Chapter 10 - The Secret Inside The Secret Garden
Lily looked down at the old copy of The Secret Garden.
Walter had given it to her at the hospital.
She had carried it everywhere.
Adrian stared.
"Open it."
Lily hesitated.
"It's Walter's."
Walter smiled sadly.
"It was June's."
That changed everything.
Lily placed the book on Elena's kitchen table.
The cover was worn.
Pages yellowed.
Nothing unusual.
Then Elena examined the spine.
"June used to hide emergency money inside books."
Adrian sighed.
"Of course she did."
Carefully, they lifted the inner binding.
A narrow strip of fabric appeared.
Behind it was a tiny memory card.
No ledger.
Something better.
Digital copies.
Thousands of pages.
Scanned contracts.
Audio recordings.
Bank transactions.
Emails.
Photographs.
Richard Pierce's entire criminal history preserved inside a children's novel.
Adrian stared at the files on a laptop.
"My mother did all this?"
Elena nodded.
"June never trusted a single copy of anything."
Lily smiled.
"Smart."
Walter touched the book.
"I gave it to you."
"You remembered?"
"No."
His smile faded.
"Maybe part of me did."
The files proved Richard had stolen millions.
They also included communications suggesting Daniel Harper's death had been engineered.
Not direct orders.
But enough.
One email from Richard to an unknown contractor read:
HARPER KEEPS DIGGING. CREATE A FINAL DISTRACTION.
Clara stopped reading.
Adrian closed the laptop.
"We take this to federal investigators."
Walter nodded.
But Samuel remained missing.
He finally agreed to meet the next day at a public diner.
Adrian wanted security everywhere.
Samuel refused.
Only Adrian and Lily could come.
"Why Lily?" Adrian asked.
Samuel's answer was simple.
"Daniel trusted children more than executives."
Clara objected immediately.
"No."
Lily objected to the objection.
"Mom."
"No."
"Samuel might be family."
"That doesn't mean you're going into a situation involving people who may have murdered your father."
Walter spoke quietly.
"She's right."
Everyone turned.
He looked at Lily.
"You've carried enough for adults."
Lily wanted to argue.
But there was something different in Walter's voice.
Not authority.
Love.
Adrian met Samuel alone.
The man waiting in the diner looked startlingly like Walter in old photographs.
Same jaw.
Same hands.
Different life.
Samuel Russo repaired agricultural equipment for a living.
He had two daughters.
A wife named Beth.
A mortgage.
He wanted nothing from Whitmore Technologies.
Adrian found that impossible to believe.
"You own part of it."
"I don't care."
"Potentially billions."
"I have enough."
Adrian stared.
Samuel smiled.
"That's the sentence rich people struggle with most."
Adrian leaned back.
"Why hide?"
"Because someone tried to kill me last year."
That caught Adrian cold.
Samuel explained a brake line had been cut.
Police called it vandalism.
Then he received anonymous messages telling him never to contact Walter.
"Marilyn?"
"Probably."
"Why now?"
Samuel looked out the window.
"Because Walter's condition is getting worse. When he dies, certain legal protections expire."
Adrian understood.
The trust.
Old corporate claims.
Marilyn needed everything settled before Walter died.
They returned to Elena's farmhouse that afternoon.
Police were there.
Clara ran toward them.
"What happened?"
Elena's kitchen window had been broken.
Walter was safe.
Lily was safe.
But the laptop containing June's files was gone.
Adrian's face hardened.
"Where's the book?"
Lily raised her backpack.
"Here."
The memory card was still inside.
Security had made copies.
Marilyn had stolen an empty laptop.
For once, they were ahead.
Federal agents arrived that evening.
They took statements.
Collected evidence.
Placed Elena and Samuel under protection.
Then one agent pulled Adrian aside.
"We have a bigger problem."
"What?"
"Some of the transactions in these files continued after Richard Pierce died."
Adrian stared.
"Meaning?"
"Someone else took over."
"Marilyn."
The agent shook his head.
"Not only Marilyn."
He turned the laptop around.
A recent authorization appeared.
Signed with a digital credential belonging to:
ADRIAN WHITMORE.
Adrian went silent.
Someone had been using his identity.
May you like
Inside his own company.
And according to federal banking records, more than $300 million had disappeared.
