Chương 8
He had not thought about that day in years.
“Your father repaired that himself,” Margaret said.
Dominic looked at the stain.
“I thought we replaced the counter.”
“We were going to.”
“Then why didn’t we?”
She smiled faintly.
“Because your father kept saying he would fix it.”
Dominic looked around.
“He never did.”
“No.”
The answer was quiet.
“He was always going to do things later.”
They searched the house slowly.
Not like criminals searching for treasure.
Like people looking for pieces of a person they thought they knew.
The office was almost empty.
A desk.
A broken lamp.
Several shelves.
Dominic opened drawers.
Nothing.
Thomas checked the walls.
Nothing.
Margaret stood in the doorway.
“Your father never trusted digital storage.”
Dominic looked at her.
“He barely trusted people.”
“That too.”
Thomas looked beneath the desk.
“Old habits.”
“What?”
“People who hide things usually choose places connected to routine.”
Dominic looked around.
His father had spent years sitting here.
Writing.
Planning.
Thinking.
Then he noticed something.
A scratch on the wooden floor.
Near the bookshelf.
He knelt down.
The mark was almost invisible.
But familiar.
When he was young, he had accidentally damaged the floor while moving a chair.
His father had been angry for days.
Dominic touched the scratch.
“He never fixed this.”
Margaret looked at him.
“No.”
Dominic moved the bookshelf slightly.
It did not move at first.
Then something clicked.
A hidden compartment opened behind it.
Nobody spoke.
Inside was a small metal box.
Old.
Rusting around the edges.
Thomas stepped closer.
“Don’t touch anything yet.”
Dominic ignored the instruction.
Not because he was reckless.
Because after all these years, after all the lies, after all the waiting, he needed one thing to belong to him.
He opened the box.
Inside was a photograph.
Not a document.
Not money.
A photograph of his father standing beside three men Dominic had never seen before.
On the back was a date.
The year before Dominic was born.
And underneath it, one sentence written in his father’s handwriting.
“Some mistakes begin long before anyone notices the damage.”
Dominic stared at the sentence for several seconds.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
His father had written hundreds of documents during his lifetime.
Contracts.
Letters.
Notes left for assistants.
Instructions that were always precise and emotionless.
But this was different.
There was hesitation in the words.
A warning hidden inside a confession.
Thomas leaned closer but did not touch the photograph.
“Who are they?”
Dominic looked at the three men standing beside his father.
The picture was old enough that the colors had faded.
His father looked younger.
Less polished.
Less like the man who eventually became known across the city.
The three men beside him looked ordinary.
That bothered Dominic.
He had expected something obvious.
A criminal.
A powerful executive.
Someone who looked dangerous.
Instead, they looked like people who could disappear into any crowd.
“I don’t know,” Dominic said.
Margaret stepped closer.
The moment she saw the photograph, her face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Dominic noticed.
“You know them.”
She did not answer.
“Mom.”
Margaret sat down slowly on the edge of the old desk chair.
“I know one of them.”
“Who?”
She looked at the photograph again.
“Daniel Mercer.”
Thomas became still.
“The assistant?”
Margaret nodded.
Dominic looked at the man standing on the left side of his father.
Daniel looked younger.
Almost unrecognizable.
“He was there before everything changed,” Margaret said.
“What does that mean?”
She rubbed her hands together.
It was a habit she had whenever she was searching for words.
“He was your father’s friend.”
Dominic looked back at the photograph.
“Not his assistant?”
“Both.”
Thomas frowned.
“People rarely become assistants to someone they already know well unless there is trust involved.”
Margaret nodded.
“Daniel knew your father before the money.”
Dominic looked at the sentence on the back again.
“Some mistakes begin long before anyone notices the damage.”
He felt a strange discomfort.
Because the sentence did not sound like a man hiding a crime.
It sounded like a man admitting regret.
“What mistake?” Dominic asked.
Margaret looked toward the empty room.
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
“I know your father changed after this photograph was taken.”
“How?”
“He stopped bringing Daniel around.”
“Why?”
“I asked him.”
“And?”
Margaret gave a small, tired smile.
“He told me it was business.”
Dominic almost laughed.
The phrase sounded exactly like his father.
Business.
A word that could end any conversation.
A word people used when they wanted to make something complicated sound unavoidable.
Thomas carefully picked up the photograph with a tissue from his briefcase.
“We need to preserve everything.”
Dominic looked at him.
“It’s just a picture.”
“No.”
Thomas studied the back.
“It’s evidence that your father connected these people.”
“Connected to what?”
“That is what we need to find out.”
They searched the compartment again.
This time more carefully.
The metal box had a false bottom.
Inside was a small envelope.
Margaret noticed it first.
“Your father.”
Dominic opened it.
Inside were several pages.
Not financial records.
Personal notes.
The first page contained only names.
Four names.
His father.
Daniel Mercer.
A man named Arthur Bell.
A woman named Evelyn Shaw.
Dominic recognized none of them.
Thomas read silently.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
Thomas looked uncomfortable.
“That name.”
He pointed to Evelyn Shaw.
“What about her?”
Thomas looked at Dominic.
“She was involved in the original company formation.”
Dominic frowned.
“My father’s first company?”
“Yes.”
“That was thirty years ago.”
Thomas nodded.
“Exactly.”
The age of the information made it more disturbing.
Whatever this was, it had not started recently.
Lucian had been talking about recent problems.
But the roots went deeper.
Much deeper.
Dominic turned another page.
The notes were incomplete.
Short sentences.
Fragments.
Questions.
“Arthur knows.”
“Daniel wants out.”
“Evelyn warned me.”
“Cannot trust the board.”
Then one line written darker than the others.
“Lucian cannot know.”
The room went quiet.
Dominic read it again.
May you like
Then again.
His son.
