Chapter 17 - The Partner My Father Erased
His name was Thomas Vale.
According to Evelyn, he had helped my father establish Morgan Logistics decades earlier.
They had started with two trucks, one warehouse lease, and a loan neither of them could realistically afford.
Then something happened.
“What?” I asked.
Evelyn stared at the photograph.
“I never knew the whole story.”
“What do you know?”
“Thomas disappeared from the company records.”
My pulse quickened.
“Disappeared how?”
“Your father bought his interest.”
“That sounds normal.”
“It would be.”
She looked directly at me.
“If anyone could find evidence that Thomas was actually paid.”
There it was.
The problem.
Over the next three days, we searched archived corporate records.
Purchase agreements.
Canceled checks.
Tax filings.
Old partnership documents.
Nothing proved Thomas had received compensation.
Then Rachel found something buried inside a storage inventory from twenty-seven years earlier.
A handwritten ledger.
One page had been torn out.
The missing page covered the exact month Thomas left Morgan Logistics.
Michael leaned against my desk.
“You think someone removed it?”
“I think somebody wanted that month forgotten.”
That afternoon, an elderly man entered the training center.
He was tall despite his age, dressed in a worn brown coat, and walked with a cane.
The receptionist called me downstairs.
When I saw him, he smiled without warmth.
“You look like Samuel.”
I stopped.
“Who are you?”
May you like
He extended a weathered hand.
“Thomas Vale.”
