Page 101 of Hidden Tide
Thomas flinches.
“You kept the truth from us.”
“I believed James was right.”
“Grandpa was wrong.”
“Yes.”
The simple admission steals some of my anger.
Thomas looks at Mom.
“James believed knowledge had killed his son. He thought keeping his granddaughters ignorant would keep them safe.”
“But someone watched us anyway,” I say.
“Because James never found everything your father hid.”
I move closer.
“You keep saying that. What did Dad find at Blackwater?”
“Records connecting the salvage crews to stolen weapons and missing cargo. He believed the men were bringing shipments into Blackwater from vessels they reported as lost at sea. They waited until the search ended, changed the vessel names and moved the cargo into San Francisco.”
Blackwater was a remote facility used by criminals who believed the ocean would erase their crimes.
“Did Dad take the records?” Ben asks.
“Some of them.”
“And the film?”
“Your father photographed every document he found.”
I think of Ivy.
Of the way she sees the world through a camera.
She inherited that from Dad.
“Did the men know he took pictures?” I ask.
“They knew something was missing. Cross and two other men followed him when he left Blackwater.”
“Why didn’t they kill him there?”
“Because they needed to know where he hid the film.”
My stomach twists.
“They watched him.”
“For six days.”
“The week between his argument with Grandpa and his death,” Storm says.
Thomas nods.
