Chapter 4 - WHY SAMUEL LOOKED HOMELESS
Samuel Ward was not bankrupt.
That surprised Emma.
He could have lived in a hotel.
Could have hired drivers.
Could have worn a clean coat.
So why had he been wandering diners looking homeless?
Because four months earlier, someone tried to kill him.
Again.
Not dramatically.
His brake system failed outside Cincinnati.
Samuel recognized the pattern.
He survived.
Then stopped using company vehicles.
Stopped sleeping in predictable locations.
Stopped telling almost anyone where he was.
Margaret knew only the cities.
Not the hotels.
Sometimes shelters.
Sometimes cheap motels.
Sometimes bus stations.
“You were hiding.”
“Yes.”
“From Victor?”
“From whoever is above Victor.”
Emma looked at Margaret.
“Frank?”
Margaret shook her head.
“Frank died three years ago.”
Convenient.
Too convenient.
Natural causes, officially.
Emma was beginning to hate that phrase.
Frank left control of Harbor Street to a private-equity consortium called Blue Ridge Dining Partners.
The chain now had forty-two restaurants.
But behind Blue Ridge sat several old Ward-family trusts.
One trustee remained from Samuel’s era.
Leonard Price.
Seventy-one.
Former family attorney.
Samuel’s closest friend.
And the man who certified Samuel’s transfer documents eighteen years earlier.
Emma said:
“So your best friend helped take your company.”
Samuel looked miserable.
“I think so.”
“You think?”
“We don't have proof.”
“Yet.”
Samuel smiled faintly.
Emma noticed.
“What?”
“Michael used to say that.”
That hurt.
But differently.
---
Victor disappeared that afternoon.
He left through the kitchen fire door while Emma was reading the letter.
Security followed too late.
His car was abandoned behind a grocery store.
Inside:
No phone.
No wallet.
One employee key ring.
And a folded map.
Millstone.
Three locations circled.
Emma recognized one.
Her childhood house.
The house where Michael Carter had lived before he died.
Her mother sold it ten years earlier.
Another circle marked the old Harbor Street distribution warehouse.
Third:
Riverside Storage.
Emma’s stomach tightened.
“My mom rented a unit there.”
Samuel looked at her.
“When?”
“After Dad died.”
“Still?”
“I don’t know.”
They checked.
Unit 118 had been paid automatically for thirteen years.
From whose account?
Emma’s mother’s.
Except the last three years.
Payments came from an account Emma did not recognize.
Carter Family Educational Trust.
Emma stared.
“We don’t have a trust.”
Margaret went still.
May you like
“Maybe you do.”
---
