2026-08-17 19:44:23
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
The Property
The words on the back of the deed wouldn't leave my mind.Begin here, Jack.I kept staring at them as if the ink might rearrange itself and explain everything.It didn't.My father had put the property in my name when I was six.He had appointed Daniel Cole as its trustee.And twenty years later, he had somehow left me a trail leading directly back to it.Maya folded the deed and placed it inside the folder.“Then we start there.”I nodded.“The property.”“The property.”We spent the next hour trying to understand exactly what my father had left me.The modern property records were surprisingly clean.Too clean.According to the county records, the parcel was still registered under my name.There were no active buildings.No businesses.No utilities.No registered structures.No recent construction permits.Nothing.Just land.I looked at the map on Maya's laptop.“That's it?”“According to this.”I leaned closer.The parcel sat behind the workshop, stretching farther than I had real
What Alabama Hid
My father's final sentence stayed in my head long after I put the paper down.Jack must never know about Alabama.I had spent years believing my father kept secrets because he was a businessman.Now I understood that some secrets had nothing to do with business.They had to do with me.Maya was still staring at the note.“So your father owned something here that you didn't know about.”“Apparently.”“And Daniel knew.”“Apparently.”She looked around the hidden room.“Then maybe the land is connected to all of this.”I looked at the old files.“That gives us something to search for.”We left the hidden room and returned to the main workshop.Morning light had begun pushing through the dusty windows. The building looked ordinary again.I almost preferred it that way.Ordinary was easier.Maya went through the cabinets while I searched the desk.We found old tax receipts, insurance papers, equipment registrations and business correspondence.Nothing obvious.Then Maya pulled out a thick
The Dead Man's Files
The words on the document refused to make sense.Employment concluded following unauthorized access to restricted Hawthorne records.I read the sentence again.Then I looked at Daniel Cole's photograph.The same man who had once brought me hot chocolate in the workshop.The same man whose coat appeared in a photograph taken years after his reported death.The same man whose name had appeared in my father's files.And now I was beginning to understand that Daniel had known something about my father that I had never been allowed to know.Maya stood beside me.“What are you thinking?”“That my father didn't just fire him.”I placed the document on the desk.“He erased him.”Maya frowned.“Erased him?”“Look at this file.”I opened the folder again.There were pages missing.I could see the marks left by removed staples.Someone had taken documents out.Not recently.Years ago.The remaining pages told almost nothing about Daniel's actual work.His official position was listed as Security
The Man In The Photograph
I couldn't look away from the man in the photograph.He stood across the street from my childhood home, half-hidden beside a dark vehicle, his face obscured by the angle of his head.But I knew the coat.I didn't know how I knew it.At first, it was only a feeling.A strange little pull somewhere behind my ribs.I had seen that coat before.Many times.I just hadn't realized I was looking at it.I brought the photograph closer to the desk lamp.The image was old, but the details were clear enough. The man wore a long charcoal coat with a distinctive dark leather strip running from the collar down one side.There was a silver clasp near his shoulder.Maya leaned over my arm.“You recognize him?”“Not his face.”“Then what?”“The coat.”She looked at me.I pointed at the photograph.“I've seen it before.”“Where?”I closed my eyes.The workshop came back first.My father's office.The smell of oil.The sound of machines.Men moving between workstations.Visitors arriving with briefcases
Someone Was Watching
I couldn't stop staring at the photograph. The date written on the back was yesterday. The same day Maya and I had been in Alabama. The same day we had walked into my father's workshop. The same day I had opened the hidden compartment.The same day I had found the letter warning me about someone I should fear.Someone had been watching us.I turned the photograph over again. The image showed me standing beside the rusty box. I remembered that moment. I had been alone. At least, I thought I had been. I looked around the room.The photographs covered nearly every wall.Hundreds of them.Maybe more.Some were mounted neatly.Others were stacked in folders.There were dates written beneath many of them.Locations.Sometimes a single word.I reached for one of the folders.JACK — AGE 14–16My fingers stopped.Maya came closer.“Maybe your father took them.”I looked at her.“That doesn't make it better.”“I know.”I opened the folder.Inside were photographs from my teenage years.Me walking
The Empty Room
“The person you should fear isn't the one trying to take your money.”I read the sentence until the words stopped looking like words.My father's handwriting remained perfectly still at the bottom of the page, but something inside me had begun moving.A person.Not a company.Not a bank.Not a rival.A person.Someone my father had feared enough to divide a fortune into layers and hide instructions inside a rusty box.I folded the letter carefully.Maya watched me.“Who do you think he meant?”“I don't know.”“You're thinking about Vivian.”“I thought about everyone.”“That isn't the same thing.”I slipped the letter back into its envelope.“No,” I said. “It isn't.”The workshop suddenly felt different.A few minutes earlier, it had been my father's old workplace. A place filled with machines, tools, dust, and memories.Now every wall looked like it might be hiding something.Every locked drawer felt suspicious.Every shadow seemed deliberate.I stood.“We search everything.”Maya rai
You may also like
UNDERGROUND: Deck of Cards
CieLbiTch3.5K viewsThe Christmas Darling
Jason Boyce4.9K viewsNothing Wrong
Simon 198216.4K viewsGhost Terror
M Nur Fadli4.2K viewsThe Reborn Tycoon: Taking Back My Life
A.K.AN NUR410 viewsBLACKOUT PROTOCOL
TOBBY349 viewsDEGREES OF DEATH
POTATO854 viewsThe Accountant Who Counts Lives
Joey Macallan33 views