Chapter 5 - The Boy Who Remembered Everything
Lena ran across the motel parking lot screaming: “Eli!”
On the pavement lay his battered tablet.
A crack ran through the screen.
Behind the broken glass, one recording was still playing.
Thomas Keane’s voice filled the speaker.
“Your mother should never have trusted me.”
Lena’s knees nearly gave way.
Arthur caught her.
“Listen.”
Thomas continued.
“I’m taking the boy somewhere safe. Vale has men watching the motel. If Lena sees this, tell Wesley to stop reacting and start thinking.”
Lena grabbed the tablet.
“He took my son.”
Arthur nodded.
“But that doesn’t sound like a kidnapping.”
“He took my son.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s a kidnapping.”
Arthur wisely stopped arguing.
Wesley arrived twelve minutes later.
He listened to the recording twice.
“Thomas wants us angry.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“No. He wants Vale to believe we’re angry.”
Lena stared.
“You think this is some plan?”
“I think Thomas deliberately spoke near Eli’s tablet.”
“Why?”
“Because Eli records things.”
Lena blinked.
“What?”
Wesley had noticed it at the lakehouse.
The boy used the tablet like a notebook, taking photographs, recording sounds, preserving details.
“He knew Eli would record him.”
“Where would Thomas take him?”
Wesley thought.
Then remembered the priest.
His mother.
The old networks that existed before Martin controlled everything.
“Somewhere Vale doesn’t know.”
Lena stepped closer.
“And if you’re wrong?”
Wesley met her eyes.
“Then I bring him back.”
“How?”
“However I have to.”
“No.”
The word surprised him.
Lena’s eyes were wet but steady.
“You don’t get to turn this into the thing you know best.”
“What does that mean?”
“Violence.”
Wesley said nothing.
“That’s what Vale expects from you,” she continued. “That’s why he keeps pushing.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think knowing and choosing differently are two separate things.”
Again.
Choosing.
Wesley hated how often that word appeared around her.
Because she was right.
They traced Thomas through a vehicle registered to a retired detective.
The car ended up at an abandoned summer camp north of the lake.
When Wesley and Lena arrived, Eli was eating peanut-butter crackers.
Thomas sat opposite him.
Lena burst through the cabin door.
“Mom!”
She wrapped Eli in both arms.
Then she turned on Thomas.
“You had ten seconds to explain before I forgot every decent thing my mother ever taught me.”
Thomas raised both hands.
“Fair.”
Wesley closed the door.
“Why did my mother tell me not to trust you?”
Thomas looked tired.
“Because I lied to her.”
“About what?”
“Your father.”
Silence.
“I was there the night before he died.”
Wesley’s face hardened.
“Where?”
“At the marina.”
“Why?”
“Patrick asked me to drive him to the federal meeting the next morning.”
“Did Vale know?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I told him.”
Lena stopped breathing.
Wesley did not move.
Thomas looked at the floor.
“I thought Vale was trying to protect Patrick. I believed he could talk him out of turning everything over.”
“You told Vale where my father would be.”
“Yes.”
“And then my father died.”
“Yes.”
Wesley’s hands curled.
Lena watched him.
One wrong movement and everything would become what Vale expected.
Wesley forced his fingers open.
“Continue.”
Thomas looked surprised.
“Vale sent two men to the marina. They sabotaged the boat.”
“Names.”
“One is dead.”
“The other?”
“Raymond Sloane.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find him.”
“I’ve been trying for fourteen years.”
“Why fourteen?”
“Because that’s when your mother found out I was the leak.”
Now the note made sense.
DO NOT TRUST THOMAS KEANE.
Not because Thomas was working for Vale.
Because Thomas’s mistake had helped kill Patrick.
“My mother kept you alive.”
“She believed I deserved to spend the rest of my life trying to fix what I did.”
“That sounds like her.”
Thomas nodded.
“She was harder than your father.”
Wesley looked at Eli.
The boy had gone quiet.
“Why take him?”
“Vale’s people found the motel.”
“How?”
“Arthur’s truck.”
Arthur cursed softly.
Thomas continued.
“I got Eli out before they arrived. I couldn’t call Lena because I assumed her phone was compromised.”
It was plausible.
More importantly, it fit the evidence.
“What does Vale want now?” Lena asked.
“The ledger is only half of it,” Thomas said.
“What’s the other half?”
“Patrick recorded conversations.”
Wesley remembered the cassette recorder.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Eli raised his hand.
Every adult looked at him.
“What?”
“The blue box had another bottom.”
Lena frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“A fake one.”
“How do you know?”
“I dropped it.”
Of course.
They returned to the lakehouse.
The blue box had indeed been built with a false base.
Wesley removed four tiny screws.
Underneath lay a memory card sealed in plastic.
Thomas stared.
“Patrick.”
They inserted it into Eli’s tablet.
Audio files.
Dozens.
The oldest dated back twenty-two years.
Wesley selected one.
His father’s voice.
Martin’s voice.
They listened.
Arguments over money.
Shell companies.
Illegal operations Patrick wanted shut down.
Martin refusing.
Then the final recording.
Patrick sounded exhausted.
“I’m done, Martin.”
“You don’t get to be done.”
“I built this.”
“We built it.”
“I’m taking the legitimate companies and my family. You can answer for the rest.”
“You go to the government and you destroy all of us.”
“I’m not destroying my son for your ambition.”
Then Martin said the sentence that changed everything.
“If you get on that boat tomorrow, Patrick, make sure Wesley knows how to swim.”
The recording ended.
Lena covered her mouth.
Thomas whispered, “That’s enough.”
“For what?” Wesley asked.
“An investigation. With the ledger, corporate records, Evelyn’s affidavit—this is enough.”
Wesley stared at the tablet.
His father’s voice.
Twenty-one years.
All those years, Wesley had imagined his father’s final days as reckless.
Instead Patrick had been trying to leave.
Trying to protect him.
Trying to become something better before time ran out.
Wesley stood.
“We turn everything over.”
Thomas looked at him.
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“Some of those records implicate your current businesses.”
“I know.”
“You could lose everything.”
“I know.”
“Wesley—”
“My father died trying to give me a choice. I’m finally making it.”
Lena looked at him differently.
Not like an employee.
Not like someone facing the feared Wesley Rourke.
Like a man.
His phone rang.
Martin.
Wesley answered.
“You lied to me,” Martin said.
“Frequently.”
“The ledger you brought was incomplete.”
“Very observant.”
“You found the recordings.”
Wesley said nothing.
Martin’s voice changed.
“Give them to me.”
“No.”
“You have no idea what happens if those recordings become public.”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“You’ll lose your companies.”
“Maybe.”
“Your money.”
“Some.”
“Your name.”
Wesley glanced at Lena.
“That might be the cheapest thing I lose.”
Martin became quiet.
Then he said, “Ask Lena where her mother really died.”
Lena froze.
Wesley put the call on speaker.
“My mother died in a hospital,” Lena said.
“No,” Martin replied. “Caroline Marlowe died because she went back for something she should have left buried.”
“What?”
Martin laughed softly.
“Unit 314 was never the real storage unit.”
Lena stared at Wesley.
“What are you talking about?”
“Ask your son about the number he saw inside the blue box.”
Eli looked down.
“What number?”
“The one beneath the false bottom.”
Eli swallowed.
“There was another number.”
Wesley crouched.
“What was it?”
“317.”
Thomas went pale.
Wesley saw it.
“You know that number.”
Thomas backed toward the door.
“Thomas.”
“It isn’t a storage unit.”
“What is it?”
Thomas looked at Lena.
“Room 317 was where Caroline Marlowe spent the last night before she supposedly died.”
Lena stared.
“Supposedly?”
Thomas reached for the door.
Before he could open it, someone knocked from the other side.
Three slow taps.
Then a woman’s voice called through the wood.
“Lena?”
Lena stopped breathing.
May you like
She knew that voice.
Her mother had been dead for nine years.
