Chapter 6
For eleven years, I had believed my father died because of faulty wiring.
That was what investigators concluded.
An electrical failure in a storage area.
Smoke moved through an old service corridor.
My father had been trapped on the third floor.
Three employees died with him.
Now Mom was telling me it might have been murder.
I could barely speak.
“What are you saying?”
She sat slowly.
“Your father suspected Adrian started the fire.”
“Suspected?”
“He knew.”
“Then why wasn’t Adrian arrested?”
“Because the recording disappeared.”
Daniel looked stunned.
“That isn’t in the sealed file.”
Mom nodded.
“Charles never gave it to you.”
“How do you know about it?”
“Because I heard part of it.”
My anger shifted toward her again.
“How many secrets are left?”
Her face tightened.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
I looked at Daniel.
“Get the file.”
He left immediately.
Police took Isabella downtown.
Before they put her in the elevator, she asked to speak to me privately.
I refused.
She shouted one sentence before the doors closed.
“Ask Evelyn why Charles met Adrian at the hotel that night.”
I turned toward Mom.
She looked away.
“Why was Dad there?”
She pressed both hands together.
“He went to stop him.”
“Stop him from what?”
“Selling company information.”
The story came out slowly.
Adrian had worked briefly for a Whitmore subsidiary under another name.
Dad had tried to bring him into the business without publicly acknowledging he was his son.
It had been a disaster.
Adrian felt hidden.
Humiliated.
He accused Dad of giving me the family name while giving him scraps.
Eventually he stole confidential property-development plans and threatened to sell them to a competitor.
Dad discovered it.
They arranged to meet at Whitmore Bay Hotel.
The same night the fire began.
“Why there?”
“Adrian was staying there.”
“Did Dad tell anyone he was meeting him?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did the recording say?”
Mom closed her eyes.
“Charles called me before he went upstairs.”
“He was recording Adrian?”
“Yes. On a small digital recorder.”
“What did you hear?”
“He played part of it for me over the phone.”
I waited.
“Adrian said he wanted Charles to admit publicly that he was his son.”
“That’s it?”
“No.”
Mom looked sick.
“He threatened to burn down everything Charles loved if he refused.”
I stared at her.
“You heard that before the fire?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told investigators?”
“I tried.”
“What do you mean, tried?”
“After the fire, I told one detective.”
“And?”
“He asked for the recording.”
“You didn’t have it.”
“No.”
“Dad had it.”
“Yes.”
“And his belongings?”
“Most were recovered. The recorder wasn’t.”
My mind went back to the hidden safe.
The letter.
Adrian breaking into my office.
“If Dad survived long enough to hide a letter here, maybe he hid the recording too.”
Mom shook her head.
“The safe was installed after he died.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Daniel arranged it when we renovated the penthouse. He placed the letter there.”
I felt another surge of anger.
“So Adrian came here because he thought Daniel hid the recording with the letter.”
“Possibly.”
Marcus entered from the hallway.
“Mr. Whitmore.”
“What?”
“We found something in Ms. Bianchi’s room.”
He handed me a small notebook.
Inside were dates.
Appointments.
Passwords.
Notes about me.
NATHANIEL – TRUSTS MOM COMPLETELY.
NATHANIEL – WEAK POINT: FAMILY LOYALTY.
NATHANIEL – WILL SIGN IF PRESENTED AS PROTECTION FOR FUTURE CHILDREN.
My stomach turned.
Three years of my life reduced to instructions.
Near the back was a list of locations.
Daniel Mercer office.
Evelyn house.
Whitmore Bay storage archive.
And one address circled three times.
A self-storage facility in Brooklyn.
Marcus pointed.
“We checked. A unit there is rented under a company associated with Adrian Cole.”
“Police need this.”
“They’re already contacting a detective.”
I looked at Mom.
“What would Adrian store?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus hesitated.
“There’s another note.”
He flipped two pages.
C.R. – original copy?
Dad’s initials were C.W.
“C.R.?”
Mom stared.
Then whispered, “Claire.”
“Adrian’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“Her last name was Cole.”
“Her maiden name was Reynolds.”
C.R.
Original copy.
Maybe the recording wasn’t with Dad.
Maybe he had sent it to Claire.
“Is she alive?”
Mom looked at me.
“I think so.”
Daniel returned almost two hours later with two bankers’ boxes.
He placed them on the dining table.
“Everything your father gave me regarding Adrian.”
We spent the night reading.
Bank records.
Old letters.
Corporate memos.
Legal threats.
Nothing about the fire recording.
But one document mattered.
A handwritten note from Dad dated three days before his death.
If anything happens to me, Claire has what she needs.
I showed Mom.
Her hands shook.
“We need to find her.”
Daniel searched public records.
Claire Reynolds Cole, age sixty-eight.
Last known address: Portland, Maine.
No recent property records.
No current phone.
Then Marcus found an old emergency-contact form from Adrian’s employment file.
Claire Reynolds.
A phone number.
Daniel dialed.
Disconnected.
We were running out of roads.
At 4:17 a.m., my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Nathaniel Whitmore?”
“Yes.”
A woman’s voice.
Older.
Quiet.
“Your mother gave you my name tonight.”
I stood.
“Claire?”
Mom looked up sharply.
The woman breathed out.
“So Evelyn finally told you.”
“How did you get my number?”
“Adrian gave it to me years ago.”
“Where are you?”
“Safe for now.”
“Did my father give you a recording?”
Silence.
Then:
“Yes.”
Every person at the table stopped moving.
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“Claire, Adrian may have killed my father.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you give the recording to police?”
Her voice cracked.
“Because the recording doesn’t prove what you think it proves.”
“What does it prove?”
“That Adrian threatened Charles.”
“Then what am I missing?”
A long pause.
“The fire was supposed to be empty.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“Adrian believed the third floor had been cleared.”
My stomach turned.
“So he did start it.”
“Yes.”
Mom covered her mouth.
I gripped the phone.
“Three people died.”
“I know.”
“My father died.”
“I know.”
“And you protected him?”
“He was my son.”
“So was my father somebody’s son.”
Claire began crying.
“I have lived with that every day.”
“Where is the recording?”
She didn’t answer.
“Claire.”
“I’ll give it to you.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
She hesitated.
Then gave me the name of a church outside Hartford.
“No police,” she said.
“That’s not your decision.”
“If police are there, I leave.”
“Claire—”
“Adrian watches everything.”
The line went quiet for a second.
Then she whispered, “And Nathaniel?”
“Yes?”
“Isabella is not the most dangerous person he put near you.”
The call ended.
I stared at the phone.
Daniel spoke first.
“What does that mean?”
I didn’t know.
But forty minutes later, I found out.
Marcus received an emergency alert from the building’s financial systems office.
Someone had used my executive credentials to authorize a $12.4 million transfer.
The person had entered the authorization from inside Whitmore Hospitality headquarters.
At 4:56 in the morning.
Only one senior executive was physically in the building.
My chief financial officer.
May you like
My best friend since college.
Thomas Grant.
