Chapter 8: What Thomas Left Behind
The lawyer's name was Gerald Foss.
I found him the same way my father had apparently expected me to find him — through the satchel.
Behind the same false seam where I had found Richard's address, there was a second folded paper I had missed in my first search.
A business card, old and slightly soft at the corners.
*Gerald Foss, Attorney at Law.
Estate and Civil Matters.
Boston, MA.*
On the back, in my father's handwriting: *He has everything.
Tell him the music box played.*
I called that afternoon.
Gerald Foss was eighty-one years old, semi-retired, and when I told him Thomas Mercer had sent me, he was quiet for a long moment and then said: "I've been waiting for this call for sixteen years."
Eleanor came with me.
Gerald's office was small and warm, lined with files and framed photographs of people I didn't know.
He shook my hand with both of his and looked at me for a long moment before he said anything.
"You have her eyes," he said.
"Catherine's eyes."
I didn't know what to do with that so I sat down.
He opened a file that had been sitting on his desk.
It was thick.
Tabbed and organized with the care of a man who had tended something for a very long time.
"Thomas came to me sixteen years ago," Gerald said.
"He had been carrying this alone for fourteen years at that point and he said he needed it somewhere safe.
Somewhere that would outlast him." He looked at Eleanor.
"He was very specific about what should happen if Ava ever came looking.
And what should happen if she never did."
"What would have happened if I never came?" I asked.
"The statement would have been delivered to the Boston Police Department on the thirtieth anniversary of the fire.
That would have been this October." He paused.
"Thomas set it up so that the truth would come out one way or another.
Either through you, or through the calendar."
Eleanor pressed her hand briefly over her mouth.
Gerald slid a document across the desk.
Twelve pages, handwritten, signed and notarized.
Thomas Mercer's account of the night of the fire.
I read it slowly.
Eleanor read it beside me.
He had arrived on the fourth floor to find Catherine's door locked from the outside.
He had broken it down.
Catherine was conscious, on the floor near the window, with the baby already wrapped and the music box already in her arms.
She had been waiting.
She had known the door was locked.
She had known what it meant.
She had given him the baby.
She had given him the music box.
She had told him the lullaby note by note because she said she wanted someone to always be able to play it for her daughter.
Then she had told him not to bring the baby back to the Hale family.
She had said: *Richard will kjll her too.
He'll make it look like an accident.
He's done it before.*
Done it before.
I looked up from the page.
"There was someone else," I said.
Gerald nodded.
"Thomas investigated after the fire.
Quietly, over years.
Richard Hale had been married once before Catherine.
His first wife d\*ed in a fall down the stairs of their home in Vermont.
Ruled accidental.
No investigation." He paused.
"Thomas documented everything he found.
It's all in there."
I looked back at the file.
"This is enough," Eleanor said.
Her voice was very quiet.
"This is enough to reopen everything."
"Yes," Gerald said.
"It is."
I set the pages down carefully.
"He spent thirty years building this," I said.
"He spent thirty years making sure that even if something happened to him, it would still matter."
"He loved you very much," Gerald said simply.
"He talked about you every time I saw him.
He said you were curious and stubborn and that you laughed too loudly sometimes." A small pause.
"He said you got that from somewhere and he was glad."
Something in my chest cracked open quietly.
I thought about what Eleanor had told me.
That Catherine laughed too loudly in restaurants.
My father had known.
He had known where I got it from.
And he had never told me — but he had kept it.
He had kept it the way he had kept everything.
Carefully.
Quietly.
For the right moment.
I picked up the music box from my bag and set it on Gerald's desk.
"He told me to return it to the hotel," I said.
"But I think it belongs somewhere else now."
Gerald looked at Eleanor.
Eleanor looked at the music box for a long time.
Then she reached out and opened it.
The lullaby began to play.
She listened to the whole thing without speaking.
When it ended she closed it gently and held it in both hands.
"Thank you, Thomas," she said softly.
To the room.
To no one.
To him.
May you like
I didn't say anything.
Some things don't need an answer.
