Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO LOOKED ENOUGH LIKE ME
Monica Reyes had worked for a catering company Gertrude used regularly.
She agreed to meet us at Rebecca’s office the following morning.
When Monica entered, she looked nervous.
Not frightened of me.
Frightened of becoming involved.
“I don’t want trouble.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Then only tell us what you personally saw.”
Monica looked at me.
“I saw a man pretending to be you.”
The sentence sounded absurd.
But after everything else, absurd had become ordinary.
“When?”
“About three years ago.”
“Where?”
“At your house.”
She explained.
There had been a small gathering.
Not a party.
Gertrude.
Prudence.
A man Monica didn’t recognize.
Two other people.
Documents on the dining-room table.
“I was setting up lunch.”
“What did he look like?”
“Like you.”
I stared.
“How much like me?”
“From a distance? Enough.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Did anyone call him Caleb?”
“Yes.”
My skin crawled.
“Who?”
“Your sister.”
Of course.
“What happened?”
“He signed things.”
“Did you see the documents?”
“No.”
“Did you see identification?”
“No.”
“Did you hear anything?”
Monica hesitated.
“Your mother told him he didn’t need to stay long.”
Rebecca glanced at me.
“Anything else?”
“The man joked that your beard looked better in the passport photo.”
I sat back.
Passport copy.
They had shown him identification.
“Could you identify him again?”
“Maybe.”
Monica pulled out her phone.
“There’s something else.”
A photograph.
Taken accidentally while Monica photographed a table arrangement.
In the background stood Prudence.
My mother.
And a man.
My blood went cold.
Same height.
Similar build.
Dark hair.
Short beard.
But not me.
The image was blurry.
Still, it was enough to show one important thing.
I had not magically crossed an ocean.
Someone else had been there.
Rebecca emailed the photograph to herself.
“Do you know his name?”
Monica shook her head.
“No.”
I enlarged the image.
There was something familiar.
Not the face.
The jacket.
A construction company logo.
I knew it.
“Wait.”
I zoomed in.
HARPER MECHANICAL.
One of the subcontractors from the mansion project.
I had worked with dozens of their employees.
“Rebecca, I might know where he came from.”
It took three phone calls.
The company had changed ownership, but an old supervisor still worked there.
I sent him the cropped image.
Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang.
“That looks like Derek Walsh.”
“Where is he now?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Left years ago.”
“Did he know me?”
“Everybody on that project knew you.”
“Did he resemble me?”
The supervisor laughed.
“A little. We used to joke he looked like your younger brother.”
I did not laugh.
“Do you have contact information?”
“Not current.”
Rebecca stopped me before I could push harder.
“We have investigators for this.”
“I want to find him.”
“I know.”
“He pretended to be me.”
“I know.”
“He may have helped steal my house.”
“I know.”
Her calm voice annoyed me until I realized that was probably the point.
She needed to keep me from running through town fueled entirely by anger.
Rebecca arranged for an investigator.
Then she told me the emergency filing had been submitted.
“It won’t solve the ownership dispute today, but it should make it much harder for anyone to sell or borrow against the property while this is being examined.”
“What about the loan?”
“Different fight.”
“How many fights are there?”
She looked at the growing stack of files.
“More than one.”
After the meeting, I went back to the mansion with Leon.
I wanted my personal records.
Gertrude opened the front door.
She did not invite me inside.
“You brought him?”
Leon said nothing.
My mother glared at him.
“You always were a nosy man.”
He almost smiled.
“Turns out I wasn’t nosy enough.”
I stepped forward.
“I’m getting my documents.”
“You don’t live here.”
I stared at her.
“Say that again.”
She lifted her chin.
“This property belongs to the trust.”
“The transfer is being challenged.”
“Until then, I am trustee.”
I held up my phone.
“Rebecca Sloan says I have every right to retrieve personal belongings that were mine before any alleged transfer.”
Gertrude’s expression changed at the attorney’s name.
She stepped aside.
Prudence was upstairs.
I heard drawers slamming.
When I entered my old office, everything was different.
My desk remained.
But the filing cabinets had been replaced.
The safe was gone.
“Where’s my safe?”
Gertrude stood in the doorway.
“What safe?”
“The steel safe bolted under the built-in cabinet.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Leon walked toward the wall.
He crouched.
Four bolt holes remained in the floor.
“The safe was here.”
Gertrude shrugged.
“Maybe it was removed during renovations.”
“Where did it go?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was inside?” Leon asked.
“Property records. Passport copies. Old signatures. Tax papers.”
All the ingredients necessary to become me on paper.
Prudence appeared.
“Are you accusing us of stealing a safe now?”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened.
“You’re insane.”
“I hope you keep saying that.”
“Why?”
“Because every time you do, you sound more like Mom.”
She looked at Gertrude.
For the first time, I saw tension between them.
Interesting.
I walked through the office.
One drawer still contained old notebooks.
Receipts.
Construction plans.
Nothing useful.
Then Leon pointed toward the closet.
“Was that always there?”
A section of trim looked newer.
He pressed it.
Nothing.
Then he pulled.
A narrow panel opened.
Behind it was a shallow wall cavity.
Gertrude moved quickly.
“There’s nothing in there.”
Too quickly.
I reached inside.
Empty.
Almost.
At the bottom was a torn piece of paper.
I unfolded it.
Half an invoice.
A storage company.
Unit number.
Customer:
G. FOSTER.
I looked at Gertrude.
“What’s in the storage unit?”
Her face remained calm.
“Furniture.”
“Which facility?”
“I don’t remember.”
The invoice showed the name.
Hillside Storage.
Prudence stepped into the office.
“You have no right to go through Mom’s private things.”
I slipped the paper into my pocket.
“Then I guess she shouldn’t have hidden the invoice inside my wall.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed.
“You think this makes you clever?”
“No.”
I walked closer.
“I think five years made you careless.”
For one second, I saw fear.
Then it disappeared.
Back at the hotel, Sarah had taken Jamie to a pediatric clinic.
The doctor wasn’t alarmed enough to hospitalize him, which felt like the first good news I had received.
He was underweight.
He needed regular nutrition, checkups, dental care, and time.
Time.
I had spent five years thinking money could replace it.
It couldn’t.
That evening, I helped Jamie build a toy truck from the box I had brought from Saudi Arabia.
He struggled with one wheel.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Grandma says you left because Mom was bad.”
My hand stopped.
Sarah was in the bathroom.
I kept my voice steady.
“What do you think?”
He shrugged.
“Mom cries sometimes.”
“That doesn’t make her bad.”
“She says Grandma lies.”
“Sometimes Grandma does.”
He looked at me seriously.
“Do dads lie?”
The question pierced me.
“Sometimes.”
“Do you?”
I thought about every phone call when I had said, “Soon.”
Soon I’ll come home.
Soon we’ll have enough.
Soon things will be easier.
“I probably have.”
He absorbed that.
Then I added, “But I’m going to work very hard not to lie to you.”
“Okay.”
He went back to the truck.
My phone buzzed.
Rebecca.
Her investigator had already found Derek Walsh.
He was living two states away.
And he had been arrested eighteen months earlier for fraud.
May you like
More importantly, during an initial phone conversation with the investigator, Derek had said one sentence before hanging up.
“I wondered when Caleb would finally figure it out.”
