CHAPTER 9 THE OLD GARDENER EVERYONE IGNORED KNEW THE SECRET THAT COULD SEND DOZENS OF POWERFUL PEOPLE TO PRISON
Finding Thomas Reed took nearly two days.
He wasn't a businessman.
He wasn't an accountant.
He wasn't a politician.
He was an eighty-two-year-old gardener living alone outside Richmond.
When Evelyn arrived, Thomas was quietly trimming roses.
He looked at her only once before smiling.
"You have your grandfather's eyes."
Evelyn froze.
"You knew him?"
Thomas laughed softly.
"I buried his favorite dog."
Rachel blinked.
"What?"
Thomas set down the gardening shears.
"People always assumed I was just the gardener."
He opened the small cottage behind him.
Its walls were covered with old maps, newspaper clippings, photographs, and handwritten timelines.
Rachel looked around in disbelief.
"This is an investigation."
Thomas nodded.
"I've spent twenty-five years building it."
He slowly removed a weathered notebook from a shelf.
"I worked undercover for the state's anti-corruption task force."
Evelyn stared at him.
"You were an investigator?"
"I retired before the arrests could happen."
"What stopped them?"
Thomas looked out the window.
"Someone inside the government leaked every operation."
Daniel quietly whispered,
"The corruption reached higher than we imagined."
Thomas handed Evelyn the notebook.
"I promised your grandfather I would protect this until the right Mercer arrived."
Inside were names.
Dozens of them.
Every name matched those written in Daniel's ledger.
Only now...
There were photographs.
Meeting locations.
Secret account numbers.
And coded initials identifying who accepted bribes.
Rachel slowly closed the notebook.
"This is enough to reopen everything."
Thomas nodded.
"Yes."
"But someone will come for you."
He smiled peacefully.
"They've been trying for twenty years."
Suddenly, Nolan's phone rang.
He answered.
His face immediately changed.
"What happened?"
Rachel asked.
Nolan lowered the phone.
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"The Hawthorne mansion..."
Evelyn's stomach tightened.
"What about it?"
"It's on fire."
Silence filled the cottage.
Nolan swallowed hard.
"The firefighters say it wasn't an accident."
Before anyone could react, another call came in—this time from a federal investigator.
Rachel answered on speaker.
"We've recovered a body."
Everyone stared at the phone.
The investigator continued,
"The victim was carrying fake identification."
Evelyn's heartbeat quickened.
"Who is it?"
There was a long pause before the answer came.
"We're not sure yet..."
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"...but whoever died wasn't supposed to be inside that house."
TO BE CONTINUED...
