Chương 8
The pages inside were filled with handwriting.
Thomas's handwriting.
Daniel knew it immediately.
Not because it was beautiful.
It wasn't.
Thomas pressed too hard when he wrote, leaving marks on the pages underneath.
Daniel used to tease him about it.
Said he was trying to carve words into paper.
The first page contained only one sentence.
If Daniel finds this, I failed.
Daniel stopped reading.
Maya looked at him.
"Do you want me to?"
"No."
His answer came too quickly.
Then he corrected himself.
"I don't know."
He sat down on the concrete floor.
The storage hallway continued around them.
A man pushed a cart somewhere nearby.
A door opened.
Someone coughed.
The ordinary sounds made the moment harder.
Because the world did not know it was supposed to stop.
Daniel turned the page.
The notebook was not a confession.
Not exactly.
It was a record.
Dates.
Names.
Places.
Short sentences written by someone who believed every word might matter later.
Thomas had not vanished randomly.
He had been looking into something.
Something connected to their father.
Daniel's eyes moved across the page.
A name appeared.
Richard Vale.
He knew the name.
Everyone in town knew it.
Richard Vale owned several properties, donated money to local organizations, and had been considered one of the most respected businessmen in the area.
Daniel kept reading.
Thomas had written that Vale was connected to a group of people who had covered up financial crimes years earlier.
But the next sentence made Daniel stop.
The problem is not what they did.
The problem is who helped them.
Maya lowered herself beside him.
"What is it?"
Daniel showed her the page.
She read silently.
Then looked at him.
"Your father?"
Daniel closed the notebook.
"I don't know."
But his voice sounded different.
Because somewhere beneath fifteen years of anger and grief was a fear he had never allowed himself to consider.
What if Thomas had not been taken from them by strangers?
What if he had been running from someone they knew?
Daniel sat with the notebook closed in his hands for almost a minute.
The fear he felt was not the sharp kind that made people run.
It was slower than that.
It moved through him like cold water.
Maya looked toward the hallway before speaking.
"Do you know who Richard Vale is to your father?"
Daniel stared at the worn cover of the notebook.
"My father worked for him."
"Doing what?"
"Accounting."
Maya waited.
Daniel noticed the silence and hated that she was letting him fill it himself.
"Small businesses hired him for bookkeeping," he said.
"Payroll."
"Taxes."
"Things like that."
"And Richard Vale?"
"He owned some of those businesses."
Maya nodded.
"Did your father ever talk about him?"
Daniel almost said no.
The answer was already forming because it was the answer he had given himself for years.
Then a memory interrupted it.
Not a dramatic memory.
Not one of the moments people usually keep.
Just his father standing at the kitchen counter late at night, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
A yellow folder sat beside him.
Daniel had been sixteen and looking for a charger.
His father had covered the folder too quickly.
At the time, Daniel thought it was about money.
Everyone was worried about money back then.
"I don't know," Daniel said.
Maya looked at him.
"You do."
He frowned.
"What?"
"You don't know the details."
She tapped the notebook gently.
"But you know something happened."
Daniel looked down.
The hallway lights buzzed above them.
A storage worker walked past carrying a stack of empty boxes.
The man glanced at them and kept moving.
Nobody knew that a forgotten locker had just changed the shape of a family that had spent fifteen years pretending it had already healed.
Daniel opened the notebook again.
The next pages were not written like a diary.
Thomas did not describe feelings.
That was not how Thomas worked.
He wrote facts.
Dates.
Addresses.
Initials.
Questions.
One entry caught Daniel's attention.
November 12.
Vale meeting with Dad.
Need to know why.
Daniel felt his stomach tighten.
Maya leaned closer.
"Your father met him?"
"Apparently."
"When?"
Daniel checked the page again.
"Two weeks before Thomas disappeared."
Neither of them spoke.
The information was not enough to prove anything.
That was the worst part.
It created a shape without filling it in.
Daniel had spent fifteen years wanting answers.
Now he had one.
And it only created more questions.
He turned another page.
There were several names.
Some were crossed out.
Some had notes beside them.
A few were followed by question marks.
Then he saw something that made him stop.
His own name.
Daniel Mercer.
Below it, Thomas had written three words.
Do not involve him.
Maya noticed his expression.
"What?"
Daniel handed her the notebook.
She read the line.
Her eyebrows moved slightly.
"He was protecting you."
"Or hiding something from me."
"Both can be true."
Daniel stood.
The sudden movement made Maya look up.
"We need to leave."
"Why?"
"Because if Thomas left this here for me, he expected me to find it."
Maya remained seated.
"And?"
"And whoever he was worried about might know I have it now."
The words sounded reasonable.
They also sounded like the kind of thing a person said when fear finally gave him permission to become paranoid.
Maya watched him carefully.
"Daniel."
"What?"
"You are doing it again."
He looked away.
"What?"
"You are jumping from uncertainty to disaster."
He laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"Fifteen years ago my brother disappeared after investigating my father’s business partner."
"Yes."
"And now I find a notebook saying he was protecting me."
"Yes."
"Tell me what part of that sounds calm."
Maya opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Because she didn't have an answer.
They left the storage facility twenty minutes later.
Daniel carried the box himself.
May you like
The woman behind the counter looked at it and then looked at him.
She seemed like she wanted to say something.
