Margaret noticed.
“So now you’re looking over your shoulder too.”
Charles ignored her.
Richard unlocked his car.
“I’ll drive.”
“No,” Charles said immediately.
Richard looked at him. “Why?”
“Because if anyone knows we’re going to Lake Briar—”
“Who would know?”
Charles stopped.
Margaret folded her arms.
“That’s becoming a habit, Charles.”
“What?”
“Starting sentences you’re afraid to finish.”
Charles looked across the street.
The black sedan Margaret had noticed earlier was gone.
“I’ll explain in the car.”
They left the city shortly before noon.
For the first twenty minutes, nobody spoke.
Margaret sat in the passenger seat while Charles occupied the back. Richard drove north, following the highway toward Lake Briar.
Finally, Margaret broke the silence.
“Tell us about Edward Vale.”
Charles stared through the window.
“He was chairman of a private investment group called Vale Consolidated.”
“I remember the name,” Margaret said.
“You should. He financed half the development projects in this county during the eighties.”
“And according to the newspapers, he died in 1987.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Plane crash.”
“Body recovered?”
Charles hesitated.
“No.”
Richard glanced into the rearview mirror.
“That seems important.”
“The aircraft went down over the Atlantic. Investigators recovered wreckage but no bodies.”
Margaret turned around.
“And everyone simply accepted that he was dead?”
“There were witnesses who saw him board.”
“But Thomas recorded payments to him afterward.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Margaret stared at Charles.
He looked exhausted.
“You know more than you're saying.”
“I know pieces.”
“Then give me the pieces.”
Charles leaned forward.
“After Vale supposedly died, several senior executives continued receiving instructions through intermediaries. No meetings. No phone calls. Just envelopes.”
“Instructions from Vale?”
“They believed so.”
“What kind?”
“Transfers. Acquisitions. Loans that should never have been approved.”
Richard frowned.
“And Project Orchid funded those transactions?”
“Partly.”
“How much money are we talking about?”
Charles looked at Margaret.
“By the time Thomas discovered it? More than sixty million dollars.”
Richard nearly missed the exit.
“Sixty million in 1988?”
“Yes.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Thomas had known.
That was why he had been frightened.
Not because he had uncovered petty theft.
He had uncovered a financial machine involving powerful people and enormous amounts of money.
Two hours later, they reached Lake Briar.
The town looked smaller than Margaret remembered.
The old grocery store was gone. A pharmacy occupied the corner where she and Thomas once bought ice cream. New houses covered much of the hillside.
But the railway station remained.
Abandoned.
Its windows were boarded, weeds pushing through cracks in the platform.
Richard parked nearby.
Charles looked at the building.
“I haven't been here in thirty-eight years.”
Margaret turned.
“You've been here before?”
Charles realized what he had admitted.
“When?”
He said nothing.
“Charles.”
“Thomas brought me here once.”
Margaret stared at him.
“When?”
“Three weeks before he died.”
The answer struck her like a blow.
“You never told me.”
“He made me promise.”
“Thomas was my husband.”
“He was trying to protect you.”
Margaret stepped closer.
“You don't get to use Thomas to justify thirty-seven years of silence.”
Charles lowered his eyes.
“You're right.”
It was the first time he had said those words.
Inside the station, dust covered everything.
An old sign still pointed toward STORAGE.
They followed a corridor into a narrow room containing rusted lockers.
Most doors hung open.
Margaret walked slowly along the wall.
Then she stopped.
Locker 23.
On the metal surface, someone had scratched a tiny orchid.
Margaret touched it.
“Thomas.”
Richard examined the lock.
“It needs a combination.”
Margaret stared at the dial.
Then she remembered.
“October seventh.”
“What?”
“Our anniversary.”
She entered 10-07-51.
Nothing.
Charles stepped forward.
“Try the day you met.”
Margaret looked at him.
“How would you know that?”
“Thomas talked about you constantly.”
She entered 04-12-49.
Click.
The locker opened.
Inside was a single wooden box.
Richard removed it carefully.
There were no documents.
Only an old cassette tape and a handwritten note.
Margaret unfolded it.
Maggie, if you are reading this, then I failed to come home.
Her eyes filled with tears.
Nobody spoke.
Beneath the sentence, Thomas had written:
Do not trust the photograph. One of the men standing beside me is not who he claims to be.
Richard immediately thought of the photograph from Box 417.
Five men.
Thomas.
Charles.
Three others.
“Which man?” Richard asked.
Margaret turned the note over.
There was one final sentence.
Charles knows where the original is.
Slowly, Margaret looked up.
Charles Harrison had gone completely pale.
“You knew.”
Margaret’s voice echoed through the abandoned railway station.
Charles Harrison stood motionless.
Richard positioned himself between Charles and the exit.
“Where is the original photograph?”
Charles rubbed his forehead.
“Thomas gave it to me.”
“When?”
“The night before he died.”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“You saw Thomas that night?”
“Yes.”
“You told me you went home after the meeting.”
“I lied.”
The words hung between them.
Margaret stepped toward him.
“Tell me everything.”
Charles looked older than he had that morning.
“Thomas called me around ten. He said he had found something that changed everything.”
“What?”
“He wouldn't explain over the phone.”
Charles stared at the cassette tape.