Chapter 8 - MASON REED LOSES HIS JOB
Mason's employment review took three days.
Daniel did not let the family scandal erase what happened in the showroom.
Security footage showed:
Helen placed the watch down calmly.
Mason dismissed her.
Swatted the watch.
Called it junk.
Tried to push her out.
Then concealed the fact he recognized Samuel's maker's mark.
HR found two older complaints.
One from a delivery driver Mason called “back-door traffic” in front of clients.
Another from a young couple he told to come back “when you're shopping rather than sightseeing.”
Neither complaint alone had ended his job.
Together, they showed a pattern.
Mason argued.
Not much.
He had spent three days watching his family history become less flattering in every direction.
Daniel called him upstairs.
“You're terminated as store manager.”
Mason stared.
“Because my father came back?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Daniel slid the HR letter across.
“Because you physically mishandled a customer's property, degraded her based on appearance, and then concealed relevant provenance information.”
Mason read.
His jaw tightened.
“That's it?”
“That's enough.”
“What about twenty years here?”
“It kept this from happening earlier.”
That hurt.
Mason signed acknowledgment of receipt.
Not agreement.
Then looked at Daniel.
“You know why I wanted her out.”
“I know why you were scared.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
Daniel held his gaze.
“It isn't.”
Mason stood.
Then stopped at the door.
“I have my father's letters.”
Samuel, waiting downstairs, did not know that.
Mason's mother had kept every letter Samuel mailed after he left.
She never gave them to Mason.
After she died, he found the box.
He read only three.
Then stopped.
“Why?”
Daniel asked.
“Because he kept asking me to meet.”
“And?”
“I wanted him to live with being ignored.”
There.
Mason's own decision.
No one else.
He brought the box back an hour later.
Samuel stared at it.
“You kept these.”
“Mom did.”
“You read them?”
“Enough.”
One letter mattered.
Dated November 2004.
Samuel to Diane.
Arthur says Richard found the necklace and still won't correct the timeline. Arthur says he has copies. If he ever grows a spine, Daniel should know the watch was his before it became evidence.
Daniel read it.
“Evidence.”
Samuel nodded.
“I wanted Arthur to hold the original watch because Richard knew I would take documents.”
“Did you hide anything in it then?”
“No.”
Daniel looked at the new latch.
Samuel continued.
“Arthur kept the evidence separately for twenty-one years.”
Then the final letter in Mason's box.
Not addressed to Diane.
Never mailed.
Samuel had written it last winter after Arthur contacted him.
Arthur says Richard isn't the only Hayes who knew. He won't name the other one until we meet.
Daniel's stomach tightened.
“Did he name them when you met?”
Samuel shook his head.
“We never met in person.”
“What?”
“We spoke by phone. He mailed the watch and evidence. Then he stopped answering.”
Arthur suffered a stroke three weeks later.
He never regained enough speech to explain.
Helen looked at Daniel.
“Richard isn't the only Hayes who knew.”
They both thought of Caroline.
Daniel's mother.
The initials on the 2004 note.
May you like
But knowing about the false history was one thing.
Arthur seemed to mean something more.
