Chapter 13 - The Man Behind Harbor Crest
The evidence of pressure and intimidation did not disappear because one detail complicated the past.
I had to remind myself of that every morning.
My father had still lied under oath.
My mother had still used my identity.
Someone had still tried to transfer land they did not own.
But Caleb's recording made me ask a harder question.
Who was the other man?
Rebecca cross-referenced corporate registrations from seventeen years earlier.
The name Daniel Price appeared repeatedly, sometimes through companies that had since dissolved.
He had been the warehouse security manager, then a consultant, then an executive.
Over the years he had acquired influence every time Carter Tidewater lost it.
Grandpa's ledgers showed payments to a Price-controlled vendor described as emergency compliance services.
No legitimate compliance reports accompanied the invoices.
It looked increasingly like extortion.
I wanted to confront Dad and demand every detail.
Rebecca reminded me that witnesses could coordinate stories if we rushed.
Instead we presented the records to investigators.
The same afternoon, Harbor Crest offered to abandon its claim if I agreed to sell an easement across the farm.
The price was more than my entire military salary over many years.
Vale described it as an opportunity to finally escape the family dispute.
I asked whether the easement would require cutting the oak grove.
He admitted a road would be built.
"Then no."
He smiled without warmth.
"You can't preserve every childhood memory."
"And you can't buy every person."
That evening Dad left a voicemail on my phone.
He sounded unlike the man who had mocked me at court.
"There is something you need to understand about Pier Nine," he said.
He paused for so long I thought the recording had ended.
"I did something unforgivable after the fire. But I wasn't the person who started it."
His voice cracked.
"Your grandfather knew."
I gave the recording to Harris.
Before dawn, police found Dad's car abandoned near the riverfront.
His wallet lay on the driver's seat.
His phone was gone.
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And there was blood on the open door.
