I should have stayed in Mexico, found a doctor, even though you said the medicine wasn’t good enough there to help Lynn. You said we were lucky that the private plane hadn’t left or been damaged in the hurricane, and that we needed to leave now before the pilot changed his mind. I know now you just wanted to get Lynn out so you could study her.
My wife died, alone, in the rubble of a building, because of you. You shouldn’t have taken Lynn and run out. You should have stayed inside and let her escape.
Do not contact me again.
Feb 21, 1952
BUD STANSON
1 EVELYN ROAD
NASHVILLE, TN 37205
REX MARTIN
ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY
1 NORTH GRAND BOULEVARD
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 63103
Bud,
It’s cancer. I feared as much, even when I was writing to you last year. I know you asked me not to ever contact you again, and I promised myself I wouldn’t. Because I thought I had time. Time enough to change your mind over the years.
But I don’t have time. The cancer is stage four. I won’t live, I don’t think, past the summer.
If you won’t further corroborate what happened, then I beg you to let some of my colleagues come and study the site in your woods where Lynn was taken.
Please consider it. Someone from my organization will be contacting you shortly. I am not well enough to make the trip myself.
I know I told you about my son. I’ve been a disappointment to him, because of how often I’ve been away and the priority I’ve given my career. He’s a young man, already soured about what he calls this nonsense work of mine. I cannot blame him. But he has opened his home to me in my final days, and I have learned, too late, that nothing is more important than being a good father.
I pray that Lynn grows up to be just like her parents.
November 15, 1951
YUCATAN, MEXICO
The doctors are suggesting some kind of medical coma. I’m no fool, I know what that means. My injuries are so severe, the infection so great, that they hope putting me in a coma will help me survive. At least not live with constant pain. I think they’re trying to be kind.
I will not live through this, and I have made peace with that. I do not wish to live. When you are told that you have barely survived being buried under a building, and that your daughter, your husband, and a kind professor, who only tried to help us find her, were all killed in the storm along with so many others, the will to live isn’t strong.
I tried to save them. I did. But it was a fruitless gesture. Nothing could have saved any of us. So many people died that day.
Our neighbors in Nashville will wonder what happened to us. How we just took off and never returned. Bud and I have no close family. No one there will ever know the truth.
But to the people who will study my file, in the hopes of understanding what’s happening, I want you to know this: I loved my daughter, and my husband. I am happy to join them now.
They are coming with the medicine to put me to sleep. I hope to dream of them.
William sat back, almost having to force himself to look away from the pages.
“Are you finished?”
The voice came from the man in the corner, still facing his laptop, who cleared his throat immediately after he spoke.
William realized that the screen of the laptop was black, and that it was angled so that the man could monitor William while he read the letters.
“I am, but… I just need a moment.”
“That’s understandable. I’ve also put it all on a flash drive, in case you want to review it later. It’s something I should have done a long time ago. I think the time has come, at last, for me to deliver on something I vowed to do fifteen years ago.”
The man turned around, picking up the laptop. Even in the dark of the corner, it was clear, despite his advanced age, his hair was still thick, with a hairline that would be the envy of even young men. He stood with a tremble, but walked with ease. When he stepped into the light of the table, William blinked in recognition.
“How do I know you?”
“I’ve waited my entire adult life to meet you, William. My name is Dr. Steven Richards.” He then placed the laptop in front of William. “And do brace yourself, son. There are some videos you need to see.”
NINE
They emerged from the elevator to a house draped in the pinkish light of a sunset. The old man shuffled into the kitchen instead of veering down the hall to the porch. “I think, perhaps, you need a drink.”
“Sir, I need to see—”
“She’s not going anywhere, I promise you that.”
William followed him into the kitchen, its white countertops and cabinets soaking in the hue of the light that poured from the front windows. Dr. Richards took out two glasses and hunched over, struggling a bit to lift something out of a bottom drawer.
“Can I help—?”
“My doctor said I need to move as much as possible. Helps the blood flow. Heart needs all the help it can get. Which is why,” he held up the long bottle with a musky brown color, “we need whiskey.”
He poured and slid a glass across the counter to where William stood. As William raised his glass, the man reached over and clinked his glass to it with a wink. “To your grandmother,” he said, tossing it back.
My grandmother. Who was taken, just like me. Who was returned, just like me. Who I just watched be interrogated by government agents, just as I was. And we both have something within us that could kill—
William swallowed the drink in one gulp, hoping Dr. Richards would refill the glass as quickly as possible.
“I’m guessing you have some questions?”
Let’s see… So everything I suspected about myself being a danger to my family is true? Why you, the central figure in my disappearance, would be in the same house with my great-grandmother, who is somehow still alive, despite that letter that seemed to indicate she was about to die?
“You’re him,” was all William could mutter.
“Well, I guess that depends on what you’ve heard. Steven Richards, the man who the FBI tried to say kidnapped and killed you fifteen years ago? Steven Richards, the mad scientist in the tinfoil hat? Anything else I’m missing?”
William scooted the glass across the granite countertop. “Another, please.”
“I’ll join you. But I’m serious, son. Anything else you know about me?”
The man’s eyes were a bit cloudy, perhaps from cataracts. His hands shook slightly as he poured them another round, but he did not spill. “All I ever knew is that my grandmother worked for you when she was young. And then you were cleared of the criminal charges and disappeared.”
Steven’s face looked a bit crestfallen, but he held up the glass one more time. “To your grandmother again. And her secrets.”
William took a long, slow drink, feeling the heat in his throat spill down to his chest. Steven set his glass on the counter. “I know this is a lot. It’s why she wanted to meet you. She could hardly wait. For obvious reasons—but she also wanted you to read the letters that she and your great-grandfather, along with Dr. Martin, wrote about Lynn’s disappearance. And also for you to see the recordings where you were both questioned. So you could start at the beginning and perhaps begin to understand how it’s all tied in to what’s happening now.”