Chapter 15 - The Accountant
Peter Do confessed faster than anyone expected.
Not to everything.
Enough.
Bao asked him to create the company.
Peter used Mai Tran’s old inactive holding-company records because they were still in his files.
“Why her name?” Lan demanded.
Peter stared at the table.
“Because nobody checks dead entities quickly.”
Minh flinched.
Peter accepted $18,000.
Funds from Pacific Strategies flowed through the account to local social-media operators, event promoters and several property-owner outreach groups.
Some activity was legitimate marketing.
Some was covert persuasion.
One payment funded the photographer waiting for Jack.
Lan asked, “Did my father know?”
“No.”
“Did Crescent?”
“I only dealt with Bao and Jenna Pike.”
Records supported him.
Investigators would determine charges.
Peter’s betrayal hurt Minh differently.
Peter had eaten at their family table.
He attended Mai’s funeral.
He sent flowers.
Then used her name.
Lan asked why.
Peter answered the same way everyone seemed to answer.
“Debt.”
His son’s failed restaurant.
Tax bills.
Mortgage.
Need.
Pressure.
Money did not invent character.
It revealed where people placed the line.
Peter moved his.
Bao moved his.
Duc moved his.
Daniel moved his.
Minh moved his.
Jack began thinking less about heroes and more about thresholds.
The point at which fear became permission.
Sophie published her first major article.
Its headline avoided flags entirely.
WHO OWNS FREEDOM AVENUE? THE FORTY-YEAR PAPER TRAIL BEHIND A CALIFORNIA REDEVELOPMENT FIGHT.
Jack read every word.
“You barely mentioned me.”
“You are devastated.”
“Deeply.”
She smiled.
The article included the flag confrontation as the event that exposed the hidden history.
But it did not call Minh anti-American.
It did not call Jack a racist provocateur.
It explained what each believed in the moment.
That distinction mattered.
The story spread farther than the edited clips.
Owners began requesting independent reviews of their deeds.
Two more irregularities surfaced.
Not fraud by Bao.
Errors dating to the chaotic 1980s transactions.
Correcting them would take time.
Minh proposed the association fund neutral legal assistance for all owners.
Bao supported it.
Some people booed him.
He stayed.
That mattered too.
Then one night Jack’s motorcycle shop was broken into.
Nothing expensive was taken.
Tools remained.
Cash remained.
The thieves opened Daniel’s archive cabinet.
They took only one item.
The old American flag.
Not the pole.
Jack had removed the fabric while restoring a frayed seam.
The pole with the key cavity remained.
Why steal the cloth?
Police photographed the scene.
Jack was furious.
Sophie was frightened.
Minh drove from Orange County at midnight.
“You think Bao?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
Security footage showed one person in a hood and mask.
But the thief did something strange.
Before leaving, they placed a photograph on Jack’s desk.
Vinh and Daniel.
The same 1987 image.
Across Daniel’s face someone had written:
HE LIED TO BOTH FAMILIES.
Sophie turned the photo over.
There was an address.
An abandoned industrial lot in Anaheim.
Jack wanted to go immediately.
Police told him not to.
For once, he listened.
Detectives searched the property the next morning.
Inside an old office safe they found Daniel's flag, unharmed.
And another metal box.
No explosives.
No weapons.
Documents.
The box belonged to Daniel.
His name was engraved underneath.
Jack stared when police released photographs.
“How did Dad’s box get there?”
No one knew.
Inside were papers Daniel had apparently hidden outside both families.
Including a notarized statement dated 2004.
Daniel Mercer had written:
If this is found after my death, understand that neither Duc Tran nor Nam Nguyen knows the full reason I left Freedom Avenue.
Jack stopped reading.
His father had kept one final secret.
May you like
And it was about Karen.
Jack’s mother.
