Chapter 4: The Man Who Knew the Father
Daniel left the device on the table.
He didn't touch it again.
Whoever had placed it there would know it had been found.
That was fine.
He wanted them to know.
He walked Lily to the far side of the room, handed her to her nanny with a quiet word, and watched until they disappeared through the side door.
Then he came back.
Claire and Derek hadn't moved.
They were standing close together, speaking in low, urgent tones that stopped the moment Daniel returned.
"Thomas Reed," Daniel said.
"Tell me who he is."
Derek looked at Claire.
"Don't look at her," Daniel said.
"You've been steering her all night.
Now talk to me directly.
Who is Thomas Reed?"
Derek straightened his jacket.
He was a careful man — always had been.
Measured sentences, measured movements.
Daniel had always read that as professionalism.
He was reading it differently now.
"Thomas Reed was your father's attorney," Derek said.
"The original one.
Before Hargrove came on."
"How far back?"
"From the beginning.
From before your parents married."
"And he handled the documents.
The ones from 1987."
Derek said nothing.
"Derek."
"Yes," Derek said.
"He handled them."
Daniel turned to Claire.
"Is he still alive?"
"He's eighty-one," Claire said.
"He lives in Marwick.
He hasn't practiced law in fifteen years." She paused.
"He also hasn't spoken to anyone in this family since the day your father fired him."
"Why did Father fire him?"
"Because Thomas refused to sign the final amendment." Claire's voice had changed again — quieter, something almost reluctant in it.
"The one that removed Michael's name entirely.
Thomas said it was fraud.
Your father said it was a family matter.
Thomas walked out and never came back."
Daniel let that sit for a moment.
"So Thomas Reed is the one who called me," he said.
"I don't know that."
"But it fits."
Claire didn't answer.
Which was its own answer.
"What does he want?" Daniel asked.
"I don't know what he wants now," Claire said.
"But fifteen years ago, when I found him — yes, I found him, Daniel, I went looking — he told me that Michael was still alive.
That he had a family.
That he had never been told about the estate because your father made sure he never knew it existed."
The music at the far end of the room had stopped.
Someone had finally read the room.
"Michael doesn't know," Daniel said slowly.
"Michael doesn't know," Claire confirmed.
"Then what was tonight?" Daniel's voice was harder now.
"What was the cake, the humiliation, Lily — what was any of that?"
Claire looked away for the first time.
A small movement.
But Daniel had grown up watching his sister's face.
She was ashamed.
"Derek said we needed leverage," she said.
"He said if we could show that you were distracted — that your personal life was unstable — it would be easier to move the estate proceedings without your full attention."
Daniel looked at Derek.
Derek met his eyes without flinching.
"The estate review is in six weeks.
There are decisions being made that you don't know about yet."
"What decisions?"
"That," Derek said, "is a conversation for a different room."
He reached into his jacket and placed a business card on the table.
Face down.
"Call that number tomorrow morning," Derek said.
"Before nine.
There are people involved in this who are not in this room tonight.
And they are not as patient as I am."
He straightened his cuffs, nodded once to Claire, and walked toward the exit.
Daniel picked up the card.
He turned it over.
It wasn't Derek's card.
It had no name on it.
May you like
Just an address in handwritten ink, and beneath it, four words:
*Michael knows about Lily.*
