Chapter 4 - Julia’s Name
Daniel refused to answer at first.
That only made Evan angrier.
“Yesterday you accused me in front of twenty people.”
“I know.”
“You searched my bag.”
“I know.”
“You believed Claire immediately.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
“So don’t stand there now and decide I’m too young to hear the truth.”
Linda said nothing.
Neither did Marisol.
Daniel sat at the kitchen table.
“When your mother was alive, she didn’t trust Adrian.”
Evan stared at him.
“You never told me that.”
“It wasn’t something I wanted you carrying.”
“What did she think he did?”
Daniel glanced at Linda.
She gave a small nod.
“Five years ago, Mercer Ridge was smaller. We had cash problems after a hotel project went bad. Adrian controlled purchasing. Julia was doing some part-time bookkeeping from home.”
Evan remembered his mother with spreadsheets open at the dining table.
“She found payments she couldn’t match to jobs.”
“Northstar?”
“No. A different vendor.”
“What happened?”
“Adrian said they were legitimate expenses.”
“And Mom believed him?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
Daniel’s silence answered.
Evan pushed away from the table.
“You believed him.”
“Adrian was my brother.”
“And Mom was your wife.”
The words landed harder than Evan intended.
Daniel flinched.
“I told her I would review it.”
“Did you?”
“Not properly.”
Evan laughed bitterly.
“So this isn’t new.”
“We do not know that.”
“You didn’t know I stole Grace’s phone either.”
Daniel stood.
“That was wrong.”
“It was easy.”
“What?”
“Believing the worst person was whoever Claire pointed at.”
Nobody spoke.
Evan went upstairs.
He entered his bedroom and closed the door.
The room still looked exactly as it had before the party.
Posters.
Desk.
Laundry he had been told three times to put away.
His mother’s old wooden box sat on the top shelf of his closet.
He took it down.
Most of the contents were sentimental.
Photographs.
Birthday cards.
A broken silver watch.
A recipe book.
An old external hard drive.
Evan held the drive.
He remembered Julia using it.
Once, after spilling orange juice near her laptop, she had laughed and told him, Always back up anything you’d cry over losing.
He carried it downstairs.
Daniel looked at the device.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mom’s box.”
Linda found an adapter.
The drive still worked.
Most folders contained photographs.
Tax documents.
Scanned receipts.
Then Evan saw one labeled MERCER.
Inside were subfolders arranged by year.
Julia had kept copies of accounting files.
Daniel leaned closer.
Evan opened a folder from the year before she died.
Vendor discrepancies.
The spreadsheet contained seventeen highlighted payments.
Linda whispered, “Jesus.”
Daniel sat back.
One vendor name appeared repeatedly.
East Harbor Equipment.
Marisol searched company records remotely.
“Dissolved four years ago.”
“Who owned it?” Evan asked.
She checked the state business database.
Her expression hardened.
“The registered manager was Thomas Bell.”
Daniel knew the name.
“Adrian’s college roommate.”
The room went quiet.
Evan kept searching.
There were email exports.
He opened one.
From Julia to Daniel.
You keep telling me Adrian would never steal from you.
I am asking you to stop making this about whether you love your brother.
Look at the numbers.
Daniel turned away.
Evan read another.
If you refuse to investigate, you are choosing not to know.
Evan looked at his father.
Daniel’s shoulders had collapsed.
“I remember that fight,” Daniel said.
“What did you do?”
“I asked Adrian.”
“And?”
“He showed me contracts.”
“Were they real?”
“I never checked.”
Evan looked back at the screen.
The anger he felt was different now.
Older somehow.
Not just his own.
Julia had stood in the same family and watched Daniel choose certainty over questions.
Linda pointed toward another file.
“What’s that?”
It was a scanned handwritten note.
Only half a page.
Julia’s handwriting.
Daniel read aloud.
“Cedar chest. Original copies. Do not keep everything in the office.”
He stopped.
Evan knew immediately.
Their grandfather’s cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains contained an old cedar storage chest that had belonged to Julia.
Daniel looked at him.
Evan looked back.
Neither had visited the cabin in nearly a year.
Linda closed the laptop.
“We don’t tell Adrian about this.”
Daniel nodded.
Then his phone vibrated.
A text message.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
The Mercer cabin.
Taken recently.
Beneath it were five words.
May you like
YOU’RE ALREADY TOO LATE.
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