Chapter 5 - The Journal in Peter's Study

Thomas received eight stitches and a sling.

The bullet had passed through muscle without striking bone.

The emergency room doctor called him lucky.

Thomas replied, "I've had an unusual relationship with that word."

Eleanor sat beside him while Clara spoke with Ben in the hall.

For the first time since Thomas appeared at her door, they were alone.

He looked at her.

"You don't have to stay."

"I know."

"You could go with Clara."

"I know."

He smiled faintly.

"You still answer questions like a trap."

"You still ask obvious ones."

Silence settled.

Thomas looked down at the sling.

"Rebecca looks like her mother."

Eleanor had not expected that.

"Margaret?"

"Yes."

"Were you happy?"

He took a long time.

"Sometimes."

"That's honest."

"She deserved better than the man I was."

"What man were you?"

"One who kept a room locked."

Eleanor looked at him.

"What was inside?"

"You."

She turned away.

"Don't."

"It's true."

"You married another woman."

"Yes."

"Had a child."

"Yes."

"Built a life."

"I tried."

"Then don't romanticize abandoning me."

"I'm not."

He shifted painfully.

"I loved Margaret. Differently. She knew there was a part of me somewhere else."

"That sounds unfair to her."

"It was."

"Did she know about me?"

"Eventually."

"And?"

"She told me to come back."

Eleanor stared.

"When?"

"1980."

"Four years after you died."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you?"

"Rebecca was two. Margaret was ill. And I had learned you married David."

Eleanor looked down.

"I married him in 1978."

"I know."

"How?"

"Newspaper."

"You watched me."

"From far away."

"That is not noble."

"No."

She appreciated that he no longer defended himself.

"David knew about you."

Thomas looked surprised.

"What?"

"Not that you were alive. About us."

"What did you tell him?"

"Everything I thought was true."

"He married you anyway."

"Yes."

Thomas smiled faintly.

"Then I already like him."

"He was better than both of us."

"Probably."

Eleanor's eyes filled.

"He never asked me to forget you."

Thomas looked away.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For becoming a ghost in your marriage."

"You didn't. Memory did."

A nurse entered.

"Mr. Bell, discharge papers."

Thomas signed.

Clara returned.

"Ben has officers heading to Bell farm."

Thomas stood.

"Then we go."

The nurse frowned.

"You should rest."

Thomas looked at Eleanor.

"Apparently I'm not allowed to make decisions."

"Correct."

The Bell farm lay twelve miles north of town.

When they arrived, police vehicles lined the long gravel drive.

The farmhouse had changed less than Eleanor expected.

White siding.

Green shutters.

Old maple tree.

Thomas stared from Clara's car.

"My mother planted that."

Eleanor looked at him.

"You haven't been here?"

"Not since 1976."

He breathed slowly.

"I thought I would die before seeing it again."

Eleanor did not know whether to touch him.

So she didn't.

Ben approached.

"No sign of Rebecca."

Thomas went rigid.

"What?"

"House was empty."

"Then where is she?"

"We found a room in the barn with restraints."

Eleanor asked, "Blood?"

"No."

Thomas closed his eyes.

Ben continued.

"We also found Marcus Bell's car."

Daniel, arriving in another police vehicle, said, "Marcus isn't answering."

Thomas looked at him.

"Could he have taken her?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

Daniel stared toward the north ridge.

"Old quarry cabin."

Ben asked, "Road?"

"Washed out years ago."

"How do we reach it?"

"Farm trail."

Thomas said, "I know it."

Eleanor snapped, "You knew it fifty years ago."

"I can still find the ridge."

Ben looked at him.

"You are not coming."

Thomas opened his mouth.

Eleanor said, "He's right."

Thomas stared at her.

"Rebecca is my daughter."

"And you were shot three hours ago."

"Would you stay behind if it were Clara?"

Eleanor did not answer.

Clara said, "Please don't use me in this argument."

Ben sighed.

"Fine. You stay behind officers."

Thomas nodded.

Daniel whispered to Eleanor.

"The journal."

She looked at him.

"Where would Peter hide it?"

"I don't know."

"You grew up here."

"He kept one room locked."

"Which?"

Daniel pointed upstairs.

"My grandfather's study."

Eleanor looked at Clara.

"We search."

Clara nodded.

The study smelled like old paper and cedar.

Drawers had been emptied.

Someone had searched already.

Eleanor moved slowly.

Her father's journal.

What would Harold Carter do?

She remembered him hiding Christmas money in a flour tin because he distrusted banks.

Then she remembered something else.

"Books."

Clara looked at shelves.

"What kind?"

"My father hated novels."

"That narrows nothing."

"He called fiction lying for entertainment."

Clara smiled.

"I like him less every minute."

Eleanor scanned titles.

Farm manuals.

Accounting books.

County histories.

And one novel.

The Count of Monte Cristo.

She pulled it.

A key fell out.

Clara stared.

"That's aggressively dramatic for a man who hated fiction."

Eleanor almost smiled.

They found a locked floor safe beneath the desk.

The key fit.

Inside lay three leather journals.

Harold Carter.

1976.

1977.

1979.

Eleanor sat on the floor.

Her hands shook.

Clara crouched.

"You don't have to read it now."

"Yes, I do."

The 1976 journal opened to October eighteenth.

Michael is alive and Samuel Reed is dead. I know this because Peter came to me bleeding and terrified. He says Michael killed Samuel and staged Thomas's death. Thomas is in jail. I can save him if I tell police what Peter confessed. But Michael says he will expose the forged transfers made through my business and claim I directed them. I did not. Yet my signatures are everywhere. Eleanor will be dragged through scandal. Michael says Thomas will leave if he believes she is expecting a child.

Eleanor stopped.

Clara whispered, "Grandma."

She kept reading.

I told Michael no.

Eleanor looked up sharply.

"He refused."

She turned the page.

October nineteenth.

Michael used my reserve account without permission. Twenty thousand missing. He has forged a note in my hand. I went to the jail, but Thomas had been released. No one will tell me where he went. Peter has disappeared. Michael says the matter is finished.

Eleanor began crying.

Her father had not paid Thomas.

He had tried to stop it.

Clara held her hand.

Eleanor turned pages.

October twentieth.

They buried Samuel under Thomas's name today. I stood beside my daughter while she wept for a man who is alive. I have never hated myself more, though I do not know what I could have done differently without proof. That is a coward's sentence. There is always something different. I simply did not do it.

Eleanor whispered, "He knew."

Clara squeezed her hand.

The 1979 journal was worse.

Harold had found one of Thomas's letters.

He traced Thomas to Ohio.

He wrote:

Thomas believes I betrayed him. Eleanor believes Thomas dead. Michael has built the lie so completely that truth now looks like cruelty.

Then one final entry.

I am going to Dayton tomorrow. I will tell Thomas everything.

The next page was blank.

Eleanor knew the date.

Her father suffered a stroke that night.

He never spoke clearly again.

"He never made it."

Clara whispered, "But he tried."

Eleanor closed the journal.

A shout came from outside.

Then a gunshot from far across the property.

Both women froze.

Another shot.

Eleanor stood.

"Thomas."

They ran downstairs.

Ben was shouting into his radio.

"Officer down near quarry trail!"

Eleanor's heart stopped.

"Thomas?"

Ben turned.

"Not Thomas."

"Where is he?"

"He left the group."

Eleanor went cold.

"What?"

"Marcus called his phone."

Daniel swore.

Ben continued.

"He told Thomas to come alone or Rebecca dies."

Eleanor stared toward the ridge.

Fifty years ago, Thomas had left because someone threatened a child who did not exist.

Now he was walking into another trap for the daughter who did.

Clara grabbed Eleanor's arm.

"Grandma."

Eleanor looked at the journals.

Then toward the old quarry.

"No."

"What?"

"We are not repeating this."

She handed Clara the journals.

"Give these to Ben."

"Where are you going?"

"After Thomas."

"Grandma!"

Eleanor turned.

"For fifty years, people disappeared because everyone else waited."

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She looked toward the ridge.

"I'm done waiting."