Single Father Helped His Elderly Neighbor Every Day—Then the Businesswoman Who Dismissed Him Opened Her Door
Chapter 2
Margaret Hawthorne remained silent for nearly a minute.
The fire cracked between them.
Samuel could hear Clara breathing softly from the corner where she had fallen asleep beside the stove.
Mrs. Whitmore closed the ledger.
“Now you understand why I asked you to come.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No. I understand less than I did before.”
“You came searching for your father.”
“Yes.”
“He left something here.”
Margaret looked at the wooden box.
“For twenty years?”
Mrs. Whitmore nodded.
“He knew he might not return.”
Margaret’s voice broke.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of whom?”
Mrs. Whitmore looked toward the window.
“The same people who wanted him silenced.”
Samuel’s jaw tightened.
“Who?”
The old woman hesitated.
“Men who controlled the trade routes through the eastern counties. Men who became richer every year while farmers lost their land.”
Margaret stared at the ledger.
Her father had built Hawthorne Trading House from nothing.
Everyone in the region believed he had died during a storm at sea.
But according to Mrs. Whitmore, he had been investigating something.
Something involving forged contracts and stolen property.
Samuel remembered the ledgers at the trading house.
For months before his dismissal, he had noticed discrepancies.
Shipments listed twice.
Payments without corresponding deliveries.
Land purchases made through intermediaries.
He had assumed someone had made accounting mistakes.
Then he had discovered something strange.
Several transactions were written in the same handwriting.
The handwriting belonged to Margaret Hawthorne’s uncle, Thomas.
Samuel had mentioned it to Margaret’s steward.
Three days later, he was dismissed.
Margaret slowly looked at him.
“You saw the accounts.”
Samuel nodded.
“I thought they were wrong.”
“They were.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know.”
The answer sounded painfully honest.
Margaret sat down.
For the first time, Samuel saw not a wealthy merchant, but a daughter who had spent half her life believing her father had abandoned her.
Mrs. Whitmore pushed the ledger toward them.
“You must find the rest.”
“Where?” Margaret asked.
The old woman looked at Samuel.
“At the place where your father hid the truth.”
Samuel frowned.
“I don’t know where that is.”
“You do.”
“I’ve never met him.”
“No,” Mrs. Whitmore said softly. “But you have walked past the place every day.”
Samuel felt a chill.
There was only one abandoned property near his cottage.
The old mill.
Its doors had been locked for years.
And Samuel suddenly remembered something.
When he was a boy, he had found a strange iron mark carved into one of the mill’s beams.
A Hawthorne crest.
