Chapter 11 - The Records Annex
By morning, the annex smelled of wet paper and electrical dust.
The fire department found no major fire, but the activated system damaged boxes awaiting digitization.
The hotel manager had followed evacuation procedures, so nobody was injured.
I insisted that staff safety matter more than any document.
Still, I knew why Margaret looked grim.
The records Owen might want destroyed were the records that could connect him to the old Mariner House payments.
Priya said the company had off-site backups.
Some were microfilm.
Others were scanned years earlier under Thomas's meticulous preservation plan.
Daniel had never understood his father's habit of keeping a duplicate of everything important.
Owen apparently hadn't either.
Police investigators reviewed the surveillance footage and access logs.
I gave a statement about the historical concerns but refused to turn suspicions into facts.
We had to leave room for an investigation to reach its own conclusions.
That afternoon, a local reporter called asking whether my family had fallen apart over a vacation bill.
Someone had leaked the story.
I declined an interview.
The reporter published anyway, using a flattering old photograph of Daniel and a picture of me entering physical therapy.
The headline implied I had cut off a devoted caregiver.
I read it twice before closing my tablet.
"Will people believe him?" Lena asked.
"Some will," I answered. "And some people will know better."
Messages arrived from former employees who remembered Thomas and me.
Several described Daniel's arrogance on visits when he thought I wasn't watching.
Then a retired housekeeper named Rosa left a voicemail.
"Mrs. Whitmore, I kept something because Mr. Thomas told me it mattered."
Rosa had worked for us the year of the fire.
She said she had a photograph showing Owen outside the hotel's loading dock with another man.
"Who was the man?" Margaret asked when we called back.
Rosa drew a breath.
"I never knew his full name. But he came to your house years later."
May you like
"When?"
"The night before Mr. Thomas changed his will."
