Chapter 6 - The Brother Edmund Had Buried Without a BodyEdmund could not speak.
He gripped the edge of his desk.
“Roland?”
The old man on the phone exhaled.
“Yeah.”
The word sounded nothing like the brother Edmund remembered.
But forty years could change a voice.
Edmund felt anger before relief.
“You’re alive.”
“I am.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“That wasn’t my choice at first.”
“At first?”
“Edmund—”
“You let me mourn you.”
Silence.
“I know.”
“You knew Dad told us you died?”
“Eventually.”
“And you did nothing.”
“I stayed gone.”
“That’s doing something.”
Roland accepted it.
Edmund closed his eyes.
Every person in this story seemed to have chosen silence, then called silence passive.
It wasn’t.
“Why are you calling now?”
“Beatrice.”
Of course.
“She called you?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Before she attacked Owen?”
“Yes.”
Edmund’s blood went cold.
“What did she say?”
“That Owen found one of the files.”
“So she already knew.”
“Yes.”
“She told me she was going to destroy them.”
Edmund stood.
“What?”
“I told her not to.”
“Did she tell you she planned to drug my grandson?”
“No.”
Roland’s voice hardened.
“If I had known—”
“You didn’t.”
Edmund did not allow him an easy heroic sentence.
“What did she think Owen found?”
“The original certificate.”
“Why was she carrying it around?”
“I don’t know.”
Edmund didn’t believe that.
Roland heard it.
“I haven’t seen Beatrice in twelve years.”
“Graham saw you.”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Graham asked me not to.”
Edmund laughed bitterly.
“Everyone had a promise except me.”
Roland went quiet.
Then:
“You deserved the truth.”
“Yes.”
“I was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“Leaving him.”
Edmund’s anger softened by one degree.
Not forgiveness.
Attention.
Roland explained his version.
Augustus had investigators watching him after the board fight.
He believed his father would use the baby to force him back into negotiations.
When Lena died, Roland came to Newport secretly.
Beatrice met him behind the old carriage house.
He wanted to take the infant.
Marian stopped him.
Edmund felt sick imagining his wife participating.
“She told me your son had died that morning,” Roland said.
Edmund closed his eyes.
“She said she could protect mine.”
“From Dad.”
“Yes.”
“And from you?”
Roland went silent.
Edmund heard it.
“What aren’t you saying?”
“Marian thought I was unstable.”
“Were you?”
“I was angry. Drinking too much. Sleeping in boatyards.”
“So?”
“So she wasn’t entirely wrong.”
Roland’s honesty surprised him.
“I wanted my son.”
“Did you sign anything?”
“No.”
“Then how did they amend the identity?”
“Dad.”
Augustus.
“He had a doctor, a judge, and two lawyers who would do whatever he wanted.”
“Did you agree?”
Roland took time.
“I agreed not to challenge it.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Beatrice said Marian loved the baby already.”
Edmund’s chest hurt.
“And?”
“And because the alternative was me running with an infant while your father hunted us.”
Roland paused.
“I told myself Graham would be safer with you.”
Edmund nearly corrected the name.
Evan.
But no.
Graham was Graham.
“Was he?”
Roland asked.
The question stopped Edmund.
He thought of his son.
Summer sailing.
College graduation.
Graham holding newborn Owen.
Arguments.
Thanksgiving.
The last phone call before the accident.
“Yes.”
His voice broke.
“He was loved.”
Roland began crying quietly.
“Then that is the only thing I ever got right.”
Edmund sat down.
For several seconds, the brothers shared grief through a telephone line.
Then Edmund remembered Malcolm.
“Did you know about the Founder’s Continuity Trust?”
Roland stopped crying.
“Yes.”
“Graham says your shares were placed there.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Dad couldn’t legally erase my beneficial interest without a fight.”
“So he suspended it.”
“More or less.”
“What happens if you have a descendant?”
Roland hesitated.
“Depends which version survived.”
Edmund frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Dad amended the trust more than once.”
“Graham thought Owen could control a major block.”
“He might.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know today.”
“Then what did you know?”
“In 1986, my branch represented twenty-two percent of founder voting shares.”
Edmund stopped breathing.
Twenty-two.
Combined with Graham’s nine percent and Edmund’s seventeen, the implications were enormous.
“Malcolm knows?”
Roland laughed bitterly.
“Malcolm’s father knew.”
“And Malcolm?”
“He contacted me after Graham died.”
Edmund went cold.
“What?”
“Two weeks after the funeral.”
“What did he want?”
“A renunciation.”
Edmund’s jaw tightened.
“He knew Graham was your son.”
“Yes.”
“And never told me.”
“No.”
“What did he offer?”
“Three million dollars.”
Edmund laughed once.
Pure disbelief.
“For you to disappear again.”
“Essentially.”
“Did you take it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Graham was dead.”
Roland’s voice changed.
“And Owen was alive.”
Edmund felt something in his chest tighten.
“What did Malcolm say about Owen?”
“That recognizing Graham’s original identity would destabilize the company.”
“Meaning?”
“He said if I cared about the boy, I would leave things alone.”
A threat disguised as concern.
Classic Winslow.
“Did he threaten Owen?”
“Not directly.”
“Did Beatrice know Malcolm contacted you?”
“Yes.”
Edmund closed his eyes.
“And she still kept quiet.”
“She believed exposure would destroy Graham’s reputation.”
“What reputation?”
“The press would call him an impostor.”
“He was three months old.”
“I know.”
“Did she understand that?”
“She understood fear better than logic.”
That sentence mattered.
Edmund thought of Beatrice’s fake memory lapses.
Her prescription pills.
Her panic when Owen found the papers.
Fear had turned into action.
Harmful action.
“Why did she call you yesterday?”
Roland answered:
“Because Malcolm called her first.”
Edmund became still.
“What did he say?”
“She wouldn’t repeat it.”
“But?”
“She said he knew someone had accessed Graham’s old trust notes.”
Edmund looked at the letter.
Owen had opened Graham’s hidden drawer.
Had something in that drawer been electronically tracked?
No.
Unless another person already knew the files existed.
“Where is Malcolm now?” Edmund asked.
“New York, probably.”
Edmund checked the company calendar.
Malcolm had a board meeting in Boston tomorrow.
Convenient.
Roland continued:
“Edmund.”
“What?”
“There’s something Graham never told you.”
Edmund almost laughed.
“That category is crowded.”
“He came to see me six days before he died.”
Edmund went still.
“What did he want?”
“The original trust.”
“You have it?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“He had found where Dad stored one.”
“Where?”
“Winslow Maritime’s old Newport archive.”
Edmund stared.
That archive had been moved after Augustus died.
Half went to corporate storage.
Half to—
The carriage house.
On Edmund’s own property.
Roland continued:
“Graham believed the Founder’s Continuity Trust was still somewhere in your house.”
Edmund looked toward the windows.
The sprawling Newport estate suddenly felt less like home and more like a container for secrets.
“Did he find it?”
“I don’t know.”
“He died six days later.”
“Yes.”
Edmund’s pulse changed.
“The sailing accident.”
Roland spoke immediately.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Turn coincidence into murder because you’re angry.”
Edmund stopped.
Roland continued.
“The Coast Guard investigation was clear. Storm. Equipment failure. Graham made a bad decision staying out.”
Edmund closed his eyes.
He appreciated the restraint.
Truth did not need another dramatic crime.
“So the document may still be here.”
“Yes.”
“Where would Graham look?”
Roland answered:
“The same place Dad hid things when we were boys.”
Edmund frowned.
Then remembered.
The old wine cellar beneath the carriage house.
Augustus had a false wall built there during Prohibition renovations.
Edmund had not thought about it in fifty years.
He stood.
Roland said:
“Don’t go alone.”
“Why?”
“Because if Malcolm knows Graham found the location…”
May you like
Edmund looked toward the dark grounds outside.
“…he may know it too.”
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