Chapter 6 - The Man Who Was Supposed To Be Dead
The photograph slipped from my hand.
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
I stared at the person standing beside my father.
The person who had been standing next to him the night my mother died.
The person who was supposed to have disappeared twelve years ago.
My uncle.
Thomas Anderson.
My father's younger brother.
I had not seen that face since I was a teenager.
Because everyone told me he was gone.
Dead.
A tragic accident.
That was the story my father gave our family.
That was the story everyone accepted.
But the photograph in my hand showed something impossible.
Thomas was alive.
And he was standing beside my father on the exact night my mother died.
My hands began shaking.
"No..."
The word came out quietly.
Because admitting it meant accepting something much worse.
My father had lied.
Not about one thing.
About everything.
I grabbed my phone and immediately called Judge Mercer.
He answered after the first ring.
"Emily?"
"Judge, I found something."
My voice was different.
He heard it.
"What happened?"
I looked at the photograph again.
"Thomas Anderson."
Silence.
The kind of silence that tells you someone already knows the name.
"You found him."
I froze.
"You knew?"
The judge didn't answer.
That was enough.
"You knew my uncle was alive?"
"Emily..."
"No."
My voice became sharper.
"You don't get to say my name like that. Everyone keeps knowing things except me."
The judge stayed quiet.
Then he said:
"I was afraid this would happen."
"What?"
"That you would find the truth before you were ready."
I looked around the storage unit.
My mother's files.
My grandfather's documents.
The secrets they left behind.
"I was never ready because nobody gave me the chance to be."
A long pause followed.
Then Judge Mercer finally spoke.
"Come back to my office."
"Why?"
"Because there is something I should have told you twelve years ago."
When I returned to the courthouse, Judge Mercer was waiting.
The moment I entered his office, I knew something had changed.
The old confidence he carried as a judge was gone.
He looked like a man who had been avoiding a conversation for more than a decade.
I placed the photograph on his desk.
"Tell me."
He looked at Thomas's face.
Then he closed his eyes.
"Thomas Anderson was your grandfather's business partner."
I frowned.
"My uncle?"
"Yes."
"Why did nobody tell me?"
"Because after your mother's death, Thomas disappeared."
"He was reported dead."
The judge nodded.
"That was the official story."
My chest tightened.
"Official?"
He looked at me.
"Emily, there are many things in this world that become true simply because enough people repeat them."
I stared at him.
"So my uncle was alive."
"Yes."
"And my father knew."
"Yes."
"Then why?"
The judge opened the drawer of his desk.
He pulled out another file.
This one was thicker.
Older.
On the front was a handwritten label.
"Rachel Anderson Investigation."
My breath caught.
"My mother investigated this?"
The judge nodded.
"Your mother discovered that money was being moved through several companies connected to the farm."
"By my father?"
"By people connected to your father."
The answer was careful.
Too careful.
"Who?"
The judge opened the file.
Inside were financial records.
Names.
Transactions.
Photographs.
And one name appeared again.
Victor Hale.
The man from my mother's photograph.
"The same person from the storage files."
The judge nodded.
"Victor was the person your mother trusted."
I remembered the letter.
The person who betrayed us was someone we trusted.
"So Victor killed my mother?"
The judge looked at me.
"I don't know."
That answer shocked me.
"You don't know?"
"No."
He leaned forward.
"But I know your mother discovered something before she died."
"What?"
The judge turned the page.
A newspaper clipping fell out.
The headline was old.
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN MISSING AFTER ACCIDENT.
The picture underneath was Thomas Anderson.
My uncle.
"Thomas wasn't killed," the judge said.
"He disappeared because he was afraid."
"Afraid of who?"
The judge looked at me.
"Your father."
I felt anger rise.
"Then why is my father still free?"
"Because we never had enough evidence."
I laughed bitterly.
"So everyone just waited?"
"No."
The judge's expression hardened.
"Your grandfather spent years collecting evidence."
"Then where is it?"
He looked at me.
"That's what your father has been trying to find."
I remembered the storage unit.
The missing records.
The stolen courthouse files.
Everything suddenly made sense.
My father wasn't trying to prove I was unstable.
He was trying to get access.
He needed control over the farm.
Because he believed something was hidden there.
Something my grandfather protected.
"What's under the property?"
The judge didn't answer.
Instead, he walked to the window.
"Your grandfather discovered something underground fifteen years ago."
"What?"
"A sealed room."
I stared at him.
"A room?"
"An old structure built before the land became your grandfather's."
"What's inside?"
The judge looked back at me.
"That is what nobody knows."
I felt a chill.
"Nobody?"
"Your grandfather was the only person who entered."
"Then why didn't he tell anyone?"
"Because after he entered that room, he changed."
I thought about my grandfather.
The warnings.
The fear.
The locked office.
"What did he find?"
The judge lowered his voice.
"Evidence."
"Evidence of what?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Then he said:
"Evidence that could destroy powerful people."
That night, I returned to the farm.
I couldn't sleep.
Every room reminded me of something I had missed.
My grandfather sitting at the kitchen table.
My mother laughing in the hallway.
My father pretending to be someone he wasn't.
I went back into my grandfather's office.
I searched every corner.
Every drawer.
Every shelf.
Until I found something behind an old bookshelf.
A small metal plate.
I pulled it loose.
Behind it was a hidden compartment.
Inside was a notebook.
The cover was damaged.
But the handwriting was clear.
Robert Anderson.
I opened it.
The first page contained only one sentence.
"If Emily has found this, then they are already close."
I froze.
I turned the page.
My grandfather had written dates.
Names.
Locations.
And one final entry.
The last entry before his death.
"Thomas returned."
My heart stopped.
I kept reading.
"He's alive. But he is not the man who left."
I looked at the next line.
"The person who destroyed Rachel's investigation is someone inside this family."
My hands tightened around the notebook.
Then I heard something.
A noise outside.
A car door closing.
I slowly stood.
The farmhouse was silent.
Too silent.
I walked toward the window.
A dark vehicle was parked near the driveway.
The headlights were off.
Someone was standing beside it.
Watching the house.
My phone suddenly vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
I opened it.
My blood went cold.
The message said:
"Stop looking for your uncle."
I stared at the screen.
A second message appeared.
May you like
"Because he is already looking for you."
Then the front door handle slowly began to turn.
