Chapter 8: The Meeting
Gerald Marsh answered his own door.
He was a tall man, slightly stooped now, with thick white hair and large hands that had the look of someone who had spent decades doing physical work before moving behind a desk.
He shook my hand, then Rachel's, then looked at my mother for a long moment.
"I don't know you," he said.
"No," she said.
"But I knew your partner."
Patricia was already inside, seated at a round dining table with her briefcase open.
Gerald led us through without ceremony and we sat down.
My mother placed a manila envelope on the table.
Gerald looked at it but didn't touch it yet.
"Tell me first," he said.
"In plain words.
What happened."
My mother told him.
She spoke for nearly twenty minutes without stopping.
She told him about the documents she had found.
The accounts.
The transfers.
The years.
The amounts.
She told him about the threat.
About the disappearance.
About the empty casket and the twelve years in Millhaven.
She told him about Thomas.
Gerald did not interrupt once.
When she finished, the room was quiet.
He reached out and opened the envelope.
He went through the photographs slowly.
One by one.
He had reading glasses on a chain around his neck and he put them on without looking up.
His face did not change much — a slight tightening around the jaw, a stillness in the hands that had not been there before.
He set the last photograph down.
"Eleven years," he said.
"Yes," my mother said.
"I trusted Robert completely." He said my father's name without heat.
Just the fact of it.
"We built that company from nothing.
I put my family's savings into it in the first year.
He knew that."
Nobody spoke.
"Thomas," he said.
The word came out differently.
Heavier.
"We don't know the full extent of what Thomas knew," Patricia said carefully.
"Or when he became involved.
That will need to be established through a proper investigation."
"He's my son."
"Yes."
Gerald took his glasses off and set them on the table.
"I want to speak to him," he said.
"Mr.
Marsh—" Patricia began.
"Not today.
I'm not — I need a day." He looked at Patricia.
"What do I do first?"
"First, you retain your own counsel.
Separately from me — I represent Daniel and Rachel.
Your attorney and I can coordinate.
Then we file a formal complaint and request a full forensic audit of the company accounts going back fifteen years."
"And Thomas?"
"Your attorney will advise you.
But the audit will tell you what he knew and when."
Gerald nodded slowly.
He looked at my mother again.
"Why didn't you come to me?" he said.
"Twelve years ago.
Why didn't you just come to me?"
She held his gaze.
"Because I was afraid," she said.
"And because I thought disappearing would protect my children.
I was wrong about the second part.
I don't know if I was wrong about the first."
Gerald was quiet for a moment.
Then he said: "Robert told me you had been difficult in the final years.
That the marriage had been hard.
That you had become — unstable was the word he used."
My mother's expression didn't change.
"He was protecting himself," she said.
"Yes," Gerald said.
"I can see that now."
He stood up.
He was not a man who showed emotion easily — I could see that.
But when he extended his hand to my mother, it was not the handshake of a business meeting.
"Thank you," he said.
"For coming forward.
Even now."
She shook his hand.
"I'm sorry it wasn't sooner," she said.
On the drive home, Rachel sat in the back seat and looked out the window.
After a long time she said: "He's going to have to confront his own son."
"Yes," I said.
"That's not something you come back from easily."
"No."
She was quiet again.
Then: "Daniel.
When this is over — the legal part, all of it — I want to take Mom back to the lake house."
I glanced in the rearview mirror.
"It sold," I said.
"After Dad passed."
"I know." She looked out the window.
"I just want to drive past it.
The three of us."
I didn't answer right away.
Outside, the fields were going gold in the late afternoon light.
May you like
"Yeah," I said.
"We can do that."
