Chapter 8 - What Thomas Was Afraid Of
Thomas Hayes had not been afraid of dying.
He had been afraid of what his wife would do after he did.
Samuel Price played Lauren an audio file Thomas had recorded during an estate-planning meeting.
Thomas’s voice filled the quiet office.
“If I die before this is resolved, Margaret will say I was confused.”
Lauren closed her eyes.
She had not heard her father’s voice in fourteen months.
Samuel’s voice in the recording asked, “Resolved how?”
“I want Mia’s shares away from her.”
“Why Mia?”
“Because Margaret sees Lauren as an opponent. She sees Mia as leverage.”
Lauren opened her eyes.
On the recording, Thomas sighed.
“I made the mistake of allowing Margaret to confuse family authority with ownership. She believes she built HRG with me, therefore everything connected to it belongs to her.”
Samuel asked, “Did she?”
“She helped. Then she began taking.”
The file ended.
Lauren stared at Samuel.
“That’s it?”
“There is another recording.”
“Play it.”
Samuel hesitated.
“Your father asked me not to unless there was a dispute.”
“There is a dispute.”
He pressed play.
Thomas sounded tired.
“I believe Margaret and Richard Cole have diverted company funds.”
Daniel leaned forward.
Lauren’s hands went cold.
“I cannot prove the full amount,” Thomas continued, “but I found invoices Richard approved for work that was never done. Margaret defended him. When I fired him, she told me I had humiliated her.”
Samuel’s recorded voice asked, “Was their relationship personal?”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
Lauren looked away.
She did not want to hear more.
But she needed to.
Thomas continued.
“I confronted her about the affair six years ago. She promised it was over. I stayed because Lauren was pregnant, because I was a coward, because divorce would split the company, and because I still loved the woman Margaret used to be.”
Lauren’s eyes filled.
Mia had been the baby Lauren was carrying.
Her father had stayed partly because of her.
That knowledge hurt in a way she could not name.
The recording ended.
Daniel said quietly, “This explains Richard.”
“No,” Lauren replied. “It explains why my father suspected him. It doesn’t explain why my mother terrorized Mia.”
Samuel looked at her.
“Perhaps Mia saw something.”
Lauren remembered her daughter’s words.
Mommy signed the papers.
Mommy took Grandpa’s money.
Grandma was never in the office.
Margaret had not merely frightened Mia.
She had rehearsed exculpatory statements.
Statements a child might later repeat if adults began asking questions.
Lauren drove home and found Mia with a child therapist, Dr. Elise Moreno, drawing at the kitchen table.
Lauren waited until the session ended.
Dr. Moreno spoke privately with her.
“Mia associates Margaret with secrecy.”
“What kind?”
“She described rules.”
Lauren’s chest tightened.
“What rules?”
“Never tell Mommy what happens when Grandma visits. Never enter Grandpa’s office. Never say Mr. Richard’s name.”
Lauren stared.
“She knows his name?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Dr. Moreno held Lauren’s gaze.
“She said Margaret once told her that if police came, she should say Mommy signed papers.”
Lauren felt sick.
“Did Mia understand what that meant?”
“No. She said she thought papers were like homework.”
That made it worse.
That evening, Lauren sat beside Mia on the floor.
The yellow boat rested between them.
“Do you know why Grandma didn’t want you to say Mr. Richard’s name?”
Mia frowned.
“He got mad when I did.”
“What happened?”
“He said, ‘Kids hear too much.’”
Lauren’s breath caught.
“What was Grandma doing?”
“Looking in Grandpa’s wall.”
Lauren stared.
“What wall?”
“The one that opens.”
Thomas’s study had a built-in walnut bookcase.
Lauren had grown up in that house and knew of no opening wall.
Mia stood and took her mother’s hand.
She led Lauren to the study.
At the bookcase, Mia touched a carved brass rosette beneath the third shelf.
“Grandma pushed this.”
Lauren pressed it.
Nothing happened.
Mia tried again, then pushed one book inward first.
A concealed cabinet released with a soft click.
Lauren stared.
Behind the panel was a narrow steel safe.
Empty.
Completely empty.
Daniel arrived twenty minutes later.
He crouched beside the safe.
“No dust on the bottom.”
“Meaning?”
“It was emptied recently.”
They called Detective Cole, who photographed everything and told them not to touch it further.
Before leaving, the detective asked Mia whether she remembered what had been in the safe.
“Blue folders.”
“How many?”
Mia held up both hands.
“Lots.”
“Anything else?”
“A little black thing.”
“A phone?”
Mia shook her head.
“Like Daddy’s computer, but small.”
“A hard drive?”
Daniel asked.
Mia shrugged.
Then she said something that silenced all of them.
“Grandma took the blue folders.”
“When?” Lauren asked.
“The night she told me Grandpa was never coming back.”
Thomas’s funeral night.
While Lauren had been upstairs crying.
While relatives filled the house.
May you like
While everyone trusted Margaret to grieve.
Margaret had been emptying Thomas’s hidden safe.
