Chapter 8: The Photograph
It was a picture of my father.
Edmund Voss, standing outside a building I didn't recognize, speaking to a man whose face was partially turned away from the camera.
My father looked well in the photograph — healthy, upright, the way he'd been before the diagnosis.
Five years ago, maybe six.
The building behind him had a sign I couldn't read clearly at this resolution.
I forwarded it to Mr.
Hargrove immediately.
He called back in two minutes.
"I see it," he said.
"Do you know where that is?"
"Not yet.
Give me a moment." I heard him moving, heard another voice in the background — his assistant, I thought.
Then: "Elena.
That building is in Reno, Nevada.
It's a private records facility.
The kind used for document storage and notarization of sensitive filings."
"What kind of filings?"
"We don't know yet.
But I want you to understand something before we go further." His voice was measured.
"Your father was a careful man.
Whatever he did in that building, he did carefully.
That photograph is meant to frighten you into thinking there's something hidden.
It may be nothing more than routine estate administration."
"Or?" I said.
A pause.
"Or your father made a decision he didn't tell you about.
And Marcus found out about it, or thinks he did, and has handed that thread to Ms.
Poole."
I looked at the photograph again.
My father's posture.
Calm, deliberate.
The way he always stood.
"He never lied to me," I said.
"I know."
"But he didn't always tell me everything."
"No," Mr.
Hargrove said quietly.
"He didn't.
He was protecting you.
That was his nature."
I set the phone on the desk and looked at the photograph on the screen.
The man whose face was turned away — there was something familiar about the line of his shoulder, the way he was standing.
I couldn't place it.
I picked the phone back up.
"I need to know what's in that building," I said.
"I'm already making calls," he said.
"But Elena — if there is something there, I need you to be prepared for the possibility that it changes some things.
Not the trust.
Not your ownership.
But possibly the story of how the company became what it is."
"My father built that company honestly."
"I believe that," he said.
"I just want you ready."
I was quiet for a moment.
"The man in the photograph," I said.
"Standing with my father.
Can you enhance it?"
"My assistant is working on it now."
I waited.
Eleanor had fallen back to sleep against me.
The house was very quiet.
"Elena." Mr.
Hargrove's voice changed.
"We have a clearer image."
"Who is it?"
A long pause.
"It's Marcus," he said.
"That photograph was taken six years ago.
Two years before you met him."
The room tilted slightly.
"They knew each other," I said.
"Before."
"Yes."
"Marcus told me he'd never heard of my father before our first date.
That he'd looked him up afterward."
"Yes," Mr.
Hargrove said again.
Carefully.
I set Eleanor down in the bassinet.
I needed both hands free.
I needed to think.
"He didn't meet me by accident," I said.
Silence.
"Mr.
Hargrove.
He didn't meet me by accident."
May you like
"No," the lawyer said.
"I don't believe he did."
