Chapter 5: The Truth About Thomas
The next morning, Grace found Emma in the kitchen, the notebook on the table between them, and she knew the time had come. She made tea, the way she always did when something was hard, and she sat down, and she took a deep breath, and she began.
"Emma," she said, "your father did not leave us. He was taken from us."
Emma's hands tightened around her mug. "What do you mean?"
"Thomas was a journalist," Grace said. "A good one. The kind of journalist who believed that the truth mattered, even when it was dangerous. Twenty-two years ago, he started investigating a man named Victor Malone. Malone ran a construction company, but underneath, he was doing something else. Something illegal. Thomas found proof. He gathered evidence. Names, dates, photographs, documents. He was going to publish it. He was going to bring Malone down."
Grace paused, and her eyes filled with tears.
"Malone found out," she said. "And one night, Thomas went out to meet a source, and he never came home. The police said it was an accident. A car off the road. A bad night. But Jack knew better. Jack was Thomas's friend. Jack knew that Thomas had been careful, and that accidents like that do not happen to careful men. Jack knew that Malone had him killed."
Emma felt the room tilt. She gripped the table.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered. "All these years, why did you let me believe he walked out?"
"Because I was afraid," Grace said. "Because Malone was still out there, and I thought that if you knew, you might go looking for answers, and if you went looking, he might find you. I thought that if you believed your father had simply left, you would be safe. I thought I was protecting you. I was wrong. I am so sorry, Emma. I am so sorry."
Emma stood up. She walked to the window. She looked out at the street, at the morning light, at the ordinary world going about its ordinary business, and she felt as if she were seeing it for the first time.
"Where is the evidence?" she asked. "The evidence Dad gathered. Where is it?"
Grace looked at the notebook. "That is part of it," she said. "Thomas kept notes. But the rest, the photographs, the documents, he hid them. He told me, the night before he died, that if anything happened to him, I would know where to look. And I do know. I have always known. I was just too afraid to look."
"Where?" Emma asked.
Grace stood up, and she went to the bookshelf in the living room, and she pulled out a book, an old, heavy book, a history of Arizona, and she opened it, and inside, hollowed out, was a small metal key.
"Your father had a storage unit," Grace said. "On the edge of town. He rented it under another name. This is the key. The evidence is there. It has been there for twenty-two years, waiting."
Emma took the key. It was cold in her hand.
"We have to tell Hawk," Emma said. "We have to tell the sheriff. We have to do something."
Grace nodded. "We will. Jack is coming this morning. And Emma, there is one more thing."
"What?"
Grace took her daughter's hands in hers. "Your father loved you. He loved you so much. The last thing he said to me, the night before he died, was, 'Take care of Emma. Tell her I love her. Tell her I will always love her.' I never told you that. I should have. I am telling you now."
Emma cried, and Grace held her, and for a long time, they stood there together, mother and daughter, holding each other, holding the truth, holding the key to a story that had waited twenty-two years to be told.
After a while, Emma wiped her eyes and sat down again. "Tell me about the storage unit," she said. "How did Dad set it up?"
Grace sat down across from her. "Thomas was careful," she said. "He knew Malone had men watching the house, so he rented the unit under a different name, paid in cash, and told no one except me. He went there at night and kept copies of everything. Photographs. Documents. A list of names. He said that if anything happened to him, the evidence would be safe there, and that one day, someone brave would use it."
"Why didn't you go?" Emma asked. "All these years, why didn't you go and get it?"
Grace looked down at her hands. "Because I was afraid," she said. "I was afraid that if I went, Malone's men would follow me, and find it, and destroy it, and Thomas would have died for nothing. And I was afraid that if I went, I would have to face what happened to him. I kept the key in the book, and I told myself that one day I would go. And then the years passed, and the key stayed where it was."
Emma reached across and took her mother's hand. "Mom," she said, "the time is now. We have Hawk. We have the sheriff. We have the truth. And Dad's evidence has been waiting long enough."
Grace nodded, and there were tears in her eyes, but there was something else there too, something Emma had not seen in a long time. Relief. As if a weight she had carried for twenty-two years was finally lifting.
"You're right," Grace said. "You're right. And your father would be proud of you. He always said you were the bravest person he knew, even at four years old, afraid of the dark. He said you had a light in you that nothing could put out."
Emma smiled through her tears. "Then let's go," she said. "Let's go get it. Let's finish what Dad started."
Outside, a motorcycle pulled up. Hawk got off, and he walked to the door, and he knocked, gently, and Emma opened it, and she looked at him, and she said, "Hawk, we have something to show you."
And Hawk, who had waited twenty-two years for this moment, nodded, and said, "Then let's go get it."