Chapter 7 - The Brother Who Had Been Lying
Daniel refused to answer Olivia's first three calls.
On the fourth, she texted:
I found Storage Unit 417.
He called within thirty seconds.
"Where are you?"
"Office."
"Don't move."
Daniel arrived pale and sweating.
Olivia closed her office door.
Julian remained.
Daniel looked at him.
"He stays."
Daniel nodded.
Olivia placed Charles's letter on the desk.
Then the torn photograph.
"What did you find?"
Daniel sat.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then his shoulders collapsed.
"I found the ledger."
Olivia stared.
"When?"
"Two months ago."
"Where?"
"In Dad's basement."
"Why were you searching his basement?"
"Because he asked me to move boxes."
Daniel rubbed his face.
"There was a false panel behind the wine storage."
"What ledger?"
"Old accounts. Names. Payments."
"The second ledger?"
"I don't know."
"Where is it now?"
"Dad has it."
Olivia stepped closer.
"You gave it to him?"
"I didn't understand."
"You saw hidden financial records in a secret wall and gave them to the man named in them?"
Daniel stood angrily.
"He's my father too."
"So?"
"So unlike you, I didn't spend fifteen years preparing for war with him!"
Olivia went silent.
Daniel immediately regretted it.
"I'm sorry."
"No. Continue."
He paced.
"When I found it, Dad walked in. He panicked. He asked if I'd read anything."
"Had you?"
"A few pages."
"What did you see?"
Daniel looked at the floor.
"Your name."
Olivia stopped breathing.
"Where?"
"An account."
"What account?"
"Something called OR Protective Custody."
Julian frowned.
"Custody?"
Daniel nodded.
"There were dates from when Olivia was a kid."
Olivia felt suddenly cold.
"What payments?"
"I don't know. Doctors. Schools. A private investigator."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"What else?"
Daniel hesitated.
"Mom's name."
Olivia watched him.
"And?"
"Mercer."
"Anything about April 14?"
Daniel's expression changed.
"Yes."
"What?"
"There was a payment to a company called North Harbor Security."
"How much?"
"Two hundred thousand."
"Purpose?"
Daniel shook his head.
"But there was a handwritten note beside it."
"What did it say?"
He looked at Olivia.
"Prevent transfer."
The room fell silent.
Olivia remembered Charles's letter.
The second ledger proves why.
"What transfer?"
"I don't know."
Daniel looked terrified now.
"Dad made me swear I hadn't copied anything."
"Did you?"
Daniel reached into his jacket.
He placed a flash drive on the desk.
"I photographed twelve pages."
Olivia stared at him.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because three days later Dad paid off my mortgage."
The shame in his voice was unmistakable.
"He bought your silence."
"I told myself it wasn't that."
"But it was."
Daniel nodded.
Olivia wanted to be angry.
Instead she thought about their childhood.
How Henry rewarded compliance.
How Margaret treated obedience as love.
How Daniel had learned much earlier than Olivia that peace could be purchased if you stopped asking questions.
She inserted the flash drive.
The photographed pages appeared.
Old handwritten entries.
Initials.
Corporate names.
Amounts.
Julian enlarged one line.
APR 14 2004.
North Harbor Security.
$200,000.
Prevent transfer of OR.
Olivia whispered:
"OR."
Daniel looked at her.
"Olivia Reed?"
Julian scrolled.
Another entry.
April 18.
B. Mercer.
$75,000.
Documentation correction.
Then May 3.
M. Reed.
$350,000.
Settlement.
Olivia stared at her mother's initials.
"What happened in April 2004?"
Daniel shook his head.
"You were fourteen."
She knew.
A memory suddenly surfaced.
Not clearly.
A hospital corridor.
Margaret crying.
Henry shouting at someone.
Olivia waking with stitches above her eyebrow.
The official family story was that she had fallen from a horse.
But Olivia had never remembered the fall.
Julian noticed her face.
"What?"
"I was hospitalized that month."
Daniel went still.
"For the riding accident?"
"That's what they said."
Julian searched quickly.
"Do you remember it?"
"No."
Olivia looked again at the ledger.
Prevent transfer of OR.
May you like
For the first time, those initials did not look financial.
They looked personal.
