Chapter 10 - LAURA’S RED LEDGER
Detective Cole ordered David not to respond to the message.
David agreed.
Then, while officers searched the motel grounds, he told Emily he needed air and walked toward his truck.
She followed him.
“You’re going to the farmhouse.”
“I need to know whether the ledger is still there.”
“Then I’m coming.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to protect me by disappearing.”
“This isn’t an argument.”
“It is when someone broke into my room to threaten you.”
David opened the driver’s door.
Emily stood in front of it.
“Dad, Brandon isolated me by making every decision alone. Don’t do the same thing and call it protection.”
The comparison stopped him.
After a moment, he handed her the passenger key.
They informed Cole and drove to the farmhouse with an unmarked police vehicle following at a distance.
David’s property stood eight miles outside town, surrounded by fields and old oak trees. The workshop was behind the main house.
The lock had not been broken.
Inside, everything appeared normal.
David crossed to the workbench and knelt beside a metal cabinet.
He unlocked it with a key hidden beneath a drawer.
The cabinet contained Laura’s photographs, tax records, old letters, and a red leather ledger.
Emily touched the cover.
“Mom kept this?”
“She kept everything.”
They carried it into the house.
At the kitchen table, David opened the ledger for the first time in a decade.
Laura’s handwriting filled the pages.
Most entries documented expenses from Whitaker Construction. But near the middle, the records changed.
Names appeared beside coded payments.
Victor Lang.
Samuel Price.
R. Hale.
Emily leaned closer.
“R. Hale?”
David’s eyes moved over the numbers.
Richard Hale had received monthly payments from Whitaker Construction twenty-two years earlier.
“That can’t be Brandon’s father,” Emily said.
“It is.”
“How did he know Victor?”
David turned another page.
Laura had written a note in the margin:
Richard continues approving false supplier invoices. Samuel believes David must not know until the audit is complete.
Emily sat back.
“Richard was involved.”
David felt as if the past were opening beneath his feet.
Richard had spent years presenting himself as a respectable retired financial adviser. David had met him only after Emily began dating Brandon.
Or so he had believed.
A folded letter fell from the back of the ledger.
It was addressed to David in Laura’s handwriting.
He unfolded it carefully.
David,
If you are reading this, something has happened that prevented me from telling you myself. Victor did not act alone. Samuel discovered the theft, but he was afraid because Richard Hale controlled the accounts through a supplier network. When Samuel tried to expose them, he died. I do not believe the accident was an accident.
There is one person I still cannot identify. Richard called him “the Judge.” Every large transfer required the Judge’s approval.
Do not trust anyone who asks for this ledger.
Not the police.
Not the lawyers.
Not even family.
Laura
Emily’s face had gone white.
“Mom knew Richard before I met Brandon.”
“Yes.”
“Did Brandon marry me because of this?”
David could not answer.
A sound came from the hallway.
Both of them turned.
The back door was open.
David was certain he had closed it.
He moved toward the drawer where he kept an old revolver, but Emily stopped him.
“Police are outside.”
They heard footsteps on the porch.
Detective Cole entered with his weapon lowered.
“You both all right?”
David held up the letter.
“We found the ledger.”
Cole’s gaze lingered on it.
For one second, something passed across his face.
Recognition.
Too quick for Emily to notice.
David noticed.
“Have you seen this before?” he asked.
Cole’s expression returned to neutral.
“No.”
“You looked like you had.”
“I’ve seen many financial ledgers.”
David closed it.
Cole held out his hand.
“I’ll take it into evidence.”
Laura’s warning echoed in David’s mind.
Not the police.
David smiled faintly.
“Of course.”
But while Cole had entered through the hallway, Emily had quietly photographed every page with her phone.
When they returned to the motel, she opened the images.
One photograph showed the final page.
May you like
At the bottom was a name neither of them had noticed at the farmhouse.
MARCUS COLE.
