Chapter 5 - Fifteen Years Earlier
Thomas and Evelyn Mercer died on October 14, fifteen years earlier.
Their sedan crossed the center line on a wet coastal road and struck a concrete bridge abutment.
Police ruled it driver error aggravated by rain.
Thomas had alcohol in his blood.
Below the legal limit.
Evelyn died at the scene.
Thomas died during surgery.
Tobias survived with spinal trauma.
Rosalind had spent fifteen years believing her father caused the crash.
Tobias never did.
“I smelled something,” he said.
Rosalind looked at him.
“What?”
“Sweet chemical odor.”
“Gasoline?”
“No.”
He had told an investigator.
The investigator dismissed it as antifreeze from the destroyed engine.
Then Tobias discovered years later that the brake-fluid reservoir had been nearly empty.
“Cars lose fluid in crashes,” Rosalind said.
“Yes.”
“But you think someone drained it.”
“I think someone compromised the brake line.”
“Proof?”
“No.”
Rosalind crossed her arms.
“Then fifteen years of pretending to be paralyzed was based on a theory?”
Tobias shook his head.
“Not only.”
Three weeks after the crash, while Tobias was still hospitalized, Everett Vale visited.
Garrett’s father.
Rosalind remembered him.
Flowers.
Condolences.
A promise that maritime competitors would give the Mercer family “space to grieve.”
Tobias remembered something else.
Everett leaned near his bed while Tobias appeared sedated.
“He said, ‘At least the boy won’t be a problem now.’”
Rosalind stared.
“You never told me.”
“I told Aunt Margaret.”
Their late mother’s sister.
Margaret died six years later.
“What did she say?”
“She told me never to repeat it until we knew who we could trust.”
Tobias’s rehabilitation improved.
Then came the wheelchair brake sabotage.
Margaret became convinced someone was monitoring him.
She helped Tobias continue using the chair publicly after he regained strength.
“You could have told me.”
“I wanted to.”
“You should have.”
“Yes.”
“What did you think I’d do?”
“Confront Vale.”
Rosalind opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
Because she would have.
Just as she later confronted Garrett whenever Tobias raised suspicions.
Garrett had trained her to report threats directly to him.
Tobias continued.
He attended physical therapy privately under another surname through arrangements Margaret made.
By age twenty-two, he could walk short distances.
By twenty-four, normally.
Publicly, he remained wheelchair-bound.
He used ramps.
Accessible vehicles.
Transfers.
He kept his legs conditioned through private exercise.
Rosalind sat in stunned silence.
“How many birthdays did you sit there pretending?”
“All of them.”
“How many times did I ask if you wished you could walk?”
Tobias looked down.
“All of them.”
Her eyes filled.
“I hate you a little.”
“I know.”
“I also love you.”
“I know.”
“That makes it worse.”
“I know.”
Grace interrupted softly.
“We found Vale Strategic Marine.”
The LLC had been incorporated two months before the Mercer crash.
Its original manager was not Garrett.
Everett Vale.
Garrett took over after his father’s death seven years ago.
Over fifteen years, the company had received payments from businesses competing with Mercer Shipworks.
Some looked legitimate.
Others did not.
One payment came from a mechanic named Harold Finch.
Or rather, to Harold Finch.
$75,000.
Date:
Four days after the Mercer crash.
Tobias stopped moving.
“Find him.”
Morales did.
Harold Finch was alive.
Seventy-one.
Living in North Carolina.
Former mechanic at a marina owned by Vale.
He initially denied remembering anything.
Then Grace’s investigator told him Tobias survived and could walk.
Finch began crying.
“I knew that family would come back.”
They arranged an interview with law enforcement present.
Finch admitted Everett Vale paid him to “create a failure” in Thomas Mercer’s car.
He claimed he believed Everett only wanted to frighten Thomas into withdrawing from a shipyard bid.
“What did you do?” Morales asked.
“Cut the brake hose enough that pressure would bleed out slowly.”
Rosalind covered her mouth.
Finch continued.
“I thought he’d notice.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“Two people died.”
Finch began sobbing.
“I know.”
Tobias’s face had gone blank.
Fifteen years.
His parents had not died because Thomas drove badly in rain.
Someone had sabotaged the brakes.
“Was Garrett involved?” Rosalind asked.
Finch shook his head.
“He was twenty-seven. I never spoke to him.”
That mattered.
Garrett might not have participated in the original murder.
But he inherited the company that paid Finch.
And years later he married the victim’s daughter.
Grace asked:
“Did Everett ever explain why he wanted Thomas frightened?”
Finch wiped his face.
“He said Mercer had documents.”
“What documents?”
“I don’t know.”
Tobias looked at Rosalind.
Their father had been about to expose something.
Then Finch added:
“Everett called it Project Harbor.”
Rosalind’s stomach dropped.
She had heard that phrase before.
Not from fifteen years ago.
From Garrett.
Three months earlier.
At their kitchen table.
May you like
Garrett had taken a phone call and said:
“Harbor is finally closing.”
