Chapter 4 – The Father's Secret
Chapter 4 – The Father's Secret
The room remained silent long after the final video froze on the laptop screen.
Victor Langston stood in the grainy footage, shaking hands with a man whose face remained hidden beneath the shadow of a baseball cap.
Only four words echoed in Adrian's mind.
"It's just like Robert."
His father had been dead for five years.
Yet somehow...
He was still at the center of everything.
Harold Bennett slowly lowered himself into a chair.
His hands trembled so violently that Detective Hayes poured him a glass of water.
"You said you recognized the voice."
Harold nodded without looking up.
"I'd know it anywhere."
"Who is he?"
Harold took a long breath.
"Samuel Reeves."
The name meant nothing to Adrian.
"He worked for us?"
"No."
"He worked for your father."
Adrian frowned.
"My father handled all financial matters himself."
Harold shook his head.
"Only publicly."
He looked ashamed.
"There were certain... private transactions."
"What kind of transactions?"
"I never knew."
"Robert kept them separate from the company books."
"Only Samuel handled them."
Detective Hayes opened her notebook.
"Where is Samuel Reeves now?"
Harold hesitated.
"No one knows."
"He disappeared the week after Robert's funeral."
"Disappeared?"
"Resigned."
"Sold his house."
"Closed every bank account."
"And vanished."
Hayes exchanged a glance with Adrian.
"Convenient."
The vault manager returned carrying another sealed envelope.
"Mr. DeLuca."
"I found this beneath the false bottom of the deposit box."
Adrian looked up sharply.
"There was a false compartment?"
The manager nodded.
"It was hidden very well."
Inside the envelope rested a single brass key and an old business card.
The card had yellowed with age.
Printed across it were the words:
Wellington & Pierce Attorneys-at-Law
On the back, written in Elena's handwriting:
Ask for Margaret's file.
Harold's face changed instantly.
"Margaret..."
"My mother?"
Harold nodded.
"She met with Wellington & Pierce several times after your father's death."
Adrian stared at him.
"You never told me."
"She asked me not to."
"Why?"
Harold answered quietly.
"Because she believed someone inside the family was listening."
An hour later, Adrian and Detective Hayes arrived at the oldest law office in the city.
Mahogany shelves lined every wall.
Leather-bound books filled the room with the scent of old paper.
A receptionist escorted them into a private office.
An elderly lawyer stood as they entered.
"Mr. Adrian DeLuca."
"You knew my parents?"
The man smiled sadly.
"I knew your father."
"And I admired your mother."
He noticed the brass key.
"So..."
"...Elena found it."
"You were expecting me?"
The lawyer nodded.
"For five years."
"My name is Charles Wellington."
He unlocked a narrow cabinet hidden behind a bookshelf.
Inside sat a worn leather file marked:
Margaret DeLuca – Confidential
Charles placed it carefully on the desk.
"Your mother instructed me never to release this unless two conditions were met."
"What conditions?"
"She passed away."
"And someone attempted to kill Elena."
Adrian felt his heartbeat quicken.
"She knew?"
Charles looked down.
"I believe she feared it."
Inside the file were newspaper clippings.
Medical reports.
Handwritten notes.
And one unopened letter addressed to Adrian.
The handwriting belonged to his mother.
He carefully unfolded the pages.
My dear Adrian,
If you're reading this, then history has begun repeating itself.
Elena asked the same questions your father once asked.
I begged Robert to stop looking.
He refused.
Adrian's eyes widened.
His father had been investigating something?
Everyone believes your father died of a heart attack.
I believed that too.
Until three weeks before his funeral.
A lump formed in Adrian's throat.
I found documents hidden inside his study.
They proved someone had been falsifying the company's financial statements for years.
Robert planned to expose them.
Harold closed his eyes.
"So he knew."
Charles nodded.
"Yes."
Adrian continued reading.
The night before he died, Robert told me,
"If anything happens to me, never trust Victor."
Silence filled the office.
The words seemed impossible.
Victor had organized Robert's funeral.
He had comforted the family.
He had promised to protect Adrian.
Every memory suddenly felt poisoned.
The letter continued.
Robert scheduled a meeting with the Board the following morning.
He never arrived.
Adrian whispered,
"He died that night."
Charles nodded.
"So the official report says."
Detective Hayes opened another folder inside the file.
A coroner's report.
Original cause of death:
Acute Myocardial Infarction.
Attached beneath it...
A second report.
Unsigned.
Never submitted.
Hayes frowned.
"This wasn't in the police archives."
She read further.
Then looked up.
"This pathologist questioned the findings."
"Why?"
Charles answered.
"Because Robert's blood sample contained traces of digitalis."
Adrian stared blankly.
"What is digitalis?"
Hayes answered.
"A heart medication."
Charles added quietly,
"In the correct dose, it saves lives."
Hayes finished the sentence.
"In the wrong dose..."
"...it can stop the heart."
The room fell completely silent.
"My father was poisoned?"
Charles shook his head.
"We don't know."
"But the doctor believed further testing was necessary."
"What happened to him?"
"He resigned two weeks later."
"And left the country."
Hayes sighed.
"Another disappearing witness."
Harold walked toward the office window.
"I should have known."
"You couldn't."
"I should have."
He turned back toward Adrian.
"The day Robert died..."
"...Victor insisted on handling every detail."
"The hospital."
"The funeral."
"The legal paperwork."
"Everything."
Adrian remembered.
At the time, it had seemed compassionate.
Now...
It looked like control.
Charles reached into the bottom drawer of his desk.
"There is one last item."
He removed a small cassette recorder.
"My mother left this?"
"No."
"Your father."
Adrian froze.
"He recorded it the afternoon before his death."
Charles placed it gently on the desk.
"He said if anything happened to him..."
"...someone had to know the truth."
The tape hissed softly as it began to play.
Robert DeLuca's voice filled the office.
Calm.
Confident.
Completely unaware that less than twenty-four hours later he would be dead.
"If you're listening to this..."
"...then I was right."
Adrian's hands tightened.
"I've spent six months tracing missing funds."
"The fraud is bigger than I imagined."
"Victor isn't acting alone."
Hayes immediately wrote down every word.
"I finally know who has been helping him."
The room seemed to shrink.
"Who?"
Adrian whispered to the recorder.
Robert answered.
"The person I trusted most."
The tape crackled.
Then continued.
"Tomorrow morning..."
"...I'm confronting both of them."
Both.
There was someone else.
Suddenly, the recording stopped.
The tape had reached its end.
Adrian looked at Charles.
"That's it?"
Charles frowned.
"It shouldn't be."
"There was another side."
He turned the cassette over.
Empty.
The magnetic tape had been torn away.
Someone had deliberately removed the second half of Robert's final message.
Detective Hayes stared at the broken cassette.
"They didn't just kill him."
"They erased what he knew."
Before anyone could speak again, Charles's secretary knocked urgently on the office door.
"Mr. Wellington..."
"What is it?"
She looked pale.
"There's someone here asking for the DeLuca file."
Charles frowned.
"Who?"
The secretary swallowed.
"He says..."
"...his name is Samuel Reeves."
The room fell into stunned silence.
The man who had disappeared for five years...
Had just walked into the building on his own.
May you like
And he was asking for the same file Adrian now held in his hands.
End of Chapter 4
