The name appeared in a report that had been overlooked for eleven years.
Not Victor.
Not Sarah.
Not Michael.
A fourth name.
Thomas Whitmore.
Eleanor stared at it.
“My father-in-law?”
Robert looked at the page.
Thomas Whitmore had been Robert's father.
He had died fifteen years before the fire.
Daniel frowned.
“He couldn't have opened the account.”
“No,” Robert said.
“Then why is his name there?”
Robert took the report.
His face became unreadable.
“My father knew about the second account.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“You never told me.”
“I didn't know how.”
“You've said that too many times.”
Robert nodded.
“You're right.”
Michael sat down.
“Grandfather was involved?”
“Not willingly.”
Robert read the report.
“He was used as a front.”
“By Victor?”
“I thought so.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Look at the date.”
Robert did.
The account had been opened before Victor began working with Robert's firm.
That changed everything.
Marcus stepped closer.
“So Victor inherited the operation.”
Robert looked up.
“Or joined it later.”
Eleanor asked, “Who started it?”
Nobody answered.
The room fell silent.
Then Sarah spoke.
“Thomas.”
Everyone turned.
Eleanor stared.
“No.”
Sarah looked uncomfortable.
“I don't mean he created the network.”
“Then what?”
“He discovered it.”
Robert nodded slowly.
“That is possible.”
Eleanor looked between them.
“My father-in-law discovered illegal accounts?”
“Yes,” Sarah said.
“And what did he do?”
“He tried to expose them.”
Daniel looked at Robert.
“That's why you became involved.”
Robert nodded.
“My father asked me to investigate.”
“When?”
“Before I met you.”
Eleanor's expression changed.
“So this started before our marriage.”
“Yes.”
“Then Victor wasn't the beginning.”
“No.”
“What happened to your father?”
Robert hesitated.
“He died suddenly.”
Eleanor stared at him.
“Like you.”
Robert didn't answer.
She understood.
“He was murdered.”
“We never proved it.”
“But you suspected.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor stood.
“All these years, you knew your father's death might have been connected.”
“I suspected.”
“And you still married me.”
“I loved you.”
“That doesn't answer the question.”
Robert looked at her.
“It was the reason I couldn't let you become involved.”
She turned away.
Daniel examined the report.
“There is another name.”
Michael came closer.
“Who?”
Daniel pointed.
A company appeared beneath Thomas's name.
Whitmore Holdings.
Michael frowned.
“That company doesn't exist anymore.”
“It existed then,” Daniel said.
“What did it own?”
“Property.”
Eleanor remembered something.
“The cabin.”
Everyone looked at her.
“The cabin belonged to Thomas.”
Robert nodded.
“Yes.”
“And the station?”
Robert's expression changed.
“My father owned that too.”
Eleanor understood.
“The places you used weren't random.”
“No.”
“They were his.”
Robert nodded.
“Thomas built a private archive beneath the station.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Why?”
“To keep records away from the company.”
Marcus turned toward his computer.
“If the archive belonged to Thomas, there may be another section.”
Michael stood.
“We searched the station.”
“Not completely,” Robert said.
“What did we miss?”
“The old signal room.”
Eleanor looked confused.
“What is that?”
Robert smiled faintly.
“The place where my father kept things he didn't trust anyone else to see.”
They returned to the station that afternoon.
The investigators had sealed the entrance.
Marcus led them inside.
The old signal room was hidden behind a false wall.
Daniel found the mechanism.
A section of panel shifted.
Behind it was a narrow staircase.
Dust covered the steps.
Eleanor followed Robert down.
At the bottom was a metal cabinet.
Robert opened it.
Inside were dozens of files.
Thomas's handwriting covered the labels.
Michael picked up one.
“This is from twenty years ago.”
Robert opened it.
The first page contained a list of names.
Several were familiar.
One belonged to Victor.
Another belonged to a former government official.
Another belonged to a bank executive.
Daniel read quietly.
“This is bigger than Victor.”
Robert nodded.
Eleanor looked at the documents.
“Then why was Victor blamed?”
“Because he was the visible part.”
Sarah looked at Robert.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“Who was behind him?”
Robert shook his head.
“I never found out.”
Daniel turned another page.
“Maybe you did.”
He pointed to a handwritten note.
Thomas had written:
THE PERSON AT THE TOP NEVER USES THEIR OWN NAME.
Beneath it was a symbol.
A circle divided by a vertical line.
Eleanor recognized it.
She had seen it before.
On the black envelope.
She reached into her bag.
The envelope was still there.
Daniel compared the symbols.
Same mark.
Michael whispered, “Victor didn't send that.”
“No,” Robert said.
“Then who did?”
Robert looked at Eleanor.
“Someone who knew where the archive was.”
Eleanor thought about the airport.
The messages.
The suitcase.
The false photograph.
The anonymous caller.
Someone had wanted her to find the notebook.
Someone else had wanted her to believe Robert was responsible.
And now they were discovering that both could have been part of the same plan.
Marcus called from the doorway.
“There's someone outside.”
Everyone froze.
“Who?”
“A woman.”
Sarah stepped forward.
“Who?”
Marcus looked at her.
“She says her name is Anna Whitmore.”
Robert's face went blank.
Eleanor stared at him.
“Who is Anna?”
Robert didn't answer.
Marcus repeated the name.
“Anna Whitmore.”
Michael whispered, “Dad?”
Robert looked toward the stairs.
Then he said quietly, “My sister.”
Eleanor stared.
“You have a sister?”
“I did.”
“What happened to her?”
Robert's expression tightened.
“She disappeared twenty years ago.”
Marcus called again.
“She says she knows who opened the second account.”
Eleanor looked at Robert.
Robert didn't move.
Then a woman's voice floated up the stairs.
“Robert?”
He closed his eyes.
For the first time since returning from the dead, he looked genuinely frightened.
Click Here to continue read next: PART11: Robert’s Missing Sister Returned With an Explanation That Forced the Family to Reconsider Who Had Controlled the Secret Account All Along
She Had Been Waiting Beside the Red Suitcase for Nearly an Hour When a Stranger Finally Asked Why She Was Crying
Part 10 of 16
