Chapter 7 - Her Father's Ledger
Clara drove to her parents' house before Martin could talk her out of it.
Robert was at the kitchen table with an ice pack on his hand. Helen sat beside him in a sling, drinking tea.
Clara put her phone on the table.
"Ethan says Harbor started with Dad."
Helen's cup stopped halfway to her mouth.
Robert looked down.
Clara felt her chest tighten.
"Dad?"
"Sit down."
"No. Tell me."
Robert removed the ice pack.
"Twenty-two years ago, my company supplied building materials to Sterling Construction. They paid us through an account their finance team called Harbor."
"That's it?"
Clara stared at him. "You knew?"
"Why didn't you report it?"
Robert's face folded with an old shame Clara had never seen.
"Because your mother was pregnant with you. Sterling owed my company almost a million dollars. Olivia's husband offered to pay every cent if I signed a confidentiality agreement and sold my company."
Helen whispered, "We were scared."
"So you took the deal."
Robert nodded.
Clara paced to the window.
"And you never told me."
"I thought it ended there."
"It didn't."
"I know that now."
Anger rose in Clara, but it had nowhere clean to land. Her father had been cornered. He had also stayed silent.
Both things were true.
Robert stood and walked to a cabinet.
He pulled out a dented metal cash box.
"I kept one thing."
Inside was an old green ledger.
Clara opened it.
Olivia Sterling.
Then, near the back, a different set appeared.
E.S.
Ethan Sterling.
Clara frowned. "Ethan was a child twenty-two years ago."
"Those entries are recent," Robert said.
"Recent?"
Clara turned to the final page.
A note was written in black ink.
YOU KEPT QUIET ONCE. WILL YOU DO IT AGAIN?
May you like
Underneath was an address.
And today's date.
