Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN THE TUNNEL
Mark called Julian Cross three times.
The first call went to voicemail.
The second rang twice and disconnected.
On the third, Julian answered.
“You should not be calling me from the house.”
Mark stared at the tablet in front of him.
“That is an interesting way to say hello after I watched you crawl out of a secret tunnel under my property.”
Silence.
“Where are you?” Mark asked.
“Not somewhere I intend to tell you over your phone.”
“Then come back.”
“No.”
“My daughter nearly died today.”
That changed Julian’s breathing.
“What?”
“She fell into the upper well. Margarethe locked the grate over her.”
A curse came through the phone.
“Is Lily hurt?”
“Scraped up. Terrified. Alive.”
Julian exhaled.
Mark looked across the library at Margarethe. She sat stiffly in a leather chair. Lily had finally agreed to go with Mrs. Alvarez after Mark promised he would not disappear into another tunnel without telling her.
Mark had meant the promise.
Mostly.
“Julian,” he said, “my grandmother says your father was with Charles the night Samuel Sloan died.”
Another silence.
Then Julian said, “You found Rebecca.”
Mark gripped the phone.
“You know who she is.”
“Yes.”
“You know she is my mother.”
“Yes.”
Mark shut his eyes.
“How many people knew my life was a lie?”
“Fewer than you think.”
“One was already too many.”
“I agree.”
“Then explain why you were following us underground.”
“I was not following you.”
“I have video.”
“I was already in the tunnel.”
“Doing what?”
“Trying to get the original Sloan partnership agreement before Howard did.”
Margarethe stood.
Mark lifted one hand to stop her.
“Why?”
“Because Howard learned two weeks ago that the lower chamber had been opened.”
“By who?”
“Rebecca.”
Mark looked toward the dark garden.
“She has been using it?”
“For months.”
“Why?”
“To organize what she has collected.”
“Evidence?”
“Yes.”
“Against whom?”
Julian gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Mark, at this point the easier question is against whom not.”
Mark’s patience snapped.
“Enough. You are coming here.”
“No.”
“You are my CFO.”
“Not anymore.”
Mark frowned.
“What?”
“Check your email.”
The line went dead.
Mark lowered the phone.
His laptop chimed seconds later.
A message from the Whitmore Holdings board secretary waited in his inbox.
EMERGENCY NOTICE OF EXECUTIVE SUSPENSION.
Mark read it once.
Then again.
Effective immediately, pending review of allegations involving undisclosed conflicts of interest, possible destruction of trust property, and conduct creating material risk to the company, Mark Whitmore was suspended as chief executive.
Julian Cross was suspended as chief financial officer.
Howard Boone had requested the emergency board meeting.
Mark laughed.
Margarethe did not.
“He moved quickly,” she said.
“He moved before we did.”
“That is how the Boones have survived this family for three generations.”
Mark looked at her.
“Three generations?”
“Howard’s father represented Charles. His grandfather represented Charles’s father.”
“So this family has inherited its lawyers like a genetic disease.”
Margarethe ignored the joke.
“He will freeze your access to company records next.”
Mark opened the corporate portal.
ACCESS DENIED.
He looked at her.
“Done.”
Margarethe walked to the liquor cabinet, poured two fingers of bourbon, and drank without offering him any.
“Howard believes evidence is only dangerous when somebody else controls it.”
“Then I need Rebecca.”
“You need to keep Lily safe.”
“I can do both.”
“No.”
Mark stared at her.
“For once in your life, do not tell me what I can do.”
Margarethe set down the glass.
“You think the danger is a dusty contract. It is not.”
“Then what is it?”
“Ownership.”
“I already know Samuel owned half.”
“No.”
Mark waited.
She looked tired now.
“Samuel owned fifty-one percent.”
Mark stared.
“You said half.”
“I said half because that was the story Charles told after Samuel died.”
“So Samuel controlled the company.”
“Yes.”
“And after he died, his shares should have gone to Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“Which means my mother should own the controlling interest in Whitmore Holdings.”
Margarethe nodded.
Mark leaned against the desk.
“And Howard knows.”
“Howard knows everything.”
“Why would he care who owns it?”
“Because the Boone family received a permanent profit participation when the company was reorganized in 1974.”
“How much?”
“Three percent.”
“That is a lot of money. Not enough to explain attempted murder.”
Margarethe’s expression tightened.
“The written agreement says three.”
Mark waited.
“The side agreement says twelve.”
He laughed in disbelief.
“So Howard’s family has been taking fifteen percent of distributed profits for fifty years?”
“Through consulting entities, legal retainers, and trustee fees.”
“How much?”
“I have never calculated it.”
“I have.”
The voice came from the library doorway.
Mark spun.
Rebecca stood there.
She had removed the dirt-stained coat she wore in the tunnel and replaced it with a navy jacket. Without the lantern shadows, Mark could see her more clearly.
He could also see himself in her.
Not perfectly.
But enough to hurt.
Margarethe whispered, “Rebecca.”
Rebecca did not look at her.
She looked at Mark.
“Adjusted for the reorganizations, distributions, land sales, and trust fees, the Boone family has taken approximately eighty-four million dollars from Whitmore entities.”
Mark stared.
“And you can prove that?”
“I can prove enough of it.”
Margarethe’s voice trembled.
“You should not have come inside.”
Rebecca finally looked at her mother.
“You locked my grandson’s daughter in a well.”
“I was trying to keep her away from the lower shaft.”
“You always have a reason.”
Margarethe flinched.
Mark stepped between them.
“We are not doing thirty years of therapy in my library tonight.”
Rebecca almost smiled.
“You sound like David.”
Mark’s chest tightened.
“Tell me about him.”
The smile vanished.
Rebecca sat.
“Your father knew the truth.”
“When?”
“Not when we married. Later.”
“You married him?”
“Yes.”
Mark stared.
“So I was not an affair or some hidden child?”
“No.”
“Then why was Catherine listed as my mother on every record?”
“Because after I disappeared, Howard filed an amended birth record through a judge his father knew.”
Mark looked at Margarethe.
She did not deny it.
Rebecca continued.
“David fought them.”
“Who is them?”
“Charles. Howard. Howard’s father. Nathan Cross for a while.”
“Julian’s father.”
“Yes.”
“What did Nathan do?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“He handled transportation and private security for Charles.”
Mark felt a chill.
“The night Samuel died?”
“He drove Charles to the hunting lodge.”
“And?”
“Nathan claimed he stayed outside.”
“Did he?”
“I do not know.”
Margarethe whispered, “He lied about many things.”
Rebecca turned on her.
“So did you.”
Mark raised a hand.
“Stop. What happened to you?”
Rebecca’s face became still.
“Three months after I found the partnership agreement, Charles had me declared incompetent.”
Mark blinked.
“You were nineteen.”
“Twenty.”
“On what basis?”
“Depression. Paranoia. Delusional fixation on family conspiracies.”
Mark almost laughed at the cruelty of it.
“They called the truth a delusion.”
“Yes.”
“Where did they send you?”
“A private psychiatric facility in Pennsylvania.”
Margarethe’s eyes filled.
Rebecca saw it.
“Do not cry now.”
Margarethe whispered, “I thought it would be temporary.”
“You signed the papers.”
“I thought Charles would let you come home if you stopped fighting.”
“You thought wrong for six years.”
Mark stared at Margarethe.
“Six years?”
Rebecca nodded.
“I was released when a state investigation shut the facility down.”
“Why didn’t you come back for me?”
The question escaped before Mark could make it sound less like the four-year-old boy who had once waited at a window.
Rebecca’s face broke.
“I did.”
He could not speak.
“I came to the house. Twice.”
Mark looked at Margarethe.
She closed her eyes.
Rebecca continued.
“The first time, security removed me. The second time, Howard met me at the gate with a restraining order claiming I had threatened you.”
“I never knew.”
“I know.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Because he showed me photographs of you at school.”
Mark’s stomach turned.
“He said if I kept trying, there would be an accident.”
Margarethe whispered, “I never knew that.”
Rebecca laughed softly.
“You never wanted to know.”
Mark walked away from the desk.
He needed air.
Instead, Lily appeared in the doorway again.
Mrs. Alvarez stood behind her apologetically.
“She refused to stay at my house.”
Lily looked at Rebecca.
“Are you my grandma?”
Every adult in the room froze.
Rebecca slowly stood.
“If your dad decides he believes me.”
Lily considered that.
Then she walked closer.
“You have his eyebrows.”
Mark stared at her.
“That is your evidence?”
“They are very specific eyebrows.”
Rebecca laughed.
It was the first warm sound Mark had heard from her.
For one impossible second, the room felt almost normal.
Then the front windows flashed blue and red.
Police vehicles rolled through the gate.
Mark looked toward Margarethe.
“Did you call them?”
“No.”
Rebecca’s face went pale.
Howard entered behind two sheriff’s deputies.
He held a folder.
“Mark, I am sorry to do this tonight.”
“No, you are not.”
Howard handed a document to the senior deputy.
“This is an emergency protective order issued by the county court.”
Mark frowned.
“Protecting who from whom?”
Howard looked at Lily.
“Lily from Rebecca Sloan.”
Rebecca stepped backward.
The deputy said, “Ma’am, the order requires you to remain five hundred feet away from the child pending a hearing.”
Mark laughed in disbelief.
“Based on what?”
Howard opened the folder.
“A sworn affidavit documenting a history of psychiatric instability, threats against the Whitmore family, unlawful entry onto the property, and an attempted abduction twenty-eight years ago.”
Rebecca’s face drained.
“That was me trying to see my son.”
Howard looked at Mark.
“I told you she was dangerous.”
Mark stepped toward him.
“And I told you not to come back.”
The deputy moved between them.
“Sir.”
Howard remained calm.
Then Julian Cross walked through the front door behind the police.
Mark stared.
Julian held an old cassette recorder in one hand.
Howard’s calm expression finally cracked.
Julian looked at the deputy.
“Before you enforce anything based on Mr. Boone’s affidavit, you should hear this.”
Howard said sharply, “Julian, do not.”
Julian pressed PLAY.
A man’s frightened voice filled the library.
Mark recognized the name when Julian spoke over the recording.
“My father made this confession six days before he died.”
On the tape, Nathan Cross said:
“David Whitmore’s crash was not an accident. Howard Boone paid me to cut the brake line.”
Nobody moved.
The recording continued.
“And if anything happens to me, Howard knows I kept the original order.”
Julian reached into his jacket.
He removed a folded sheet of paper sealed inside plastic.
Howard took one step backward.
Julian looked directly at Mark.
“Your father did not die because he found the well.”
May you like
He looked at Howard.
“He died because he was going to tell you what was inside it.”
