she left secret messages inside books.
The clue was always based on my age.
When I was twelve, page twelve.
Thirteen, page thirteen.
Mom died when I was sixteen.
I opened the sixteenth book on the shelf.
Page sixteen.
A sentence was underlined:
The safest secrets are hidden where nobody thinks to look twice.
Dad stared.
I pulled out the book.
Something was taped behind it.
A small cassette.
Mom's handwriting:
FOR FINNLEY — WHEN YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW WHO YOUR FATHER REALLY IS.
Dad went pale.
I found an old tape player in the cabin.
Pressed play.
My mother's voice filled the room.
“Finnley, sweetheart, if you're hearing this, I failed to fix something before you grew up.”
I closed my eyes.
Her voice.
After all these years.
“I need you to understand that your father is not the man they're going to tell you he is.”
Dad looked confused.
Then Mom continued.
“Camden made mistakes. Serious ones. But Robert Hale is using those mistakes to control him.”
Dad sat down.
“He threatened our family.”
Mom took a breath.
“I have proof Robert Hale ordered the Dennis Manufacturing cover-up.”
My eyes opened.
“And I have proof he has already arranged one death.”
Dad whispered, “Who?”
Mom answered from twenty years in the past.
“Raymond Dennis did not die of a heart attack.”
My uncle.
Dad stared at the tape player.
“He was murdered.”
May you like
Then Mom said the sentence that changed our family again.
“And if anything happens to me, Robert Hale did it.”
