Chapter 16 - The Envelope for Noah
Daniel did not open the envelope immediately.
For several seconds, he simply stared at it beneath the yellow porch light while rainwater slid from the roof and splashed across his shoes.
FOR NOAH WHEN READY.
Emily stood behind him holding her son.
Noah had stopped waving toward the road.
The stranger was gone.
Marcus stepped outside and swept a flashlight across the trees.
“No vehicle,” he said. “Whoever was out there knew exactly when to leave.”
Daniel looked toward the room behind them.
Richard was downstairs with Samuel.
Two investigators were searching Catherine’s hidden archive.
Thomas stood near the fireplace.
Watching.
Daniel suddenly remembered Catherine’s written warning.
Do not trust the person who brought you here.
Who had first connected B17 to Bluebird?
Thomas.
Daniel looked at his oldest friend.
Thomas noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Daniel carried the envelope inside.
Emily lowered Noah onto the sofa.
“Dad.”
Daniel turned.
Her face had changed.
She was no longer looking at the envelope.
She was looking at the words written on it.
“You recognize the handwriting?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Emily hesitated.
That hesitation frightened Daniel more than the messages.
He opened the envelope.
Inside were three things.
A photograph.
A brass key.
And a folded sheet of paper.
Daniel picked up the photograph first.
Emily was younger in it.
Perhaps twenty-nine.
Beside her stood the man Daniel remembered as her husband, Evan Cole.
The man Emily had married.
The man Noah had called Daddy.
The man who had died two years earlier.
But Evan was not alone.
Catherine stood beside him.
The photograph had been taken years before Daniel believed Catherine and Evan had ever met.
Daniel slowly looked at Emily.
“When was this?”
Emily closed her eyes.
“Dad.”
“When?”
“Before Evan and I got married.”
Daniel turned the picture over.
Three words were written on the back.
JONATHAN VALE LIVED.
Daniel read them twice.
“Who is Jonathan Vale?”
Emily said nothing.
Thomas stepped closer.
Daniel immediately looked at him.
Something had happened.
Only for an instant.
A tightening around Thomas’s eyes.
Recognition.
“You know that name,” Daniel said.
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“To what’s happening, Daniel. Not the name.”
Daniel unfolded the paper.
There was only one sentence.
Evan Cole was never his real name.
Emily began crying.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
The tears simply appeared.
Daniel felt his anger rising.
“Tell me.”
Emily looked toward Noah.
“Not in front of him.”
Marcus took the boy into the kitchen.
Noah protested until Emily promised she was staying.
When the door closed, Daniel faced his daughter.
“Who was your husband?”
Emily sat slowly.
“His name was Jonathan Evan Vale.”
Daniel felt the room shift beneath him.
“He lied to us?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“To you?”
Emily looked at the floor.
“Until he died.”
Daniel stared at her.
“To you?”
She swallowed.
“I found out four months before Noah was born.”
Thomas suddenly turned toward the window.
Daniel noticed.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Emily looked at her father.
“Evan worked for Bellweather.”
Silence swallowed the cabin.
Daniel could hear rain hitting the glass.
“He didn’t just know Bellweather,” Emily continued.
“He was inside it.”
Daniel’s eyes moved toward Thomas.
Thomas remained perfectly still.
Emily whispered the rest.
“And before Evan died, he told me there was one person inside our family he was terrified to name.”
Daniel already knew the answer he feared.
“Did he call that person the Steward?”
Emily looked up.
“Yes.”
Thomas moved.
Not toward Daniel.
Toward the front door.
Marcus came out of the kitchen at exactly that moment.
“Mr. Mercer?”
Thomas stopped.
Daniel looked at the man who had stood beside him at graduations, funerals, birthdays, business openings and Catherine’s grave.
May you like
Forty years of friendship stood between them.
And for the first time, Daniel wondered whether any of it had been real.
