Chương 7
Your father made mistakes.
Nobody ever said what those mistakes were.
The letter continued.
I left because someone had started asking questions about you.
Mara lowered the paper.
The sentence should have felt convincing.
Instead, it irritated her.
For years, she had imagined every possible explanation for Daniel leaving. She had imagined anger. Addiction. Shame. Another family. Anything that made his absence easier to understand.
A secret threat sounded too convenient.
Too much like something a person would write when they wanted forgiveness without admitting they had failed.
She almost folded the letter back up.
Then she saw the name at the bottom of the next paragraph.
Thomas Vale.
The irritation disappeared.
Thomas Vale was not a stranger.
He was the man whose name had followed Daniel everywhere during the last years of his life.
Daniel and Thomas had built Ellison Vale Construction together. Then the company collapsed. Thomas kept the remaining contracts. Daniel lost the house, the business, and eventually the respect of most people who had once admired him.
Mara had been told Daniel was responsible.
He had trusted the wrong partner.
He had made reckless decisions.
He had ruined something good.
The letter did not prove otherwise.
But it gave her the first reason in years to wonder if the story had been incomplete.
She read the final lines.
If anything happens to me, do not ask Thomas what happened.
Ask him what he was afraid of.
Mara sat there until the sunlight moved across the floor.
Then she placed the letter in her bag.
She hated that she was going.
She hated more that she already knew where she was going next.
The construction office downtown had changed owners twice since Daniel worked there, but the old building still had the same narrow entrance and the same cracked tile near the front desk.
Mara noticed it because she had spent years walking through that doorway as a child.
Back then, Daniel would give her a dollar to buy a snack from the vending machine and pretend not to notice when she bought something more expensive.
The receptionist looked up when Mara entered.
"Can I help you?"
"I need records from when Ellison Vale Construction was operating."
The woman’s fingers stopped above the keyboard.
It was a small reaction.
Small enough that another person might have missed it.
Mara did not.
"You knew my father?"
The receptionist glanced toward the offices.
"I knew of him."
"That’s different."
"Yes."
The answer came too quickly.
Mara waited.
The woman looked uncomfortable.
"Those records are archived somewhere. I’d have to ask."
"Who would know where?"
Another pause.
Then footsteps came from the hallway.
"Mara Ellison."
She turned.
Thomas Vale looked older than the photographs she had seen. The expensive suit was still there, but the confidence people had described was not.
His shoulders carried something heavier than age.
The strange thing was not that he knew her.
It was that he looked like he had been expecting this moment for a long time.
His eyes moved briefly to her bag.
Not the bag itself.
The place where the letter was hidden.
"You found Daniel’s letter."
Mara felt her expression harden.
"You knew about it."
Thomas did not answer.
That was answer enough.
"My father wrote something about you before he died."
Thomas looked away.
"Daniel wrote many things."
"That is not what I asked."
A muscle moved in his cheek.
For a second, he looked less like a successful businessman and more like the man who had once stood beside her father trying to convince investors they could build something permanent.
"What did he tell you about me?"
Mara crossed her arms.
"You tell me."
Thomas gave a quiet breath through his nose.
"That sounds like him."
"I never knew him as the person you knew."
"No."
The word was softer than she expected.
Thomas walked toward the conference room and opened the door.
"Come in."
She almost refused.
The old instinct was still there.
Do not trust people who say they have answers.
Daniel had taught her that.
Then she remembered Daniel was also the reason she was standing here.
Inside the conference room, Thomas remained standing.
He did not offer her coffee. He did not pretend this was a friendly conversation.
That helped.
"I need to know why my father disappeared."
Thomas looked at the table.
"He did not disappear."
Mara laughed once.
"Interesting choice of words."
"He stayed away."
"That is the same thing to the daughter he left behind."
Thomas accepted that without defending himself.
It bothered her more than an argument would have.
"Your father believed someone was looking into the company records," he said.
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"No."
The honesty caught her off guard.
Thomas rubbed his thumb against the edge of the table.
"I expect you to believe that I know more than I should and less than you think."
Mara studied him.
"What does that mean?"
"It means Daniel was trying to find out why documents were disappearing."
"What documents?"
Thomas looked toward the window.
"Documents connected to payments made before the company failed."
The answer was incomplete.
But it was different from another warning.
Different from another person telling her she was not ready.
"Why would that involve me?"
Thomas did not respond immediately.
When he finally did, his voice changed.
"Because your father discovered the company was not the only thing someone had been trying to erase."
Mara felt the room tighten around her.
"Explain."
"I can't."
Her frustration returned instantly.
"Of course you can't."
Thomas looked at her.
"No. You misunderstand."
He opened a drawer and removed a thin folder.
"I can't explain because I was not the person who found the connection."
"Who was?"
He placed the folder on the table but kept his hand over it.
"Daniel."
Mara looked at the folder.
"What is inside?"
"Records. Copies of records. Notes he made."
May you like
"Why give them to me now?"
Thomas's fingers lifted from the folder.
