Chapter 6 - The Man Ethan Never Told Me AboutEthan drove without speaking.
I watched the road.
My hands were cold.
Finally I asked,
“Did your father pay Daniel?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I was there.”
I turned toward him.
“What do you mean?”
“It happened twenty years ago.”
He gripped the steering wheel.
“Daniel contacted my father. He had evidence against Lauren's father.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Financial records.”
“And Richard paid him?”
“To leave.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“Because my father believed the records were stolen.”
I stared at him.
“Was that true?”
“I don't know.”
He was silent for several seconds.
“My father told me Daniel was a liar.”
“But you remembered him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I thought it was unrelated.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everything keeps being unrelated until it becomes my life.”
Ethan looked at me.
“I was twenty-two.”
“And Daniel?”
“Seventeen.”
That made everything worse.
“What happened to him?”
“My father gave him money and threatened to call the police.”
“Did he take it?”
“Yes.”
“And disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“We don't know.”
I looked out the window.
“So Daniel has spent seventeen years hiding.”
“Or planning.”
We reached an old storage facility Richard had once owned.
The building was nearly abandoned.
Inside, Ethan unlocked a private unit.
Boxes filled the room.
He opened one.
Inside were documents.
Old contracts.
Bank statements.
Photographs.
And one cassette tape.
I stared at it.
“What is that?”
“My father's personal recordings.”
“Why keep them?”
“I don't know.”
He lifted the tape.
“We need to find a player.”
Back at the house, an old recorder was found in Richard's study.
We listened.
Static.
Then Richard's voice.
From twenty years ago.
“Daniel, this is the last offer.”
A younger male voice responded.
“You know what your company did.”
“Watch your accusations.”
“I have proof.”
“What do you want?”
“Protection.”
“You'll leave town.”
“And my sister?”
“She'll be safe.”
My eyes widened.
Daniel had a sister.
Then Richard's voice returned.
“Once you're gone, this ends.”
The tape clicked.
Silence.
Then another voice.
A woman.
Lauren.
Young.
Terrified.
“Dad, you promised.”
Richard's voice became sharp.
“Get upstairs.”
“You said nobody would hurt Daniel.”
“I said I would handle it.”
“Then why did he call me?”
“He shouldn't have.”
I looked at Ethan.
“Stop.”
He paused the tape.
“What?”
“Go back.”
He replayed the final section.
Lauren's voice.
“Then why did he call me?”
Richard:
“He shouldn't have.”
A door slammed.
Then the recording continued.
Very faintly.
A second male voice.
“She's the girl.”
Richard:
“Who?”
“She knows.”
My blood turned cold.
“Who said that?”
Ethan rewound.
We listened again.
The voice was barely audible.
But one word was clear.
Pierce.
My mother's name.
Then static.
Then nothing.
I stood.
“Someone was in your father's office.”
“Apparently.”
“Someone who knew my mother.”
Ethan nodded.
I stared at him.
“Why would they call her name?”
Before he could answer, another sound came from the recorder.
A click.
The tape wasn't finished.
There was a hidden section.
Ethan turned up the volume.
A man's voice whispered:
“If anything happens to me, the ledger is buried beneath the restaurant.”
I stopped breathing.
The restaurant.
My restaurant.
We looked at each other.
The voice continued.
“Not the old one.”
A pause.
“The new one.”
Then the tape ended.
I whispered,
“Which restaurant?”
Ethan looked at me.
“The one you just bought last year.”
My skin prickled.
We drove there immediately.
The restaurant was closed for the night.
Marcus met us outside.
I told him about the hidden ledger.
He looked uneasy.
“There's something I've never told you.”
“What?”
“The basement wasn't built by us.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“When we renovated this place, we found a sealed staircase behind the old storage wall.”
My heart started pounding.
“Where?”
Marcus pointed toward the kitchen.
“We never opened it.”
I looked at Ethan.
Then at the dark restaurant.
May you like
Somewhere beneath the floor where my customers laughed, ate and celebrated, someone had hidden evidence seventeen years ago.
And apparently, someone else knew exactly where it was.
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