CHAPTER 6: His Mother’s Name
Daniel found Eleanor in the greenhouse shortly after midnight.
She was trimming the dead leaves from a white rosebush when he placed the strip of microfilm on the table beside her.
For several seconds, she did not move.
“Why is your name inside Dad’s ring?”
Eleanor slowly removed her gardening gloves.
“Where did you find that?”
“You knew the ring opened.”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
The pain in Daniel’s voice made her flinch.
His mother had hidden the truth about Thomas’s investigation for more than twenty years. She had said she wanted to protect Daniel from a life built around revenge.
Now her name had appeared in the one place Thomas had chosen to conceal his final evidence.
Eleanor sat down.
“The name isn’t an accusation,” she said. “It’s an instruction.”
She explained that Thomas often used names as passwords. During his investigation, “Eleanor Reed” had been the access phrase for an encrypted account containing evidence against Wynn Defense Systems.
“Where is the account?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I spent years searching for it.”
Daniel paced across the greenhouse.
“Victoria says Malcolm visited Dad before he died.”
Eleanor’s face lost color.
“Who told her?”
“Charles Wynn.”
For the first time, Daniel saw genuine fear in his mother’s eyes.
Eleanor admitted that Malcolm had been overseas at the time. He claimed he had traveled there to help bring Thomas home after the accident.
She had never questioned him.
Malcolm was Thomas’s oldest friend.
They had attended college together, built their first business together, and served as best men at each other’s weddings.
“He was the one who called me,” Eleanor whispered. “He told me Thomas was gone.”
Daniel placed the microfilm beneath a digital scanner.
Numbers appeared after the name.
They were not account numbers.
They were geographic coordinates.
The coordinates pointed to an abandoned Reed International storage facility in Baltimore.
The facility had been closed for eighteen years.
Daniel called the head of security.
By sunrise, he and Eleanor were standing inside a dusty warehouse filled with rusted shelving and forgotten office equipment.
The coordinates led them to an old safe beneath the floor.
Inside were photographs, financial ledgers, military contracts, and a small cassette recorder.
Daniel pressed play.
Static filled the warehouse.
Then his father’s voice came through the speaker.
“If Eleanor is listening to this, then Malcolm has failed to find it.”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
Thomas continued.
“Malcolm Sterling is working with the Wynn family. But he is not doing it for money.”
A long pause followed.
“He believes Reed International belongs to him.”
The recording suddenly stopped.
Daniel turned the cassette over.
Someone had erased the second half.
May you like
Then footsteps echoed from the other side of the warehouse.
They were not alone.
