Chapter 6: The Notebook
Grace Carter waited until the diner closed to tell Emma the rest of the story. The last customer had left, Al had locked the front door, and Rosa had gone home. The Bluebird Diner was quiet in the way it only was after midnight, when the coffee machines were off and the neon sign outside had gone dark. Grace sat across from Emma in the corner booth, the same booth where Hawk had warned Emma that she was being watched, and folded her hands on the table. Her hands were steady.
"Your father kept a notebook," Grace said. "Not a diary. Evidence."
Emma had spent the whole day turning her mother's revelation over in her mind. Thomas Carter, a journalist, killed twenty-two years ago because he had gathered evidence against Victor Malone. It had felt too big to be real. But Grace's face, pale and determined, made it real.
"He started it the year you were born," Grace went on. "Thomas was covering the county contracts beat for the paper. He noticed that Malone's company won every bid, even when its prices were higher. He started asking questions. He went to council meetings. He requested public records. And he kept a notebook of everything he found."
"What happened to it?" Emma asked.
Grace took a breath. "After Thomas died, two men came to our house. They said they were from the paper, collecting his things. I didn't believe them. Something about them felt wrong. So I gave them a box of old notebooks, but not the real one. The real one I hid."
"Where?"
"In a storage unit outside town," Grace said. "On Route 89, past the old lumber yard. Unit number fourteen. I rented it under my maiden name, Grace Holloway, so nobody would connect it to us. I went there once a year, on Thomas's birthday, to make sure it was still there. I haven't been in three years. I told myself it was over, that Malone had forgotten us. I was wrong."
Emma stared at her mother. All those years, Grace had carried this secret alone. All those times Emma had asked about her father and Grace had changed the subject, it had been to protect her. And now the secret was out, and Emma felt as if the floor of her life had shifted.
"What's in the notebook?" Emma asked.
"Names," Grace said. "Dates. Amounts of money. Thomas documented everything. He had sources inside Malone's company, people who were afraid to talk but who trusted him. He wrote down every payment, every rigged bid, every threat. He was building a case. He told me he was going to take it to the state attorney general. He was going to publish the story and hand over the evidence at the same time, so Malone couldn't bury it."
Grace's voice broke. She pressed her fingers to her lips for a moment, then continued.
"The week before he died, he told me he was close. He said the story would change everything. He said Malone was scared. And then one night he didn't come home. The police said it was a car accident. His car went off the road on a curve outside town. There were no witnesses. I never believed it was an accident, Emma. Not for a single day."
Emma reached across the table and took her mother's hand. It was cold.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, and she tried to keep the hurt out of her voice. "All these years, why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I wanted you to be safe," Grace said. "Because I wanted you to grow up without looking over your shoulder. Because the moment you knew, you would be in danger, and I couldn't bear that. But now Malone knows. Or someone told him. And Hawk is right. We can't hide anymore. We have to finish what Thomas started."
Emma thought about Hawk's warning. Someone had been watching her. Someone had been asking questions about her at the diner. She thought about the strange car she had noticed parked across the street twice that week. Her stomach tightened.
"Do you think the notebook is still there?" she asked.
"I think so," Grace said. "The unit is paid through the end of the year. I pay in cash. The office doesn't ask questions. But Emma, if we go there, we have to be careful. If Malone's men are watching us, they will follow. We need help."
Emma nodded. "Hawk."
"Hawk," Grace agreed. "He knew Thomas. Did he tell you that?"
Emma shook her head. Hawk had said very little about her father, only that he had made a promise to keep Emma safe. Grace smiled, a small, sad smile.
"Thomas and Hawk were friends," she said. "Not close friends, but they knew each other. Thomas wrote a story once about the Desert Hawks, about the charity rides they did for the children's hospital. Hawk respected him. After Thomas died, Hawk came to our house. He sat at our kitchen table and told me that if I ever needed help, I should call him. I never did. I was too proud, or too afraid. But he kept his word anyway. He watched over you, Emma. All these years, he watched over you."
Emma felt tears sting her eyes. All this time, she had thought she was alone. She had thought her father was a man who had walked out on her family. Instead, he had been a man who died trying to tell the truth, and a whole network of people had been quietly protecting her.
"What do we do?" Emma asked.
Grace squeezed her hand. "We go to the storage unit. We get the notebook. And we give it to the people who can use it. Your father believed the truth would win. It's time to prove him right."
Outside, the street was empty. The mountains stood dark against the stars. Emma looked at her mother and felt something settle in her chest, something solid and new. Fear was still there, but underneath it was something stronger. For the first time in her life, she knew who her father really was. And she knew what she had to do.