He sat at the table with cold coffee and the folder from the previous night spread in front of him.
He looked up when I entered.
“Emily.”
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That Grandfather built the company with stolen money.”
His face went pale.
“Where did you hear that?”
I placed the black ledger on the table.
He stared at it like it was an explosive device.
“Arthur Barlowe gave it to me.”
Dad’s hands started trembling.
“Emily, you don’t understand what that book will do.”
“I understand it will destroy my grandfather’s legacy.”
“No. It will destroy us.”
“It already has.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Dad’s voice came out hollow.
“I inherited this secret when your grandfather died. I thought if I kept it buried, I could protect you.”
“At the cost of what, Dad? Claire’s life?”
His eyes glistened.
“Claire found the ledger when she was nineteen. She tried to blackmail your grandfather’s old partners. They sent her away. We couldn’t protect her because she refused to stay hidden. And then Daniel found her, and she found him, and they used you to get to me.”
I stepped closer.
“Tell me the truth. Did you ever love me as your daughter?”
“From the first moment I held you,” he answered immediately.
“Then tell me the truth now. Is Claire going to testify?”
Dad looked down.
“I don’t know.”
The answer hung between us.
Heavy.
Incomplete.
At two in the morning, my phone rang.
Arthur’s housekeeper.
“Ms. Hayes, Mr. Barlowe has been taken to the hospital. He had a heart attack in his study. They found him collapsed beside his desk.”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“The ledger is gone?”
“No, ma’am. He hid it before they arrived. But someone else was there.”
“Who?”
“A woman with dark hair and a red coat.”
Claire.
She was out.
I looked at the ledger sitting on Dad’s kitchen table.
If Claire wanted it, she would come here.
I ended the call.
Dad saw my expression.
“What happened?”
“Claire is free.”
His face changed as though something inside him had slammed shut.
“She was released because the judge ruled the Cayman marriage certificate was improperly obtained,” I said. “Daniel’s attorney spun it into a clerical error.”
“But you had proof.”
“She had a better lawyer.”
I pulled the ledger closer.
“She knows I have this. She’ll come for it.”
Dad stood.
“Then we don’t stay here.”
“Where do we go?”
“There’s a place your grandfather built in the Catskills. An old hunting lodge. No records, no cameras.”
