Chapter 10 - What Thomas Reed Wanted His Son to Find)
Thomas Reed contacted Vanessa three months before Lucas attacked Owen.
He did not tell her he was Thomas.
But Vanessa recognized his voice.
"I knew your father," she told Daniel.
"You met him twice."
"Three times."
Daniel frowned.
Vanessa continued.
"Claire took me to see him."
"When?"
"Before his funeral."
Daniel felt a familiar dizziness.
Every memory had hidden doors now.
"My father was dead before you and Claire became close."
Vanessa shook her head.
"No. We knew each other before you and Claire married."
Daniel stared.
He had forgotten.
Vanessa and Claire worked together during college summers.
"Claire took me to the garage once."
"Reed and Sons?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Your father gave her an envelope."
Daniel sat down.
"What was inside?"
"I never saw."
"When was this?"
"Fourteen years ago."
The original Hearthline investigation.
Daniel looked at Quinn.
Everything kept returning there.
Thomas Reed.
Claire.
Samuel.
Howard Bell.
Evelyn.
March.
All roads began with Hearthline.
Quinn asked, "What did Thomas want when he called three months ago?"
Vanessa looked frightened.
"He asked whether Daniel had found the train."
Daniel frowned.
"What train?"
"I don't know."
"What exactly did he say?"
"Ask Daniel if he remembers where we watched the trains."
Daniel's heart slowed.
A memory surfaced.
He was eight.
His father took him to an abandoned railway overlook outside Northbridge.
They sat on the hood of an old truck and counted freight cars.
Thomas brought root beer.
They did it every Sunday for a summer.
There had been an old signal tower nearby.
Daniel stood.
"I know where."
The railway overlook had been abandoned for decades.
Quinn arranged surveillance before allowing Daniel anywhere near it.
They arrived after dark.
The old signal tower still stood.
Windows broken.
Graffiti covered the walls.
Daniel climbed the stairs.
Inside, nothing seemed unusual.
Samuel searched one side.
Quinn the other.
Daniel walked toward the window overlooking the tracks.
Then he remembered his father's game.
Thomas used to ask Daniel to guess which freight train carried the secret cargo.
The answer was always the same.
"The one that doesn't stop."
Daniel looked at the old signal lever.
One metal handle was fixed in the forward position.
He pulled.
Nothing.
Then he pushed.
A panel opened beneath the control board.
Inside was a metal box.
Daniel lifted it out.
No lock.
Inside were cassette tapes.
Photographs.
A compass pin.
And a letter.
To Daniel.
Daniel sat on the dusty floor.
He opened it.
Son,
If you are reading this, then either Claire succeeded or I failed.
Maybe both.
Daniel closed his eyes.
His father's handwriting had not changed.
Thomas continued.
You knew me as a mechanic who made too many mistakes.
That wasn't a lie.
It just wasn't the whole truth.
I joined Hearthline because I needed money.
Your mother was sick and insurance stopped paying.
They offered more than I could make honestly.
At first I collected overdue accounts.
Then I collected information.
Then I collected people.
Daniel stopped.
Quinn sat nearby but did not interrupt.
He continued.
I told myself nobody innocent got hurt.
That was the lie that let me sleep.
Then one night they ordered me to frighten a family who refused to sell their house.
There was a boy your age inside.
He looked at me the way you looked at me when you were afraid.
I walked away.
Hearthline did not.
The family lost the house two weeks later.
I began keeping records.
Names.
Payments.
Orders.
Enough to protect myself.
Then Claire found me.
Daniel looked up.
Samuel whispered, "She knew him before the records."
Daniel read on.
She was twenty-one and far too brave.
She had found irregular payments while helping a legal office where Samuel worked.
She followed the money to me.
I expected blackmail.
Instead she asked me to help expose Hearthline.
I told her no.
Then she said she was dating my son.
Daniel laughed once in disbelief.
Claire had known.
Before their wedding.
Before Owen.
Claire had known Thomas had a secret life.
His father continued.
I made her promise never to tell you unless the danger returned.
I wanted you clean.
I wanted one person in this family untouched by what I had done.
Daniel whispered, "She promised him."
Quinn said, "And kept it."
The letter continued.
When Bell buried Mara Quinn's investigation, I understood the organization was bigger than I knew.
I staged my death and went underground.
Claire became the only person I trusted.
Years passed.
I thought Hearthline had faded.
Then Claire contacted me again.
It was back.
New name.
New money.
Same compass.
The next line was underlined.
Samuel did not rebuild it.
Daniel looked at him.
Samuel looked almost relieved.
Then came the next sentence.
The man who rebuilt it was Richard Cole.
Daniel frowned.
"Who is Richard Cole?"
Quinn answered first.
"Vanessa's husband."
Daniel stared through the darkness.
Vanessa's husband Richard had supposedly died five years ago.
Another dead man.
Samuel whispered, "Jesus."
Daniel kept reading.
Richard calls himself Shepherd, but Claire discovered he answers to a board.
Do not make the mistake of believing one arrest ends Compass.
Take the archive under Lake Carver to Mara Quinn.
Trust Evelyn only if she has turned against her son.
Do not trust me.
Daniel stopped.
His father had written it plainly.
Do not trust me.
The final paragraph read:
I love you.
That does not make me good.
If Claire is still alive, she has a plan that even I do not fully understand.
The girl named Lily is the key.
Not the blue key.
The girl.
Daniel lowered the letter.
Quinn looked toward the dark tracks.
"Richard Cole."
Samuel stood.
"Vanessa said he died from pancreatic cancer."
"Funeral?" Daniel asked.
"Closed coffin."
Nobody needed to explain what that meant anymore.
Quinn called the federal prosecutor.
Richard Cole's death records came from the same county medical examiner network associated with Evan March.
Daniel felt sick.
The dead were becoming crowded.
Then he noticed one cassette tape labeled with a date.
The day Claire's car crashed.
Quinn found an old cassette player inside the box.
Daniel inserted the tape.
Static.
Then Thomas Reed's voice.
"Claire, if you're hearing this, the first exit failed."
A woman's voice answered.
Claire.
Daniel gripped the player.
She sounded frightened.
"Thomas, Richard knows about Owen."
Thomas replied.
"Then Daniel has to be told."
"No."
"Claire."
"If Daniel knows, he'll fight them."
"He's my son. Of course he'll fight."
"And they'll kill him."
Silence.
Then Claire said something that made Daniel forget how to breathe.
"Richard isn't the worst one anymore."
Thomas asked, "Who is?"
Claire whispered a name.
But at that exact second, the tape distorted.
The word vanished beneath static.
Daniel slammed the player against his knee.
"No."
Quinn rewound it.
Again.
Static.
The name was gone.
Then Thomas spoke.
"Are you sure?"
Claire answered, "I saw the account."
Another distortion.
Thomas cursed.
Claire continued.
"If they learn I know, I have maybe forty-eight hours."
Thomas said, "Then we trigger the death plan."
Daniel closed his eyes.
Claire had known.
Forty-eight hours before she supposedly died.
The recording continued.
"I'll take Lily."
Thomas sounded shocked.
"No."
"She knows what Bell told her."
"She's a child."
"So is Owen."
Silence.
Claire's voice cracked.
"And I'm trying to save both of them."
The tape ended.
Daniel sat motionless.
Quinn removed it.
Samuel looked at the metal box.
"We have Richard."
"Maybe," Quinn said.
Daniel stood.
"No."
They looked at him.
"My father told us not to make the mistake of believing one arrest ends Compass."
Quinn nodded.
"Then what do you want to do?"
Daniel looked at the compass pin.
"Find Richard."
"And then?"
"Make him think we believe he's the top."
Samuel understood.
"Use him."
Daniel nodded.
"To find the board."
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Daniel answered without speaking.
A man's voice came through.
Older.
Familiar.
"Daniel."
His knees nearly gave out.
He had heard that voice on childhood mornings.
At baseball games.
In arguments.
In memories.
"Dad?"
Thomas Reed breathed on the other end of the line.
"Don't go after Richard."
Daniel gripped the phone.
"Where are you?"
"Richard isn't hunting Claire anymore."
"Where is my wife?"
"Daniel, listen."
"Where is Claire?"
Thomas went silent.
Then said, "She came home."
Daniel looked around the abandoned signal tower.
"What?"
"Not to your house."
"Then where?"
"To Northbridge."
Daniel's heart hammered.
"When?"
"This morning."
"Where is she now?"
The answer was interrupted by a noise.
A door slamming.
Thomas cursed.
Then Daniel heard another voice in the background.
A woman's voice.
Claire.
"Thomas, hang up."
Daniel shouted, "Claire!"
Silence.
May you like
"Claire!"
The line went dead.
