Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO STOOD BETWEEN US FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS
Grace was admitted to University Hospitals that afternoon.
The doctor said she had severe pneumonia complicated by dehydration and exhaustion.
“You’re telling me she worked while this sick?” Dr. Bennett asked.
I looked down.
“She stopped three days ago.”
“How long had she been feeling bad before that?”
“Maybe two weeks.”
Arthur stood near the window.
His face became harder with every answer.
“What did she do for work?” he asked.
“Cleaned offices. Houses. Anything.”
“How many hours?”
“I don’t know.”
That was a lie.
Sometimes fourteen.
Sometimes sixteen.
Grace would come home after Annie and I were asleep and leave before sunrise.
Arthur looked away.
I knew exactly what he was thinking.
His granddaughter had been scrubbing strangers’ toilets while he owned buildings with his name carved above the entrance.
I wanted him to feel bad.
Then I hated myself because none of that helped Grace breathe.
Annie sat beside the hospital bed holding Grace’s hand.
Arthur sent food.
Too much.
Soup.
Sandwiches.
Fruit.
Cookies.
Three different juices.
Annie stared at the cart.
“Can we eat all this?”
“Yes,” Arthur said.
“Even the cookies?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me for permission.
That almost broke him.
I nodded.
She took one cookie.
Then wrapped another in a napkin and put it inside her pocket.
Arthur noticed.
“Why are you saving that?”
“For Grace.”
“There are twelve.”
“She might want one later.”
He turned away.
That evening, Grace finally stabilized enough to sleep.
Arthur asked me about Mom’s letter.
“I’ve never seen it before.”
“Where did Grace get it?”
“I don’t know.”
Annie looked up from her coloring book.
“Blue box.”
“What blue box?” I asked.
“Grace has Mama’s box.”
Of course.
Grace kept one plastic storage bin in the back of her closet.
She told us it contained old paperwork.
Arthur immediately wanted to retrieve it.
I refused to leave Grace.
So he sent his attorney, a woman named Rachel Kim, with two police officers and our landlord.
An hour later, Rachel returned with the blue box.
She opened it in a family waiting room while Arthur, Annie, and I watched.
There were photographs.
Birth certificates.
Our parents’ wedding program.
Mom’s nursing-school acceptance letter from twenty years earlier.
She never attended.
Then there were letters.
Dozens.
All addressed to Arthur Whitmore.
Some had been returned unopened.
Others had never been mailed.
Arthur picked up the earliest one.
Seventeen years old.
Mom’s handwriting.
Dad,
Ben did not take Mom’s ring. I know you believe Malcolm because he says he has proof. Ben swears the proof was manufactured because he found invoices Malcolm didn’t want anyone to see.
Arthur stopped.
Rachel looked up sharply.
“What invoices?”
Arthur shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
He opened another letter.
I am not asking you to approve of my marriage. I am asking you to know your granddaughter. Grace asks why she has only one grandfather in her picture book.
Arthur put the letter down.
He covered his mouth.
I had never seen an old man look so suddenly small.
Another letter had been returned.
Across the envelope was a stamp:
RECIPIENT REFUSED.
Arthur stared at it.
“I never saw this.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because I would remember refusing a photograph of Grace.”
He turned the envelope over.
Tiny handwritten initials appeared beside the stamp.
M.P.
Malcolm Pierce.
Arthur’s chief operating officer.
Oldest business adviser.
The man who had worked for Whitmore Transportation for thirty-two years.
Arthur immediately called him.
Rachel stopped his hand.
“Don’t.”
Arthur looked at her.
“If Malcolm intercepted Lydia’s letters—”
“Then we need to know why before you tell him we know.”
Arthur lowered the phone.
Rachel examined the box.
At the bottom was a red notebook belonging to Dad.
Ben Hale.
He had worked as an electrical engineer for a regional trucking contractor.
Not wealthy.
Not important.
But apparently very good at noticing things.
His notes included Whitmore Transportation maintenance numbers.
Vehicle IDs.
Brake inspections.
Repair invoices.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Malcolm Pierce.
Another:
Lakefront Fleet Services.
Arthur frowned.
“They serviced our long-haul trucks fifteen years ago.”
Dad had written:
Invoices show replacement parts billed but not installed. M.P. approving payments anyway. Where is money going?
Another page:
Lydia says her father won’t listen while ring accusation hangs over us. That may be why Pierce chose it.
I looked at Arthur.
“You mean Malcolm used the ring to make you hate Dad?”
Arthur did not answer.
Rachel did.
“That’s what Ben appears to have believed.”
The final pages were from four years ago.
Right before our parents died.
Dad had started investigating Whitmore freight records again.
One entry made Arthur stand.
Unit 742 brake issue repeatedly cleared without repair. Reported through anonymous hotline. No action.
Arthur looked at Rachel.
“Which truck hit Lydia and Ben?”
I already knew.
A Whitmore truck.
That was what Grace had never told Annie.
Our parents died when a tractor-trailer crossed the center line during heavy rain and crushed the front of their car.
The trucking company settled quickly.
Grace used part of the money to pay funeral expenses and keep us housed.
Arthur’s company.
Our grandfather’s company.
Rachel opened her laptop.
“I need the accident file.”
Arthur called Whitmore headquarters.
Not Malcolm.
A records director.
The answer came back twenty minutes later.
Truck number 742.
Nobody spoke.
Dad had written about the exact truck that killed him.
Arthur looked physically ill.
“That’s impossible.”
Rachel stared at the notebook.
“No.”
Her voice was quiet.
“It’s extremely possible.”
Arthur called his corporate security chief.
“Freeze access to every maintenance record tied to Unit 742. Do not alert Malcolm Pierce.”
Then he turned toward me.
“Caleb, did Grace ever say your parents believed someone was following them?”
I thought.
One memory returned.
Dad checking the street through the kitchen blinds.
Mom telling us not to worry.
Grace whispering to Dad after they thought we were asleep.
Then Annie said:
“The black car.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She continued coloring.
“The black car Mama didn’t like.”
My stomach turned.
“You remember that?”
“It came lots.”
I barely did.
A sedan parked across our old house.
Sometimes mornings.
Sometimes evenings.
Dad once walked toward it.
It drove away.
Arthur looked at Rachel.
“Find out who owned it.”
Grace woke after midnight.
Arthur was sitting outside her room.
She saw him through the glass.
“Why is he still here?” she whispered.
“Because Mom wrote him letters.”
Her eyes filled.
“He never answered.”
“He says he never got them.”
Grace closed her eyes.
For a while she said nothing.
Then:
“Dad believed Malcolm blocked them.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because you were children.”
“So were you.”
Grace looked at me.
“I stopped being one.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Then she asked:
“Did you find Dad’s notebook?”
“Yes.”
Her face changed.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Mom had a recording.”
Arthur appeared in the doorway.
Grace saw him.
For once, she did not tell him to leave.
“What recording?” Arthur asked.
Grace swallowed.
“The night before they died, Dad called Malcolm.”
She looked directly at Arthur.
“Mom recorded the whole thing.”
“Where is it?”
Grace’s eyes shifted toward the blue box.
“It isn’t there.”
“Then where?”
She whispered:
“Dad hid it inside something Malcolm would never think mattered.”
Annie suddenly stopped coloring.
“The music box.”
Grace stared at her.
My stomach dropped.
Our mother’s old wooden music box was still in the apartment.
May you like
And Malcolm Pierce had spent the past four hours trying to gain access to our building.
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