Chapter 2 - THE MEN WHO CAME AFTER MIDNIGHT
“Get your son away from the windows.”
Gideon Croft’s voice had changed.
The man who had laughed over birthday cake moments earlier was gone. In his place sat someone Neta Campbell recognized only from whispered stories.
Someone who had survived things most people never imagined.
Thomas pressed his radio against his ear.
“Three vehicles, sir. Maybe twelve men. They’re waiting outside the south gate.”
“Whose men?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Declan Walsh.”
Gideon’s expression hardened.
Neta immediately reached for Laith.
“We need to leave.”
“You will,” Gideon said. “But not through that gate.”
Laith looked between the adults.
“Are they bad guys?”
Neta crouched beside him.
“They’re people Mommy doesn't know, sweetheart. Stay close.”
Gideon turned toward Thomas.
“Lock the interior gates. Keep everyone outside.”
Thomas nodded, but his hands were trembling.
Before he could leave, the security monitor beside the dining-room entrance illuminated.
A man stood beneath an umbrella outside the gate.
Expensive charcoal coat.
Silver hair at the temples.
A face that might have belonged to a respected banker.
Declan Walsh.
“Happy birthday, Gideon,” he said through the intercom.
Gideon didn't answer.
Declan smiled.
“I see you're celebrating privately.”
“What do you want?”
“Your cooperation.”
Declan lifted a document toward the camera.
“The emergency management agreement expires at midnight. I'm exercising my right to inventory the estate's business records before that happens.”
“You have no right to enter my home.”
“Your signature says otherwise.”
Gideon's jaw tightened.
Six months earlier, while recovering in the hospital, he had authorized Declan to handle certain business matters.
Payroll.
Insurance.
Outstanding contracts.
Temporary authority.
Nothing more.
But Declan had gradually treated that authorization as ownership.
“Come back with a court order,” Gideon said.
Declan lowered the document.
“You know, Arthur always said your greatest weakness was believing loyalty could survive disappointment.”
Gideon gripped his wheelchair's armrest.
“Don't speak about Arthur.”
“Then don't force me to finish what he started.”
The monitor went dark.
Thomas stared at the screen.
“What did he mean?” Neta asked.
Gideon didn't answer immediately.
“Thomas, take Mrs. Campbell and her son to the kitchen. They'll stay there until we're certain the roads are clear.”
Neta stiffened.
“I'm not staying in a house where armed men are circling outside.”
“Neither am I asking you to.”
“Then why can't we leave?”
Gideon looked toward the rain-darkened windows.
“Because Declan brought three vehicles for a property inspection that requires one accountant.”
That silenced her.
Thomas escorted them away from the windows.
Laith carried his cake plate carefully.
Halfway across the dining room, his napkin slipped beneath a chair.
“I got it.”
He crouched.
Then stopped.
“Mom?”
“What, honey?”
“Why does this chair have a pocket?”
Neta bent beside him.
Beneath the upholstered seat was a narrow canvas pouch, stitched into the lining with dark blue thread.
Something rectangular filled it.
Neta frowned.
She reached underneath.
A folded envelope slid into her hand.
On its front, written in careful blue ink, was a number.
7\.
She looked at the next chair.
Another pocket.
Another envelope.
Then another.
“Mr. Croft?”
Gideon turned.
“Did you know someone sewed envelopes underneath your dining chairs?”
Thomas stopped walking.
His face drained.
Gideon wheeled closer.
“What envelopes?”
Neta showed him the first.
Thomas whispered something under his breath.
Gideon heard it.
“Arthur?”
The older man closed his eyes.
“Yes, sir.”
For several seconds, the rain was the only sound.
Then Gideon asked, “How many?”
Thomas looked toward the table.
“Thirty-nine.”
Neta slowly straightened.
Every empty chair contained an envelope.
Every single one.
“Arthur gave them to me shortly before he died,” Thomas admitted. “He said if you ever held a gathering and nobody came, I was to put them beneath the chairs.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because he said you weren't ready.”
Gideon's expression darkened.
“Arthur has been dead four months, Thomas. You don't get to decide what I'm ready to know.”
Thomas lowered his head.
“No, sir.”
Neta glanced at Laith.
“Bug, go sit by the kitchen doorway where I can see you.”
He obeyed without arguing.
Gideon opened envelope seven.
Inside were two documents.
One was a copy of a payment request from a widow named Miriam Hale.
The other was a rejection notice bearing Gideon's signature.
The request was for twenty-seven hundred dollars.
Money from a relief fund Gideon had established for families affected by dangerous work connected to his businesses.
The rejection notice contained one sentence.
Applicant refused assistance and requested no further contact.
Gideon stared at it.
“I never rejected this.”
Thomas said nothing.
Gideon turned the page.
The signature looked exactly like his.
But the date was eleven days after the ambush.
At a time when Gideon had been heavily sedated in intensive care.
Neta noticed something else.
The same small blue printing defect ran across both pages.
She handled bakery invoices every day.
She knew what a repeated printing mark meant.
“These were copied together,” she said. “Someone wanted them to look like they belonged together.”
Gideon looked up.
“What are you saying?”
“I'm saying I wouldn't trust the second document without seeing the original.”
Thomas sank into an empty chair.
Outside, one of the vehicles switched on its headlights.
Gideon looked at the envelope again.
Then at the thirty-eight others.
“Thomas,” he said quietly, “how many families received letters like this?”
Thomas swallowed.
“Every family whose representative was invited tonight.”
Gideon looked down at the table.
Thirty-nine empty chairs.
Thirty-nine people he had believed abandoned him.
Neta understood before he did.
“They might not have stayed away because you were injured,” she whispered.
Gideon raised his eyes.
She continued.
“They might have stayed away because someone convinced them you betrayed them.”
And from the other end of the table, Thomas whispered something even worse.
“Sir, Miriam Hale believes you personally ordered the route change that killed her husband.”
Gideon went completely still.
Because he remembered that route.
May you like
And he remembered exactly who had begged him to change it.
Declan Walsh.
