The air in Arthur’s lumberyard office was thick with the smell of sawdust and stale coffee. He sat behind his large, imposing desk, a stack of invoices meticulously arranged before him. The hum of the industrial saws from outside vibrated faintly through the walls.
I placed the manila envelope, now containing the full set of bank transfer statements, squarely on his desk.
“I have questions, Arthur,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. “About this.”
He glanced down at the papers, then back at me, a flicker of something I couldn’t quite place in his cold eyes. “What about them, Clara? Thomas worked for me. We had business dealings.”
“One hundred and twenty thousand dollars in ‘business dealings’?” I countered, my voice rising slightly. “Spread over three years? From your general business account to Thomas’s personal fund? This wasn’t a salary, Arthur. This looks like you were paying him off. Paying him off to quietly sign over rights, piece by piece, so you could get my land without a fight.”
His face, usually so impassive, went pale. He slammed his fist down on the desk, a sudden, explosive sound that made me jump. A small stack of invoices toppled over.
“You know nothing, Clara!” he spat, his voice low and guttural. “You think you know something because you found a few papers? You knew *nothing* about the man you married. You lived in a dream, and he let you.”
His words struck me like a physical blow. They carried a venom, a deep-seated bitterness that went far beyond a landlord-tenant dispute. It felt intensely personal, aimed not just at me, but at Thomas’s memory.
“Explain it then,” I demanded, pushing the statements closer to him. “Explain the $120,000. Explain why you’re calling my husband a liar.”
Arthur pushed himself back from his desk, standing to his full, imposing height. He walked to the window, his back to me, looking out at the endless stacks of lumber.
“There are some things best left buried, Clara,” he said, his voice calmer now, but no less menacing. “Things that will destroy everything you hold dear. Go home. Leave it be. Take your house, but stop digging.”
He turned, his eyes hard. “You think you’re fighting for your home. You’re fighting to tear down a legacy, Clara. A legacy of lies. And you won’t like what you find underneath.”
He wouldn’t explain. He wouldn’t deny. He just hinted at a darker truth, a secret he was still protecting, even now. The encounter left me shaken, more convinced than ever that Arthur knew something terrible about Thomas, and that the $120,000 was just the tip of a very dangerous iceberg.
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