Chapter 10 - The Ledger
Marcus tackled me behind the folding table as glass scattered across the floor.
Laura crawled toward the storage room.
No second shot came.
Outside, tires screamed.
Marcus ran up the stairs.
By the time he reached the alley, the car was gone.
The object that had shattered the window was not a bullet.
It was a brick.
A note was wrapped around it.
LAST WARNING.
Laura laughed once, bitterly. “Thomas used the same phrase.”
We moved to a secure apartment Marcus used for protected clients.
There, Laura finally told me where she believed the ledger was hidden.
“Kinsley House had a library before Charles remodeled it,” she said. “Your grandmother and Thomas met there the night she agreed to rescue the company. Thomas kept records behind a removable panel near the fireplace.”
Daniel arrived thirty minutes later.
He stopped in the doorway when he saw Laura.
He had met my mother only through photographs.
“Mrs. Hart?”
Laura studied him. “You look like your father did at thirty.”
Daniel did not know whether that was an insult.
Neither did I.
I told him about the warning call.
His jaw tightened. “So that is why you shut me out.”
“You hid things first.”
“I know.”
“You do not get to say that like it fixes anything.”
“No.” He nodded. “I don’t.”
For once, he did not defend himself.
That mattered.
At midnight we returned to Kingsley House with Marcus, two guards, Laura, Rebecca, and a locksmith.
The old fireplace remained behind decorative paneling in what was now Charles’s study.
We removed the woodwork.
Behind the left column was a narrow steel compartment.
Inside sat a black leather ledger.
Laura’s hands trembled.
“That’s it.”
Daniel opened it.
Page after page listed dates, initials, account numbers, and payments.
Some names were dead.
Some were very much alive.
Then Rebecca found a newer section.
The handwriting changed after 2015.
Thomas died in 2015.
Someone had continued the scheme.
The final entry was dated three weeks ago.
Next to a transfer of $900,000 were two initials.
D.W.
Daniel Whitmore.
My husband.
The room went silent.
Daniel stared at the page.
“I did not write that.”
Laura looked at me.
I wanted to believe him.
May you like
Then Marcus found a fingerprint on the fresh ink page.
It matched Daniel’s right thumb.
