Chapter 9 - The Bookkeeper
Denise Carter lived outside Burlington in a modest house overlooking a lake.
She was seventy-three and answered the door with a revolver pointed at Nathan’s chest.
“You’re James’s boy.”
Nathan raised his hands.
“Nathan.”
“I know.”
“Could you lower that?”
“Depends who followed you.”
“No one.”
Denise looked toward the road.
Finally she lowered the weapon.
Inside, Nathan explained the missing archive box.
Denise closed her eyes.
“I wondered when Robert’s mistake would come back.”
“What mistake?”
“He trusted your father.”
Nathan stared.
“That’s the opposite of what everyone says.”
Denise poured coffee.
“In 1998 Mercer Maritime almost died. Robert put in more money than James.”
“How much?”
“About four million.”
Nathan’s father had always been portrayed as the financial savior.
“Why didn’t I know?”
“Because James hated owing anyone.”
“What happened?”
“James repaid Robert over six years. The final payment came two weeks before James died.”
“The release?”
“Signed.”
Nathan leaned forward.
“You saw it?”
“I typed it.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave the original to James. Copy went to Robert.”
Nathan called Robert.
“Do you have it?”
“No.”
“You had a copy.”
Silence.
Then Robert said, “It disappeared after James died.”
Nathan looked at Denise.
She had heard.
“Your mother burned papers,” Robert said quietly.
Nathan froze.
“What?”
“She blamed me for James working himself to death. One night she burned a box of company records in the fireplace.”
Nathan remembered that night vaguely.
Smoke.
His mother crying.
Robert shouting.
He had been nineteen.
“Was the release in it?”
“I don’t know.”
Denise interrupted.
“There was another copy.”
Both men fell silent.
“Where?”
“The bank.”
“What bank?”
“Old Harbor Trust. Mercer’s lender.”
Nathan frowned.
Old Harbor had been acquired twice. Its records now belonged to Atlantic Federal.
Denise smiled.
“Banks keep everything longer than families do.”
Nathan immediately contacted Margaret.
She began legal requests for archived loan records.
Then Denise said something else.
“James was frightened before he died.”
Nathan looked at her.
“Of Robert?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“He believed somebody inside the company was stealing.”
Nathan’s pulse quickened.
“Who?”
“He never proved it.”
“Did he name anyone?”
Denise hesitated.
“Elliot Vale.”
Nathan went still.
Bianca’s father.
“That’s impossible.”
Elliot Vale had once run a small construction company. Nathan knew he had done subcontracting work around Rhode Island decades earlier.
Denise nodded.
“Vale Construction handled terminal renovations for Mercer.”
Nathan felt the conspiracy reach backward through time.
“What did my father suspect?”
“Inflated invoices. Kickbacks. Fake vendors.”
“How much?”
“Maybe two million.”
“Was Robert involved?”
Denise shook her head.
“James suspected Elliot used someone in accounting.”
Nathan stood.
“Did Elliot ever get caught?”
“No. He disappeared financially. Company collapsed. Wife left him.”
Bianca had told Nathan her father abandoned them because he was selfish.
Perhaps there was more.
Denise opened an old desk drawer.
“I kept something.”
She handed Nathan a cassette tape.
He stared.
“What is it?”
“James dictated notes when he drove.”
She gave him an old recorder.
Nathan pressed play.
Static.
Then his father’s voice.
“March 12, 2004. Met Elliot Vale. He threatened to expose Robert’s partnership claim if I pursue the invoice issue.”
Nathan stopped breathing.
His father continued:
“Vale knows about the unsigned release copy. Says he has documents that could ruin Mercer.”
Nathan looked at Denise.
“How did Elliot know?”
“That,” she said, “is what James never discovered.”
The tape continued.
“If anything happens to me, Denise has the bank reference number.”
Nathan swallowed.
“What bank reference number?”
Denise wrote it down.
That evening, Margaret called Atlantic Federal.
The old loan archive existed.
But the relevant records had been requested six weeks earlier.
“By whom?” Nathan asked.
Margaret’s answer came slowly.
“Grant Holloway.”
Bianca’s attorney.
Nathan immediately called Grant.
“You accessed my father’s bank records before any of this started.”
Grant did not deny it.
“Who hired you?”
“My client.”
“Bianca?”
Silence.
“Julian?”
Another silence.
Nathan understood.
“Elliot Vale is alive, isn’t he?”
Grant finally spoke.
“You should ask your wife.”
Nathan’s skin went cold.
Bianca had always said her father vanished when she was sixteen.
Nathan had assumed she meant emotionally and financially.
But perhaps Elliot had never truly disappeared.
That night, Bianca called Nathan herself.
Her voice sounded exhausted.
“You found Denise.”
“How do you know?”
“I know my brother.”
“What does that mean?”
“Julian has been looking for her too.”
“Where is your father?”
Silence.
“Bianca.”
“He came back three years ago.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Exactly when Bianca met him.
“Was our marriage planned?”
Bianca began to cry.
Nathan almost hated himself for still reacting to the sound.
“Answer me.”
“No,” she whispered.
“Then what was planned?”
Her answer was barely audible.
May you like
“Meeting you.”
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