Chapter 3 - GRANDPA FRANK’S FIRST PHONE CALL
I had never heard the name Thomas Reed.
My mother had.
That terrified me more than anything.
She stood from the kitchen table so quickly her chair fell backward.
“Dad, don't.”
Grandpa looked at her.
“How long?”
She shook her head.
“Please.”
“How long have you known?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
Grandpa held up the business card.
“Then why did you react?”
My mother started crying.
Not quietly.
Not delicately.
She folded against the kitchen counter and covered her face.
For years I had imagined my mother finally breaking down and telling me why she'd allowed Robert to hurt me.
In those fantasies, I thought seeing her cry would make me feel something.
Sympathy.
Relief.
Maybe love.
Instead, I felt exhausted.
Grandpa crouched beside her.
“Diane.”
She looked up.
“I was scared.”
“Of Robert?”
She nodded.
“Of who he used to be.”
My heart began pounding.
Grandpa sent the officers a photograph of the business card and asked them to preserve it.
Then he made another call.
This one lasted less than thirty seconds.
When he hung up, he looked ten years younger.
Not happier.
More alert.
Like some part of him that had retired years earlier had suddenly woken up.
“Ethan, pack clothes.”
“Why?”
“You're coming with me.”
“What about Mom?”
My mother looked at him hopefully.
Grandpa's answer was cold.
“She has decisions to make.”
That afternoon I left the house where I'd spent most of my childhood.
I didn't know whether I would ever return.
Grandpa lived twenty minutes away in a brick ranch house filled with old books, locked filing cabinets and photographs from a career he rarely discussed.
He gave me the guest room.
Then he made grilled cheese.
That almost destroyed me.
After everything that had happened, ordinary kindness felt unbearable.
While we ate, I asked about Thomas Reed.
Grandpa stared at his plate.
“Reed was an informant.”
“For you?”
“For a task force I worked with.”
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared.”
“When?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
The year I was born.
I noticed that immediately.
Grandpa did too.
“What does that have to do with Robert?”
“I don't know yet.”
“You think Robert knew him?”
Grandpa leaned back.
“I think Robert has something belonging to him.”
He explained that Thomas Reed had helped federal investigators build a case against a criminal financial network that laundered money through construction companies, trucking businesses and real-estate developments.
Before he could testify, he disappeared.
The case collapsed.
Some suspects went to prison on lesser charges.
Others walked away.
“What was on the card?” I asked.
“The initials T.R.”
“Could be anyone.”
“Yes.”
“But you don't think it is.”
“No.”
That night Grandpa received a call.
He listened without speaking.
Then he looked at me.
“When did your mother meet Robert?”
I told him.
Three and a half years earlier.
“Where?”
“A charity fundraiser.”
Grandpa's jaw tightened.
“What?”
“That fundraiser was sponsored by a company connected to the old Reed investigation.”
I stared at him.
“You're saying Robert married Mom because of you?”
“I don't know.”
“But you're thinking it.”
He didn't deny it.
Then his phone rang again.
This time Grandpa walked into the hallway.
I heard only fragments.
“…run the name.”
“…aliases.”
“…photograph.”
“…don't put anything unofficial in writing.”
When he returned, he sat across from me.
“Robert Hale's Social Security number was issued eleven years ago.”
“So?”
“He claims to be forty-eight.”
I understood immediately.
“That doesn't make sense.”
“No.”
“Maybe he lost documents?”
“Maybe.”
Grandpa didn't sound convinced.
Then he asked me something strange.
“Has Robert ever talked about Pittsburgh?”
“No.”
“Baltimore?”
“No.”
“Newark?”
I shook my head.
Then I remembered.
“Wait.”
Grandpa leaned forward.
“There was a storage unit.”
He froze.
“What storage unit?”
“Robert had a key on his ring. Once I asked what it opened. He said it was a storage unit for work files.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Grandpa stood.
“Think.”
I closed my eyes.
Robert had left a receipt on the kitchen counter once.
Green logo.
White building.
Name beginning with S.
Something Storage.
Then I remembered the street.
“Millbrook Road.”
Grandpa grabbed his coat.
“What?”
“Tomorrow morning we're going to find that unit.”
He stopped at the doorway.
“Ethan, from now on, assume anything Robert tried hardest to hide matters.”
I thought about the basement.
The secret email.
The card.
The storage-unit key.
And suddenly I remembered something else.
Three months earlier, I'd seen Robert burning photographs in our backyard.
One had fallen from the metal bin.
Before he snatched it away, I'd seen two men standing beside a black sedan.
May you like
One was Robert.
The other looked exactly like Grandpa Frank.
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