Chapter 7 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Gone
Thomas Vale was alive.
We found him in Connecticut.
Not imprisoned.
Not hidden in some basement.
Living under another name in a long-term neurological care residence.
Thomas Avery.
Age sixty-one.
No public family listed.
I stood outside his room for ten minutes before entering.
The man inside was thinner than the father I remembered.
Older.
His left hand trembled.
But his eyes were the same.
Blue-gray.
Mine.
He stared at me.
Then whispered my childhood nickname.
“Charlie-bird.”
I broke.
For twenty years I had believed he left.
For twenty years he had believed staying away kept me alive.
My father had discovered Helena’s shell companies long before my mother did.
He confronted her.
Days later, his car was struck on a rural highway.
He survived with a traumatic brain injury.
Helena arranged private care under another identity.
Then she convinced my mother that Thomas had been involved in fraud and fled.
My mother eventually discovered the truth.
Too late.
“Why didn’t Mom bring you home?”
My father’s eyes filled.
“She was trying.”
“What happened?”
“She became afraid.”
“Of Helena?”
He nodded.
Then he said another name.
“Gideon.”
My heart sank.
Gideon had not been innocent.
He knew Thomas survived.
He helped hide him.
But unlike Helena, he had eventually tried to help my mother expose the conspiracy.
That was why his behavior seemed contradictory.
He was guilty.
Just not of everything.
My father reached beneath his blanket.
He handed me an old Solmere matchbook.
Inside, written in tiny letters, was a bank routing number.
“Your mother gave me that.”
“When?”
“Four days before she died.”
The account contained $214 million.
Money Helena had siphoned out of Solmere.
My mother had traced it.
May you like
She was preparing to expose Helena.
Then she died.
