Thomas arrived the following morning with a leather case tucked under his arm. He looked older than he had the previous time Eleanor saw him, as though the discovery of Arthur Reed's name had forced him to confront memories he had spent years avoiding.
Bennett was already there.
Eleanor placed the photocopy on the table.
“Tell me about Arthur Reed.”
Thomas stared at the paper.
“My father.”
“I know.”
“You weren't supposed to know his name.”
“That is becoming a familiar sentence.”
Thomas sighed.
“Walter knew my father long before I did business with him. Arthur was one of the men who helped Bellmore acquire its original land.”
“Why didn't Walter ever tell me?”
“Because your husband believed some truths were safer when buried.”
Eleanor's expression hardened.
“Walter is dead, Thomas.”
“I know.”
“And his way of protecting me left me surrounded by strangers, hidden accounts, forged documents, and someone watching my house.”
Thomas lowered his eyes.
“You're right.”
It was the first time anyone connected to Walter's secrets had said those words without qualification.
Thomas opened the leather case.
Inside were folders wrapped in brown paper.
“These belonged to my father,” he said. “Walter asked me to keep them after Arthur died.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought someone would eventually come looking.”
Bennett pulled a chair closer.
Thomas opened the first folder.
There were contracts, property maps, handwritten notes, and copies of old correspondence. The dates went back more than fifty years.
Bellmore had not begun as the successful investment people later imagined. It had been a failing company with valuable land and overwhelming debts. Arthur Reed had helped negotiate a restructuring that kept the land from being sold.
Walter's father invested.
So did several other families.
Then something happened.
“Where did the money come from?” Eleanor asked.
Thomas looked at her.
“That was the question Walter spent the last years of his life trying to answer.”
Eleanor's heart sank.
“You told me Walter knew.”
“He knew enough to protect the money. He didn't know everything.”
Bennett examined one of the papers.
“This is a private agreement.”
“Yes.”
“Between Walter's father and Arthur Reed.”
“Yes.”
“Why is there a second signature?”
Thomas became silent.
Eleanor looked at him.
“Whose is it?”
Thomas turned the page.
“Denise.”
Eleanor's breath caught.
“Your sister-in-law signed this?”
“She was young.”
“What did she sign?”
“A transfer acknowledging that she had received her portion of the family property arrangement.”
Eleanor remembered Denise insisting that Walter had always owed her something.
“She knew.”
“She knew part of it,” Thomas said. “Not the entire structure.”
Bennett continued reading.
“There are references here to another party.”
Thomas nodded.
“A third investor.”
“Who?”
“That is where the records become difficult.”
He pulled out another document.
The name had been crossed out.
Underneath it, someone had written only an initial.
*H.**
Eleanor thought immediately of Harold Vance.
“Harold?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Harold Vance was involved later. He wasn't the original third investor.”
“Then who was H?”
“I don't know.”
Bennett looked up.
“Your father didn't know?”
“He did. But the name was removed from several records.”
“By whom?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Walter.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Of course.
Another decision Walter had made alone.
Another secret he had carried because he believed secrecy was protection.
“Why would Walter remove a person's name?”
“Because that person became dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?”
Thomas's face tightened.
“He started demanding more money.”
“Who?”
“I said I don't know.”
“You know more than that.”
Thomas looked at Eleanor for a long moment.
Finally he said, “The man who threatened Walter was not the first person to threaten him.”
The room went quiet.
“Then how long had this been happening?”
“Decades.”
Eleanor stared at the files.
Her husband's secret life was no longer a single hidden account. It was an entire history.
Bennett asked Thomas about the name Harold Vance.
Thomas explained that Harold had been a financial intermediary who appeared in Bellmore documents during a period when several ownership interests changed hands.
“He wasn't a major investor,” Thomas said. “But he knew where records were stored.”
“And after he died?”
“Someone began using information that only Harold should have known.”
“Could that person have been connected to Bellmore?”
“Yes.”
“Could it be someone in your family?”
Thomas looked at Eleanor.
“Possibly.”
That answer was not comforting.
Bennett photographed the documents.
“We need to know who had access to the original files.”
Thomas nodded.
“My father kept them in a storage facility for years. Walter knew about it. After Arthur died, Walter moved some of the records.”
“Where?”
Thomas looked toward the lake-house key hanging on Eleanor's key rack.
“The lake house.”
Eleanor immediately thought of Walter's notebook.
The attic.
The hidden records.
Denise.
They drove there that afternoon.
The lake house looked different in daylight. Eleanor had not been there since Denise had agreed to let her search the attic. The lake was gray beneath an overcast sky, and leaves skittered across the porch.
Inside, the house smelled of cedar and dust.
Thomas led them upstairs.
“Walter kept the older files behind the wall panel.”
Eleanor stared.
“I never saw a wall panel.”
“You weren't supposed to.”
Bennett found the seam.
Behind it was a narrow compartment.
Inside sat three boxes.
The first contained old tax records.
The second contained photographs.
The third contained a metal cash box.
Eleanor opened it.
There was no money.
Only a key and a handwritten sentence.
*If this is open, someone has found the wrong door.**
Bennett frowned.
Thomas looked genuinely frightened.
“What?”
Thomas pointed at the key.
“That isn't for this house.”
“Then what is it for?”
“The old Bellmore building.”
Eleanor remembered Walter's photograph with Thomas.
“Why would he leave a key there?”
Thomas didn't answer.
Instead, he opened the second box.
A photograph slid out.
It showed four men standing outside Bellmore.
Walter.
Arthur Reed.
Harold Vance.
And a fourth man.
Eleanor recognized him.
Not from the past.
From the funeral.
She had seen that face for only a few seconds.
The scar beneath the left ear was visible.
Bennett took the photograph.
“Who is he?”
Thomas whispered the answer.
“His name was Daniel Cross.”
“Was?”
“He disappeared twenty-eight years ago.”
Eleanor stared at the photograph.
“He's alive.”
Thomas looked at her.
“That is what worries me.”
On the back of the photograph, Walter had written a single line:
*Daniel knows why Bellmore was never supposed to be sold.**
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: Eleanor Followed Walter’s Last Trail Into the Abandoned Bellmore Building, Where a Locked Room Held the Answer He Feared She Would Find
The Morning I Learned My Husband Had Left Me Nothing, Everyone Suddenly Wanted to Decide What Was Best for Me
Part 14 of 20
