Chapter 6 - The Second PhoneLandon returned to the house at seven the next morning.
Eli remained with Landon’s mother-in-law, Carol, who had been told only that Landon and Melanie needed one day to handle a private family problem.
Melanie opened the door.
She looked like she hadn’t slept.
Neither had Landon.
The bedroom upstairs remained exactly as they had left it.
Landon refused to enter.
They sat in the kitchen.
The second phone lay between them.
Wyatt had called Melanie eleven times from his regular number.
She hadn’t answered.
“Passcode?”
“0917.”
Landon looked at her.
“What’s September seventeenth?”
Melanie hesitated.
“The first night we…”
She stopped.
Landon stared at the phone.
Of course.
He unlocked it.
There were hundreds of messages.
Most conversations had been deleted.
One remained.
Contact: O
Landon scrolled.
Three months.
O: Did you get her to retrieve the authentication code?
Wyatt: Working on it.
O: You said she trusts you.
Wyatt: She does.
O: Then use that.
Landon’s jaw tightened.
Melanie looked sick.
Another message.
Wyatt: Card is active.
O: Good. We need Orchard files first. Then board correspondence.
Wyatt: What about Landon?
O: We make the board believe he concealed Everett’s transfers.
Melanie whispered:
“They were framing you.”
“Yes.”
Landon continued.
O: Once the directors panic, you call for a confidence vote.
Wyatt: I still don’t have enough votes.
O: You will.
Landon looked at Melanie.
“What did Wyatt tell you about the archive?”
“That he wanted proof your father had changed his will.”
“That part may have been true.”
“Or just another lie.”
Landon scrolled further.
Then stopped.
A photograph.
Melanie sleeping.
Taken from inside their bedroom.
She was facing away.
Wyatt had photographed her without her knowledge.
Underneath, Wyatt had sent:
She has no idea.
O replied:
Keep it that way.
Melanie stared.
Her eyes filled.
“He took that here.”
Landon looked at her.
“Yes.”
“He was messaging someone while…”
She couldn’t finish.
For the first time, Landon felt something toward Melanie other than rage.
Not forgiveness.
Not sympathy exactly.
Recognition.
She had betrayed him willingly.
But she had also been used.
Both were true.
Landon scrolled again.
A message from six weeks earlier:
O: If she gets nervous, remind her about Sabrina.
Wyatt: She believes that less now.
O: Then give her another reason not to confess.
Wyatt: Eli.
Landon stopped.
Melanie saw it.
“What?”
He turned the phone.
Wyatt’s next message:
She’s terrified Landon will take the kid if he learns about us.
O: Good. Fear keeps people useful.
Melanie covered her mouth.
“He told me that.”
Landon stared at her.
“What?”
“Every time I said I wanted to stop.”
“What did he say?”
“That if you found out, your lawyers would destroy me.”
Landon leaned back.
“You believed I would take Eli away from you?”
“You have money.”
“So?”
“You have the company’s legal team.”
“So?”
“I was scared.”
Landon’s anger returned.
“Did eight years with me teach you that little about who I am?”
Melanie looked down.
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither was sleeping with my brother.”
She nodded.
“No.”
That ended the argument.
Landon returned to the phone.
There was a deleted-photo folder.
Recently deleted.
He opened it.
Bank statements.
Board member profiles.
Private emails.
Photographs of pages from Everett Reed’s handwritten notebooks.
And one image that made Landon stop.
A photograph of their father standing beside a woman.
Taken perhaps thirty years ago.
The woman was young.
Dark hair.
Pregnant.
Landon had never seen her.
On the back of the photograph, visible because Wyatt had photographed both sides, Everett had written:
OLIVIA — 1991. I’M SORRY.
Landon frowned.
“Who is Olivia?”
Melanie shook her head.
“No idea.”
He moved to the next photograph.
A birth certificate.
Name partially obscured.
Mother:
Olivia Mercer.
Father:
Blank.
Child:
The image cut off before the name.
Landon enlarged it.
The bottom edge contained a handwritten note.
Do not let Everett’s sons find this.
Melanie stared.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
Another message from O.
The Orchard files connect back to her. If Landon sees the birth record, everything changes.
Wyatt:
Changes how?
O:
You’ll understand when you see the name.
Landon felt a chill.
The photograph did not show the child’s name.
Wyatt apparently hadn’t found the complete record.
Then a final message.
Sent the previous night.
Thirty minutes after Landon caught him.
Wyatt:
He found me.
O:
How?
Wyatt:
Kid opened closet.
O:
Idiot.
Wyatt:
We need to move now.
O:
Come alone. Bring the archive card. Do not bring Melanie.
Wyatt:
Why?
O:
Because she is now a liability.
Melanie stared at the word.
Liability.
Landon looked at her.
“Do you know where Wyatt went?”
“No.”
The kitchen doorbell rang.
Both jumped.
Landon checked the camera.
Wyatt stood outside.
Alone.
He looked exhausted.
And terrified.
Landon opened the door but didn’t move aside.
“What?”
Wyatt looked past him toward Melanie.
Then held up both hands.
“I screwed up.”
Landon almost smiled.
“A little late.”
“No.”
Wyatt shook his head.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me.”
Wyatt looked toward the street.
“Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“Because the person behind Orchard Holdings knows you found the phone.”
Landon’s expression changed.
“How?”
Wyatt swallowed.
“Because they called me twenty minutes ago.”
“Who is O?”
Wyatt looked at his brother.
And said a name Landon had not heard since their father’s funeral.
“Owen Reed.”
Landon stared.
Their father’s younger brother.
May you like
Their uncle.
The man who had supposedly died three years ago.
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