Chapter 17
Before Marcy began reviewing the gym’s books.
Before Cal’s scheme started unraveling.
The master code had opened Eddie’s office at 1:17 in the morning.
Beside the entry was a security-camera reference number.
“You found footage?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Was it Cal?”
“No.”
“Raymond?”
She shook her head.
I looked toward Dustin through the kitchen window.
He was drying dishes beside Linda.
“Dustin?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Marcy hesitated.
“Someone Eddie said hadn’t been inside the gym for almost fifteen years.”
She handed me her phone.
On the screen was an old security image.
The photograph was grainy, but the face was unmistakable.
I knew the man.
And suddenly I understood why Eddie had seemed troubled long before any of us knew Cal Hollis’s name.
The person entering his office in the middle of the night was Eddie’s younger brother, Michael.
A man Eddie had told us was living three states away.
A man Dustin claimed he had never met.
And according to the timestamp, Michael had entered the office months before anyone knew there was money missing.
Eddie stared at the photograph for a long time.
Nobody rushed him.
That was something else I had learned over the previous weeks.
Silence wasn’t always something to fill.
Sometimes people needed room to reach the truth on their own.
We were sitting in my workshop the next afternoon. Marcy had gone home after showing me the picture, but I had asked Eddie to come alone.
The image lay between us on the workbench.
Finally, he said, “I hoped that camera wasn’t working.”
Not the answer I expected.
“You knew?”
“I knew Michael came back.”
“Why didn’t you tell anybody?”
Eddie sat heavily on the stool.
“Because I thought it had nothing to do with the money.”
“And now?”
“I still don’t think it does.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“My brother has spent most of his adult life avoiding responsibility. Not because he’s dangerous. Because he gets embarrassed easily.”
“That sounds like an expensive personality trait.”
“You have no idea.”
I waited.
May you like
Eddie gave a tired smile.
“Fifteen years ago, Michael and I started the gym together.”
