Chapter 10 - THE WITNESS ROBERT THOUGHT WAS DEAD
Robert claimed he moved the ledger sixteen years earlier.
He wouldn't say where.
He wanted immunity.
That wasn't happening.
So he changed tactics.
He offered Samuel Beck.
Alive.
Held somewhere by people connected to Charles Holt.
Federal agents verified parts of his story.
Robert had communicated with Holt's organization months earlier.
But there was another surprise.
Samuel wasn't the only witness still alive.
Thomas Reed was too.
The confirmation came through a retired federal marshal.
Thomas had entered a highly restricted protection arrangement years earlier after an assassination attempt.
He had remained completely separated from us.
Not because he didn't care.
Because every time investigators believed the threat was over, someone started asking questions.
Usually Michael Kane.
Me.
My existence had kept Thomas hidden.
When agents finally located him, Thomas refused to come out of protection.
Until they told him what Robert had done to me.
Two days later, a gray SUV pulled into the secured parking garage beneath our temporary apartment.
Grandpa stood beside me.
The elevator opened.
A man stepped out.
Sixty maybe.
Gray beard.
Thin.
Eyes exactly like mine.
He stopped when he saw me.
I hated him immediately.
I loved him immediately.
Both feelings were unbearable.
“Ethan.”
I said nothing.
Thomas didn't move closer.
“I'm sorry.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everybody keeps saying that.”
He nodded.
“You deserve more.”
“Seventeen years.”
“Yes.”
“You couldn't call once?”
“No.”
“Birthday card?”
“No.”
“Anything?”
“No.”
I looked at Grandpa.
He turned away.
Thomas explained.
Robert Kane had threatened Diane shortly after I was born.
Another associate photographed our house.
Someone followed Grandpa.
The protective team believed any contact from Thomas could expose us.
So he disappeared completely.
“Did you know Robert married Mom?”
Thomas looked devastated.
“Not until six months ago.”
“Then why didn't you come?”
“I tried.”
He explained that Samuel Beck contacted him first.
They started gathering evidence against Holt and Kane.
Then Samuel vanished.
Thomas believed Holt had him.
“What about the ledger?”
Thomas looked at Grandpa.
“I gave Samuel the location.”
“But Robert says he moved it.”
Thomas's expression changed.
“He couldn't have.”
“Why?”
“Because it wasn't something you could move.”
The ledger wasn't a physical book.
Not anymore.
Thomas had digitized it.
Encrypted files.
Copies distributed through a chain of accounts.
The handwritten ledger was bait.
“The real evidence is online?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Offline backups.”
“Where?”
He looked directly at me.
“Inside something I gave you.”
The children's book.
But agents had already searched it.
Thomas asked one question.
“Did Frank ever replace the cover?”
Grandpa frowned.
“When Ethan was seven. The binding broke.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“The cover.”
The original cover had been discarded ten years ago.
Or so we thought.
Grandpa remembered storing damaged books in a box before donating them.
Where?
Church charity sale.
Records showed unsold books had been transferred to a used bookstore.
The bookstore still existed.
Grandpa called.
The owner checked inventory.
One battered coverless copy of Tom Sawyer had been sitting in a back room for almost a decade.
Inside the spine was a tiny storage device.
We finally had the ledger.
But when investigators opened the encrypted files, one document caught everyone's attention.
A payment authorization signed seventeen years earlier.
The name at the bottom wasn't Charles Holt.
It wasn't Michael Kane.
May you like
It was Samuel Beck.
The supposedly loyal federal investigator had been taking money from the organization he was assigned to destroy.
