Chapter 6
Catherine’s notebook contained one clue.
“Blue collar.”
Nothing else.
I almost threw the book.
Then Bruno stood.
Slowly.
Walked toward the doorway.
His collar was leather.
Brown.
Not blue.
But five years ago, after Catherine died, I had kept one of his older collars in a memory box.
Blue fabric.
Faded.
Ridiculous possibility.
I found it in the nursery storage room.
Inside the padded lining was a tiny brass key.
I laughed once.
Of course.
Catherine had hidden a key in the dog’s collar.
The key opened a drawer in her old writing desk I thought was decorative.
Inside:
One envelope.
THOMAS CRANE.
And one handwritten list.
Seven names.
Not informants.
Families Thomas had secretly protected from my grandfather.
That changed everything.
My grandfather believed loyalty required severe punishment when branches disobeyed.
Thomas disagreed.
Quietly redirected three punishments.
Warned two families.
Moved one widow before my grandfather could seize her home.
Helped another captain’s son leave Sterling entirely.
Thomas Crane had not built a spy network.
He had built an escape route.
My father discovered it.
Removed him from security because Thomas had acted without permission.
But later, after understanding why, my father secretly funded his retirement.
Complicated.
No villain.
No saint.
Then Catherine added a note:
Thomas was right about some people and dangerously arrogant about deciding alone who needed saving.
Again.
Multiple truths.
Malcolm had inherited the version where his father was betrayed for protecting Sterling.
Closer to truth than I expected.
Still incomplete.
Then another note.
Malcolm is looking for this because he thinks it proves his father should have controlled Sterling security.
It proves something else.
He protected people best when he stopped thinking authority belonged to him.
That sentence mattered.
Malcolm did not want only vindication.
He wanted inheritance of Thomas’s old influence.
May you like
He believed proving his father’s heroism would make the Crane name politically valuable again.
And Vanessa’s marriage to me could put him close enough to claim it.
