“He wanted to make sure if we ever got out that we got out cleanly.” Mom opens the locked door and steps inside. “He wanted to make sure you were safe.”
Fuck. I follow her into the small house. It looks like a small cabin. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe something amazing that would give me insight into my father’s brain. Maybe something that would tell me why he left us if he cared enough to build this.
Mom kneels on the floor and draws back the ratty rug, uncovering another locked metal door. She stops and looks up at me.
“The only way Sean would have left us was if he was dead.” Tears gather in her eyes, but they don’t fall. “I told him to let things go when he found some errors in the accounting records while programming their new system, but he kept digging. Your dad couldn’t sit back and let what was happening go.”
“What was happening?” My knees feel weak, so I lean against the wall.
“He thought someone was embezzling, but it really was them paying for goods.” Mom straightens and tugs open the door. She shakes her head. “I told him to leave it alone, but he said he had proof.”
“Proof of what?”
She leans down to the shallow hole and pulls out a backpack. Her eyes lock on mine. “You’re a good kid, and I see a lot of Sean in you. What we do with what we find has to be discussed before you storm off to fight for justice.”
I don’t know what to say. “What does that mean?”
“William Foster, Mark Lee, Bruce Ross, Cameron Jacobs, and Robert Hill were the horsemen of our time. But they didn’t want out. They wanted to dominate everything. They had money, but it wasn’t enough to build their empires.”
My mind is spinning. All of their fathers? We only knew Luke’s, Nico’s, and Caden’s were involved. “All of them?”
“Robert Hill was probably the first to defect.” She smiles. “Jack reminds me a lot of him. Money wasn’t the most important thing in his life. Cameron was next. Cameron was always more interested in working hard to achieve his goals. Though he wasn’t above cheating to get there.”
I’ve never met Eli’s dad or Jack’s parents. Or even Caden’s parents.
“William has always been a cruel man. He founded a few illegal businesses and moved the money through his legitimate businesses.”
“How do you know this?” My mind spins with all the possibilities.
“Sean.” Her smile is sad and wistful and proud at the same time. “He figured all that out. But he didn’t figure out the businesses.” Her smile falls. “But I did.”
“Why didn’t we leave this town when dad left—” I swallow the bitter pill at the realization. “Or if you knew he was dead, why did we stay?”
She sighs and her hand strokes the backpack. “My reasons are many, but I’ll tell them to you, if you really want to know.”
I don’t know if I want to know.
“You sure you want me to pull back the veil, Dorothy?” She gives me a world-weary smirk.
I spin my ring. Ignorance didn’t help me before. Maybe knowledge will help us now. “Yes.”
CHAPTER 52
The Safe House
Harper
Mom sits back on her heels. Her eyes meet mine. “First off, a trust holds this land. It’s yours.”
“What?”
“Your father put it in a trust for you. This is the only building on it, but he wanted to keep the forests that his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather hunted. It’s also something no one else knows about and it’s where he kept his encrypted evidence. The title deed is in the trust’s name.”
“Is there something I’m supposed to do with it?” This isn’t exactly a place I want to put down roots. I don’t want to stay in this town.
“There’s a letter that will be delivered when you’re twenty-five. I don’t know what’s in it. Only that it exists.” She wipes her hands on her jeans. Her eyes meet mine.
I hold my breath. Fuck, shit’s about to get real. I slide down the wall to sit on the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees. Mom draws in a breath as she kneels next to the hole. Her gaze stays on me.
