Chương 6
The criticism landed because it was true.
“I don’t know how to do this differently.”
It was not something he would have admitted a week earlier.
Claire’s expression softened slightly.
“Then start by not doing it alone.”
They met Linda Mercer that afternoon in a quiet conference room at her office.
She was in her early sixties, with silver hair and the exhausted expression of someone who had spent years holding information that did not belong to her.
She placed a folder on the table but did not open it.
“Margaret trusted very few people.”
Thomas looked at the folder.
“She trusted you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Linda looked at Claire.
“Because your mother trusted me first.”
Thomas went still.
“My mother?”
Claire asked.
Linda nodded.
“Elaine came to me before she died.”
The room changed.
Not because Linda had revealed something impossible.
Because she had confirmed something they had been afraid was true.
Elaine had been preparing for something.
“What did she tell you?” Thomas asked.
Linda looked at him carefully.
“She believed Richard Vale had hidden financial information from you.”
Thomas frowned.
“Richard stole from my company.”
“Yes.”
“He admitted that.”
“Not everything.”
Thomas felt anger rise.
“Then why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Linda looked down.
“Because Elaine asked me not to.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid what you would do if you knew.”
The answer offended him.
Then it frightened him.
Because part of him knew Elaine might have been right.
“What was she afraid I would do?”
Linda opened the folder.
Inside was a copy of a document Thomas had never seen.
A property transfer agreement.
A signature.
A date.
And Margaret’s name.
Claire leaned closer.
“Why is Margaret’s name on this?”
Linda looked between them.
“Because Margaret owned something your family needed.”
Thomas stared at the paper.
“What?”
Linda pushed the document forward.
“A house.”
Claire frowned.
“She owned a house?”
Linda nodded.
“And according to these records, someone tried to take it from her the week before Elaine died.”
Thomas looked at the signature again.
The name beneath it made his stomach tighten.
Richard Vale.
Before he could speak, Linda’s phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Her face changed.
Not surprise.
Concern.
She answered.
“Hello?”
A few seconds passed.
Then she stood.
“I understand.”
She ended the call and looked at Thomas.
“Someone accessed Margaret’s estate file this morning.”
Thomas felt cold despite the warm office.
“Who?”
Linda hesitated.
“I don’t know yet.”
Claire noticed something on the folder.
A small handwritten mark near the bottom corner.
A symbol.
Something that looked like a circle with a line through it.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at her.
Claire touched the mark.
“Mom used to draw this.”
Thomas looked at his daughter.
“When?”
“Whenever she wanted to remind herself of something.”
Claire swallowed.
“She said it meant don’t forget.”
Linda slowly closed the folder.
“That mark was not on the copy I gave Margaret.”
Thomas felt the room narrow around him.
Someone had changed the documents.
Someone had been inside information they were never supposed to reach.
And now Claire had recognized a clue neither he nor anyone else had seen.
For the first time since Margaret’s death, Thomas understood that his daughter was not just someone he needed to protect.
She was the person who might know what he had been unable to remember.
Claire could not stop looking at the mark on the document.
It was small enough that Thomas wondered how many times he had seen it without noticing.
That bothered him more than the altered file.
The idea that his daughter had inherited a piece of Elaine that he had never understood felt like another secret hidden inside his own family.
“Your mother used that symbol often?” Linda asked.
Claire nodded slowly.
“Not often.”
She touched the corner of the paper again.
“Only when she was afraid she would forget something important.”
Thomas looked at his daughter.
“You never told me that.”
Claire gave him a tired expression.
“You never asked.”
The answer was becoming familiar.
That was the part he hated most.
Not the accusation.
Not the secrets.
The pattern.
How many years had passed because everyone in his family learned to wait for him to notice things on his own?
Linda closed the folder and moved it away from the center of the table.
“I need to make copies of everything.”
Thomas looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because if someone accessed the estate file, I need to know what they were looking for.”
“You think they took something?”
“I think someone believed something was there.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
Linda met his eyes.
“It is the only honest one I have.”
Thomas disliked that honesty was starting to sound like uncertainty.
For most of his life, uncertainty had meant failure.
Now it seemed like the only place where the truth lived.
They left Linda’s office before sunset.
Claire drove.
Thomas sat in the passenger seat, watching buildings pass by without really seeing them.
He had spent years sitting in the back seat while Elaine drove them on family trips.
She hated his driving because she said he treated every road like a negotiation.
He had laughed at the time.
Now he remembered the small things more clearly than the important ones.
Her tapping fingers on the steering wheel.
The way she sang along to songs she claimed not to like.
The way she would look at him when he became too serious and say, “You know nobody is awarding points for being the most difficult person in the room.”
He missed her more in ordinary moments than in dramatic ones.
That was the cruel thing about losing someone.
The world kept producing small reminders long after the big grief had become manageable.
Claire broke the silence.
“Do you believe Linda?”
Thomas watched the traffic ahead.
“I believe she believes what she told us.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Claire looked at him.
May you like
“You really do that all the time.”
“Do what?”
