Chapter 5 - My Mother’s Confession
The drive to my mother’s house took ninety-three minutes.
Lena arranged for two local officers to reach the property before us. They found no intruder, no damage, and no sign that anyone had entered.
That did not comfort me.
Someone had stood close enough to photograph my mother through her living-room window.
Someone wanted us to know they could return.
My mother, Margaret Hart, waited at the kitchen table in a blue robe with both hands wrapped around a cup of untouched tea.
She looked smaller than I remembered.
When I placed the autopsy report in front of her, she closed her eyes.
“Was Dad drugged?” I asked.
She did not answer.
“Mom.”
“I didn’t know what they had given me.”
Naomi stopped pacing.
Lena sat across from my mother.
“Tell us everything.”
My mother stared into the tea.
“The night before your father died, Martin Shaw came to the house. He said Thomas had become paranoid. He told me your father was planning to disappear with money belonging to dangerous people.”
“Did you believe him?” I asked.
“I didn’t know what to believe. Your father had barely slept for weeks. He checked the locks constantly. He burned documents in the fireplace. He kept saying someone at Halston had discovered what he was doing.”
“What was he doing?”
“Copying transaction records. He said Halston’s executives were stealing from pension funds and using fake charities to move the money overseas.”
“And the trust?”
“He placed recovered funds into a protected account. He intended to return the money after federal investigators secured the evidence.”
Lena leaned forward.
“What did Martin give you?”
“A small bottle. He said it contained a mild sedative. He told me to put a few drops in Thomas’s coffee so he would sleep.”
My mother’s voice broke.
“I poured it into his travel cup the next morning.”
The words struck harder than Gregory’s attempted slap ever could have.
“You drugged him before he drove?”
“I thought it would calm him. Martin said the dose was safe.”
“You didn’t ask a doctor?”
“I was terrified!”
She pushed back from the table.
“Your father was talking about leaving us. Men were calling the house and hanging up. A car followed you from campus. Martin said Thomas was having a breakdown.”
“Dad died because he fell asleep behind the wheel.”
“I know.”
The grief on her face was real, but so was my anger.
For eleven years, she had allowed me to believe a snowstorm killed him.
“Why hide the autopsy report?”
“Martin handled the insurance and legal records. He told me the amount in Thomas’s blood was too small to matter.”
“Then why did someone send this tonight?”
“Because they want you to stop asking questions.”
“No. They want me to stop trusting you.”
My mother looked down.
That was when I realized there was more.
“What else did you do?”
Her shoulders trembled.
“After the funeral, Martin came back. He said Thomas had hidden a ledger. He told me the people involved would hurt you if I didn’t find it.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Inside the wall behind his office bookshelf.”
My father had loved mystery novels. When I was a child, he built hidden compartments into furniture and challenged me to find them.
“What happened to the ledger?”
“I gave it to Martin.”
Lena cursed under her breath.
“What was in it?” Naomi asked.
“Names. Account numbers. Dates. Thomas had written notes beside some transactions.”
“Do you remember any names?”
My mother shook her head.
“Only one. Halston.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Lena was on her feet instantly.
The local officers had searched the house before we arrived, but old houses made noises. Pipes shifted. Wood expanded.
Then another sound came from the second floor.
A drawer closing.
Lena drew her weapon and signaled for us to remain in the kitchen.
One officer moved up the stairs with her. The second guarded the back door.
For thirty seconds, we heard nothing.
Then Lena called down.
“Evelyn, come here.”
My mother gripped my sleeve.
“Don’t.”
I followed Lena upstairs.
My father’s old office had remained almost untouched since his death. Dust covered the bookshelves. His wooden desk stood beneath the window. A framed photograph of the three of us sat beside an antique lamp.
The center desk drawer was open.
Inside lay a black notebook.
My mother appeared behind me and gasped.
“That wasn’t there.”
Lena checked the window.
Locked.
No sign of forced entry.
I opened the notebook.
The first pages contained my father’s handwriting. Lists of companies, dates, transfer amounts, and initials.
It was the missing ledger.
“Someone returned it,” Lena said.
“Why?”
“Maybe they want you to find something.”
Near the middle of the ledger, one page had been marked with a red paper clip.
At the top, my father had written:
PROJECT WIDOWMAKER.
Below it were six names.
Three were crossed out.
One belonged to the former chairman of Halston.
One belonged to Martin Shaw.
The final name made my knees weaken.
MARGARET HART.
I looked at my mother.
She stared at the page as though seeing it for the first time.
“That’s impossible.”
Beside her name, my father had written a single sentence.
SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHO GREGORY REALLY IS.
“This was written eleven years ago,” Naomi whispered.
Gregory had told me he first saw me at a charity auction fourteen months earlier.
Yet my father had known his name before he died.
I turned the page.
A photograph had been taped to the paper.
It showed Gregory as a teenager standing beside Lydia Cole and Martin Shaw.
Behind them was the entrance to Halston Private Wealth Management.
May you like
Written beneath the photograph were seven words:
GREGORY HALSTON — THE FOUNDER’S HIDDEN SON.
