“When?”
“Maybe two months ago.”
“Why were you looking at it?”
Ethan looked at the floor.
“I wasn’t.”
“Then how did you see it?”
He exhaled.
“Michael sent it to me.”
The room went silent again.
Richard stared at his son.
“My brother has it?”
“He sent me a photograph.”
“Why?”
Ethan hesitated.
Then took out his phone.
“He said I should ask you why half of everything our family built started with a man whose name nobody was allowed to mention.”
Richard stared at Ethan’s phone without taking it.
“Michael has the agreement?”
“I don’t know if he physically has it.”
“You just said—”
“I said he sent me a photograph.”
Ethan opened the message.
The photograph showed a yellowed contract on a dark wooden table.
Across the top were the words:
CALDWELL MERCER DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT.
Two signatures were visible at the bottom.
Richard Caldwell.
Daniel Mercer.
I recognized my father’s signature immediately.
Richard sat down.
“When did Michael send this?”
“Eight weeks ago.”
“And you said nothing?”
Ethan gave a humorless laugh.
“You’re upset that I kept something from you?”
Richard’s expression tightened.
Ethan immediately looked regretful.
“That was cheap.”
“No,” Richard said. “It was deserved.”
I stepped between the direction the conversation was heading and the reason we were there.
“What did Michael want?”
Ethan scrolled through the messages.
“He said he found a box when Grandma moved out of the lake house.”
Richard’s mother had died several years earlier. I knew from neighborhood conversations that the family had sold her house only recently.
“What box?” Richard asked.
“One of Grandpa’s.”
Richard looked confused.
“My father wasn’t involved in Caldwell Mercer.”
“Apparently he kept some of your papers.”
Ethan handed him the phone.
Richard read silently.
Then rubbed his forehead.
“This makes no sense.”
“Call Michael,” I said.
Both of them looked at me.
Richard seemed uncertain.
“It’s late in Oregon.”
“It’s barely after four there.”
Ethan smiled.
“She has a point.”
Richard made the call.
Michael answered on the fourth ring.
“Dad?”
“Hello, Michael.”
A pause.
I couldn’t hear his words clearly, but I heard the surprise in his voice.
Richard glanced at me.
“I’m sitting with Victoria Mercer.”
Silence.
This time I heard Michael clearly.
“You found her?”
I raised my eyebrows.
Richard did too.
“What do you mean, found her?”
Another pause.
Richard put the call on speaker.
Michael’s voice filled the dusty office.
“I tried to find her months ago.”
“Why?”
“Because of Grandpa’s box.”
Richard closed his eyes.
“Start at the beginning.”
Michael sighed.
