Chapter 4 - THE DRIVER
Nobody looked at Owen.
Not at first.
That made it worse.
He was standing near the book press with both hands at his sides.
His face had gone completely blank.
Julian picked up the tiny strip of paper.
“Owen.”
Owen exhaled.
“I was twenty-two.”
Julian’s voice stayed calm.
“What does that sentence mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Samir watched him carefully.
“Yes, you do.”
Owen looked at the floor.
I stood in front of Leah.
Not because I thought he would hurt her.
Because my body had decided she needed a wall.
Julian noticed.
“Owen, sit down.”
Owen obeyed.
For the first time since I had met him, he no longer looked like a polished chief of staff.
He looked young.
Cornered.
Ashamed.
“My father was Edmund Mercer’s driver.”
Julian’s expression changed.
“You told me he worked for the family office.”
“He did.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Owen rubbed both hands over his face.
“His name was Patrick Brooks. He drove your father for fifteen years.”
I knew that name.
Not from the museum.
From my father.
“He came to my father’s funeral.”
Owen looked up sharply.
“Yes.”
“A gray-haired man who stood in the back.”
“That was him.”
“Why?”
“Because he never forgave himself.”
Julian put the paper on the table.
“For what?”
Owen looked at him.
“The night Thomas was attacked, my father drove him.”
My legs weakened.
Samir pulled out a chair for me.
Owen continued.
“Edmund told my father to take Thomas home after a late meeting.”
“From the museum?” Julian asked.
“Yes.”
“Who else knew?”
Owen hesitated.
“Victor.”
Of course.
“But Victor wasn’t the one who paid my father.”
Julian’s eyes sharpened.
“Paid him for what?”
“To change the route.”
The room went silent.
I stared at Owen.
“Your father delivered my father to whoever attacked him?”
“No.”
Owen’s answer came fast.
“He was told there would be reporters outside Thomas’s apartment. He was paid to avoid the main road and stop behind a hotel where another car would meet them.”
“By whom?”
Owen looked sick.
“He said he never saw the person directly.”
Julian slapped his palm against the table.
“Then why does my father’s note say ask Owen?”
Owen flinched.
“Because Edmund found out later that I knew.”
Julian froze.
“You knew?”
“I overheard my father arguing with someone.”
“When?”
“Years later.”
I could feel anger building.
“You have been working beside Julian all this time knowing something happened to my father?”
“I knew my father had changed the route.”
“That is something.”
“I didn’t know Thomas would be attacked.”
“Neither did your father?”
Owen’s voice broke.
“No.”
I wanted to hate him.
It would have been easier.
Then Leah spoke.
“Did your dad say sorry?”
Every adult looked at her.
Owen swallowed.
“Every day.”
Leah nodded once.
Then she went quiet.
That was my daughter.
Ten years old.
No speech.
No judgment beyond the question that mattered to her.
Julian sat across from Owen.
“Who paid Patrick?”
Owen looked toward Samir.
“My father kept one thing.”
He reached into his jacket and removed his wallet.
Behind his license was a folded receipt.
Old.
Nearly transparent.
“He carried it until he died. I took it because I thought eventually I would understand it.”
Julian unfolded it carefully.
A cash withdrawal.
Twenty thousand dollars.
From a charitable discretionary account.
Mercer Foundation.
Julian looked at the authorization line.
The signature was his father’s.
My anger shifted immediately.
“So Edmund paid him.”
“No,” Owen said.
Julian looked up.
“That is his signature.”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to believe somebody forged my father’s signature too?”
Owen’s eyes went toward Leah.
“She already proved someone forged Thomas Carter’s.”
Julian said nothing.
Samir took the receipt.
“This account required two approvals back then.”
Julian frowned.
“How do you know?”
“Because Edmund complained about it constantly.”
“Who had the second authority?”
Samir gave him a sad look.
“Your mother.”
Julian went still.
I knew almost nothing about Eleanor Mercer except that the museum’s east wing carried her name.
She had died five years earlier.
Julian’s voice dropped.
“My mother had nothing to do with acquisitions.”
“Officially,” Samir said.
“That is not an answer.”
“No. It is history.”
Julian stood and walked toward the window.
The discovery had broken something inside him.
Until then, this had been about his father.
Now the rot had entered both sides of his family.
I recognized that pain.
I had felt it every time another piece of my father’s hidden life surfaced.
“Julian.”
He turned.
I surprised myself by speaking gently.
“We still don’t know she did anything.”
His expression softened slightly.
“No.”
Owen said, “There’s more.”
Julian almost laughed.
“There always is.”
Owen unfolded the receipt.
A number had been written on the back.
Not an account number.
A hotel room.
416.
Samir stared at it.
“The Fairmont.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Thomas told me that number once.”
My skin prickled.
“When?”
“After the attack.”
“What did he say?”
Samir closed his eyes, remembering.
“He said the person in Room 416 had been more frightened than he was.”
Julian turned.
“The attacker?”
“No.”
Samir shook his head.
“The witness.”
That changed everything.
“Who was it?”
“Thomas never told me.”
Leah opened her library book.
She turned several pages, then stopped.
“What?”
I asked.
She showed me a pencil mark in the margin.
416.
Next to it my father had written one Arabic word.
Leah read it aloud.
“Witness.”
Julian crouched beside her.
“Anything else?”
She turned the page.
Nothing.
Then another.
Nothing.
Then she reached the inside front cover.
The paper lining had separated slightly.
Leah slipped her finger under it.
A photograph was hidden there.
She pulled it free.
Four people stood in a hotel corridor.
My father.
Edmund Mercer.
A younger Victor Langley.
And a woman I recognized from every plaque in the museum’s east wing.
Eleanor Mercer.
Julian stared at his mother.
On the back, my father had written:
ROOM 416. SHE SAW WHO TOOK THE BAG.
Julian’s voice barely carried.
“My mother knew who attacked Thomas.”
Then Samir looked at the photograph and whispered:
“No, Julian.”
May you like
He pointed at Eleanor’s hand.
“She was holding the bag.”
