Unit 814
Chapter 08 - Unit 814
State investigators opened the storage unit under warrant.
Inside were computer servers, forged deeds, employee files, and recordings of Franklin negotiating the illegal sale of Hawthorne House.
One recording captured Franklin ordering Grant to burn the library.
Grant refused at first.
Franklin threatened to expose financial crimes Grant had committed while trying to save his struggling company.
Grant eventually agreed.
The evidence cleared Katherine and linked Franklin to more than twenty fraudulent property transfers.
It also revealed that Franklin had borrowed heavily from dangerous private lenders.
The sale of Hawthorne House was supposed to repay them.
Without the sale, Franklin owed nearly six million dollars.
His anger had never been only about losing the estate.
He was afraid.
State police issued a warrant.
Franklin disappeared before they reached his house.
His abandoned truck was found beside the river.
Inside were blood drops and Emily’s childhood photograph.
News outlets speculated that Franklin had harmed himself.
Emily did not believe it.
Her father used disappearance as a weapon. He wanted people frightened enough to search for him and guilty enough to forgive him.
Thomas agreed.
“He did this when we were boys,” he said. “He would hide after breaking something until our mother apologized for making him angry.”
Two days later, Emily received a handwritten letter.
Meet me at Hawthorne House at midnight. Come alone if you want the truth about your mother’s death.
Maya told her not to go.
Police arranged surveillance anyway.
At midnight, Emily entered the burned library.
Franklin stepped from behind the shelves.
He looked exhausted.
In his hand was not a weapon.
It was Katherine’s medical journal.
“She did not die from the disease,” he said.
Emily’s voice barely worked.
“What did you do?”
Franklin placed the journal on the table.
May you like
“I did nothing.”
Then he added, “That was the problem.”
