"I won't go looking for him without understanding what we're dealing with," Mason said.
Arthur nodded.
"Good."
Mason picked up his phone.
"Tomorrow morning, I'm calling Margaret's attorney."
"Why?"
"Because she didn't write that letter by accident. She knew something. She may have left more."
Arthur took a drink of coffee.
"And if she didn't?"
"Then we start with the records."
Margaret Ellis's attorney was named Jonathan Pierce.
He was a careful man in his early sixties, with a narrow face, silver hair, and the habit of pausing before answering questions. Mason had spoken with him twice during the investigation into William Cole's disappearance. Both times, Pierce had been polite but distant.
This time, he sounded concerned.
"I wondered whether you would call," he said.
Mason stood inside the front office of Second Road, looking through the glass toward the workshop.
"You expected it?"
"Margaret asked me to give you a particular envelope if you contacted me after reading her final letter."
Mason straightened.
"What envelope?"
"I have it here. But before I give it to you, I need to explain something."
"Go ahead."
"Margaret was frightened of Samuel Price."
Arthur, standing beside Mason, looked up.
"Did she tell you why?" Mason asked.
"Not in full. She said he was a man who had made himself useful to dangerous people. She also said he had never been officially connected to the Cole organization."
"That doesn't make sense. If he was William's partner, why wasn't he connected to the operation?"
"Because Samuel preferred to remain invisible."
Pierce paused.
"Margaret believed that was his greatest strength. He could move between legitimate business, local government, private security, and criminal networks without appearing to belong to any of them."
Mason felt a familiar coldness settle in his chest.
"Was he responsible for the attack on my father?"
"I don't know. Margaret suspected he was."
"Did she tell you what happened?"
"She said William had asked Samuel to arrange a warning. He wanted your father frightened enough to stop asking questions. But the men who carried out the attack went further than William had authorized."
Arthur closed his eyes.
Mason remained still.
"Why would William want his own son frightened?"
"Your father had discovered that the company was being used to move stolen equipment. He wanted to report it. William believed that would destroy everything he had built."
"Everything he had built was already destroying people."
"I don't disagree."
Mason looked down at the desk.
"Did my grandfather know the attack would happen?"
"Margaret believed he knew that intimidation was planned. She was less certain he knew violence would be used."
"That's convenient."
"Yes," Pierce said quietly. "It is."
Mason looked at him.
"Do you believe her?"
"I believe she was trying to tell the truth as she understood it. But I also believe she spent many years protecting William's reputation. Her account may not be complete."
Pierce reached into a drawer.
He removed a long envelope and placed it on the desk.
"She asked me to give you this only after you had read the letter about Samuel."
Mason took it.
There was no name on the outside.
"What's inside?"
"I haven't opened it."
"Did she tell you anything about it?"
"Only that it contained a list of people who had once worked with Samuel Price."
Mason looked at Arthur.
"That's a start."
Pierce nodded.
"One more thing. Margaret specifically asked me to tell you not to contact Samuel directly if you find him."
"Why?"
"She said he never met with people unless he already knew what they wanted. She believed he was very good at turning a conversation into a negotiation."
Mason placed the envelope inside his jacket.
"Thank you."
As they turned to leave, Pierce spoke again.
"Mason."
He stopped.
"Margaret regretted many things. She regretted remaining silent. She regretted helping William hide certain records. But she also regretted something else."
"What?"
"She regretted allowing you to believe your father had abandoned the family."
Mason's face changed.
Pierce continued carefully.
"She told me that your father had tried to return several times after the attack. He was afraid that coming back would put you in danger. William convinced him that staying away was the only way to protect you."
Mason said nothing.
He had heard versions of this before, but every new detail seemed to make the old wound deeper.
"Did my father know I thought he had left us?"
"I believe he did."
"And he never corrected it?"
"Margaret said he wanted to. But by then, he had become convinced that the people watching him would use you to force him back into the operation."
Mason stared at the envelope beneath his hand.
"Thank you for telling me."
He walked out without saying anything else.
The envelope contained seven pages.
The first was a handwritten list of names.
The second contained addresses, some of which were crossed out.
The remaining pages included brief notes about companies, meetings, and payments made between 1981 and 1990.
Samuel Price appeared repeatedly.
He had been involved in a shipping company called Northbridge Freight, a private security firm called Meridian Protection, and a small investment partnership that had once purchased property near the old Blackwater rail yard.
There were also references to two men Mason recognized.
One was Harold Voss, who had already been convicted.
The other was a name he had not seen before.
Elliot Crane.
Arthur leaned over the desk.
"Crane."
"Does that mean anything to you?"
"Not yet."
Mason opened his laptop and searched the name in the files they had collected during the investigation.
Nothing appeared.
He tried the old Blackwater records.
Still nothing.
Then he searched the public business registry.
An Elliot Crane had served as director of Northbridge Freight from 1984 to 1989. The company had dissolved shortly after a warehouse fire.
Mason opened another document.
A photograph appeared on the screen.
It showed a group of men standing outside the warehouse. They were wearing coats and holding folders. Most were too far away to identify.
One man stood near the center.
He was tall, thin, and wore a gray suit.
Mason enlarged the photograph.
Arthur moved closer.
"That's him."
"Samuel?"
Arthur nodded.
"I remember that face."
Mason studied the photograph.
"How old would he be now?"
"Depending on the date of the picture, probably in his eighties or nineties."
"That doesn't mean he's dead."
"No."
Mason examined the lower edge of the photograph.
A date had been written in pencil.
November 1986.
The warehouse fire had occurred three months later.
He opened the newspaper archive.
The report was short.
A fire had destroyed a storage building on the eastern edge of Blackwater. Officials had attributed it to an electrical fault. No injuries were reported. The building's owner, Northbridge Freight, had been unable to provide a complete inventory of the property inside.