Chapter 6 - THE LETTERS THEY STOLE FROM HIS MOTHER
“She wrote to me, and they hid it.”
Dominic held the inventory sheet so tightly that the paper began to bend.
Helen Price gently reached for it.
“Dominic, we need to preserve that.”
He released it.
For twenty years, he'd believed the woman who gave birth to him had chosen a life without him.
Now he knew she'd tried to reach him.
And someone he trusted had helped keep them apart.
Arthur stood beside the open deposit box.
“I should have told you sooner.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Yes, Arthur. You should have.”
The old man's face crumpled.
I had never heard Dominic speak to him that way.
But Dominic continued.
“And my father should have told me. Rosa should have told me. Everyone thought they were protecting me.”
He looked down at the photograph of the garage.
“But nobody gave me a choice.”
Arthur nodded slowly.
“You're right, son.”
There was no excuse in his voice.
Only regret.
That made the moment even harder to watch.
Helen arranged for the records to be preserved and the original documents secured.
By noon, Elaine Mercer had agreed to meet with Helen and Dominic at her office, with counsel present.
I stayed with Arthur in the mansion library.
He sat looking at the gold pocket watch.
“Do you think he'll forgive me?” he asked.
I pulled a chair beside him.
“I think he's hurt.”
Arthur nodded.
“He has every reason to be.”
“You saved his life.”
“And then I let him spend twenty years believing half his life was a lie.”
I didn't know what to say.
Arthur opened the watch.
Beneath the cover was a faded photograph of Eleanor Moretti.
She was smiling, her dark hair pinned neatly behind her ears.
“Mrs. Moretti gave me this photograph,” Arthur said. “She knew Katherine existed. She never hated her.”
“Did she know Dominic wasn't her biological child when she married his father?”
“Yes.”
Arthur smiled sadly.
“She used to say loving Dominic was the easiest decision she'd ever made.”
He closed the watch.
“Eleanor wanted him to know Katherine someday. After she died, his father kept promising he'd arrange it.”
“What stopped him?”
“Charles kept gaining power. Every time your employer's father tried to challenge him, something happened. A witness lost a job. A permit vanished. Someone received a threat.”
Arthur stared at his scarred hands.
“And after the fire, we were too afraid.”
I touched his arm.
“Arthur, fear doesn't erase what you did for Dominic.”
“No,” he said quietly. “But it doesn't erase what I failed to do, either.”
That afternoon, Dominic returned with Helen.
His expression was grim.
Elaine Mercer hadn't denied taking the recording.
But she claimed she was acting under a legal instruction Charles Hartwell had obtained through an earlier settlement.
“She says my father signed an agreement to keep the garage investigation private,” Dominic told us.
Arthur frowned.
“Your father would never agree to that willingly.”
“He may have been threatened,” Helen replied.
Dominic placed another document on the desk.
“Elaine also admitted she prepared the disputed marriage agreement.”
I stared at him.
“She admitted it?”
“She admitted preparing it. She says she was told Dominic had consented and that the notarization would be completed properly.”
Helen's expression made her opinion clear.
“The problem is that the notary stamp was invalid. She can't explain why the document was circulated as executed.”
Dominic sat down.
“And the recording?”
“Elaine says Charles instructed her to keep it in secure storage. Her counsel has agreed to preserve it while the court addresses access.”
Arthur leaned forward.
“Then we can hear it?”
“Not yet,” Helen replied. “But we have grounds to seek it.”
Dominic looked toward the window.
“The woman who gave birth to me is somewhere out there. Charles knows where. And he's using that knowledge to control everyone.”
Helen shook her head.
“We know he's interfered. We don't yet know whether he knows her current location.”
Dominic nodded.
It was important not to mistake suspicion for proof.
His father had made that mistake years earlier.
He wouldn't repeat it.
Later that evening, Vivian asked to speak with him.
Dominic agreed, but only with Helen present.
I brought tea to the library.
Vivian looked exhausted.
She wore a simple gray dress and no jewelry except her mother's bracelet.
“My father wants me to sign a statement,” she said.
Dominic stared at her.
“What kind of statement?”
“That you understood the waterfront agreement and approved it.”
“That's a lie.”
“I know.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I wouldn't sign.”
Dominic waited.
Vivian swallowed.
“He said he'd shut down the foundation.”
Helen leaned forward.
“Can he?”
“He still controls the main accounts. There are families receiving temporary housing assistance. Some have nowhere else to go.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Then we need to protect them without letting him use them as hostages.”
Vivian began crying.
“I don't know how.”
Helen spoke calmly.
“An independent financial review. Emergency funding through an unrelated organization. Court supervision if misuse is established. There are options.”
Vivian nodded.
Then she reached into her handbag.
“I found something in my father's office.”
She placed a small black notebook on the desk.
Dominic didn't touch it.
“How did you get that?”
“It was among the files he'd left for me to organize. I made a copy of the pages relevant to the foundation.”
Helen took the notebook and examined it.
Inside were handwritten entries.
Dates.
Amounts.
Initials.
Several names appeared repeatedly.
E.M.
A.H.
C.H.
And K.V.
Dominic pointed at the last initials.
“Katherine Vale.”
Vivian nodded.
“Look at the amounts beside her name.”
Every entry showed a monthly payment.
Five thousand dollars.
Then six thousand.
Then eight thousand.
The payments continued until three months earlier.
Dominic frowned.
“My father was paying her?”
“No,” Vivian said. “These payments came from one of my father's companies.”
Helen examined the entries.
“Could be support. Could be hush money. Could be something else.”
Dominic looked at Vivian.
“Do you know what it was for?”
She shook her head.
“But I found the account connected to the payments.”
She handed Helen a printed statement.
The recipient was listed as Harbor House Restoration.
A small charitable workshop in Portland, Maine.
Dominic looked at the name.
“Restoration?”
Vivian nodded.
“My father kept paying them. Then he stopped three months ago.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Arthur suddenly stood.
“Harbor House.”
Dominic turned.
“You know it?”
Arthur nodded.
“Katherine restored antique clocks.”
He held up the gold pocket watch.
“She repaired this one before the fire.”
Dominic stared at the watch.
Arthur opened its back cover and turned it toward the light.
A tiny blue star had been scratched into the metal.
The same star from the child's drawing.
The same star on the postcard.
Dominic whispered, “She's been leaving us a trail.”
Then he looked at the final page in Vivian's notebook.
His expression changed.
The last payment entry contained a handwritten instruction.
NO DIRECT CONTACT. IF MORETTI APPEARS, REFER TO CHARLES.
Dominic stared at Vivian.
“My father-in-law-to-be wasn't protecting my mother.”
May you like
He lifted the notebook.
“He was paying someone to make sure I never found her.”
