Chapter 5 - The Keeper of Oakridge
The rain continued relentlessly as morning broke over the coastal town of Oakridge, thirty miles north of the city. The sky was a flat, bruised purple, casting a somber light over the rusted wrought-iron gates of the former Oakridge Sanatorium.
The facility had been decommissioned in 2005, its grand Victorian red-brick buildings now overgrown with ivy, windows boarded up with weathered plywood. However, tucked behind the main administrative block stood a small, neatly kept stone cottage with smoke rising gently from a stone chimney.
Daniel and Marcus pulled their vehicle onto the gravel driveway.
They stepped up to the wooden porch. Before Daniel could knock, the heavy oak door creaked open two inches, revealing an elderly man standing in the warm light of the hallway.
He was in his late seventies, wearing a faded wool cardigan, his face lined with deep, tragic furrows. He possessed sharp, intelligent blue eyes that looked at Daniel not with surprise, but with a profound, overwhelming sadness.
He held an old copper kettle in one hand.
"You look so much like your father, Daniel," the old man said, his voice raspy and familiar—the exact voice from the telephone call six hours earlier. "Except you have your mother’s kindness in your eyes."
Daniel paused on the porch step. "You’re Thomas Reed."
"I am," the old man stepped back, swinging the door open wide. "Come in out of the rain. I’ve been waiting thirty years for a Stallone to come through that door with questions instead of checks."
The interior of the cottage was lined with thousands of books, framed botanical sketches, and stacks of hand-written journals. A warm fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting dancing orange shadows across the room.
Thomas poured three mugs of black tea, handing one to Daniel and one to Marcus. They sat around a heavy oak table.
"You called me at the hotel," Daniel stated, setting his satchel on the table. "You knew about the microphones. You knew what Claire and Derek were planning."
"I installed those microphones," Thomas revealed quietly, taking a sip of his tea. "Or rather, I paid a hotel technician to position them near the main dais. I knew Claire was planning a public attack on your character tonight. I needed you angry, Daniel. I needed you desperate enough to look beneath the floorboards of your father’s legacy."
Daniel leaned forward, his hands flat on the wood. "Tell me about Michael."
May you like
Thomas let out a long, heavy sigh, turning his head to look into the flickering flames of the fireplace.
"Michael was my nephew," Thomas said softly, his eyes glazing over with decades of preserved grief. "He was my sister Eleanor’s only child. And he was your half-brother."
