Chapter 5 - What the Fathers Hid
Minh called Daniel Mercer a coward.
Jack nearly hit him.
They were standing behind Tran Family Market, away from customers.
“You don't know why he took that money.”
“He left.”
“He had a wife and an eleven-year-old son.”
“My brother had a wife too.”
Minh stepped closer.
“He did not get to leave.”
Jack's hands clenched.
Huy stood nearby but wisely did not interfere.
Lan did.
“Enough.”
Neither man listened.
Minh pointed toward Lantern Building.
“My brother died trying to protect this street.”
“And maybe my father spent the rest of his life carrying whatever happened!”
“That did not bring Vinh back.”
“No. Neither does blaming a dead man before we know the truth.”
Sophie appeared holding another folder.
“Then maybe both of you should shut up and help me find it.”
They did.
The fifty-thousand-dollar deposit had come from a Stonebridge-controlled escrow account.
The withdrawal three weeks later went to a newly formed organization:
Freedom Avenue Relief Fund.
Lan searched state archives.
The fund existed for only fourteen months.
Its purpose:
Fire recovery and emergency legal assistance for local merchants.
Minh stared.
“My father told me the relief money came from donations.”
“Some did,” Sophie said. “But forty-nine thousand eight hundred seventy dollars came from Daniel.”
Jack looked at Minh.
“So Dad didn't keep it.”
Minh remained guarded.
“He still accepted it.”
“Maybe because it was the only way to get the money.”
Lan nodded.
“That’s possible.”
But the transaction did not absolve Daniel.
Why accept Stonebridge money secretly?
Why not expose the company?
Why leave?
More answers waited in Daniel's journals.
Most pages were mundane.
Measurements.
Schedules.
Business contacts.
Then Sophie found one entry dated November 19, 1988.
Two days after the fire.
Vinh dead.
Duc wants silence.
Nam wants silence.
Ellis offers 50K and withdrawal of option claims.
I said yes.
God forgive me.
Jack read it twice.
Minh’s expression turned hard again.
“He chose the deal.”
Daniel had.
The next page explained why.
If we fight, the bank calls the loans. Twelve families lose their stores. Fire investigation will expose cash contributions nobody documented properly. Duc says the community cannot survive a scandal.
I told him Vinh deserves truth.
Duc said the living deserve roofs.
I hate him for making sense.
Lan stared at her grandfather’s name.
Minh said quietly, “My father forced him.”
“No,” Jack replied.
“He agreed.”
It mattered.
Excuses were not truth.
Daniel had compromised.
Maybe to save businesses.
Maybe from fear.
Maybe both.
The next entry:
Stonebridge requires side letter stay buried. Ellis says original destroyed in fire.
He is lying.
Vinh hid one.
Jack looked at Sophie.
“27B.”
She nodded.
The missing archive.
Daniel knew the original existed.
And apparently never retrieved it.
Why?
The final entry from Orange County was dated December 4.
They followed Jack to school.
Karen saw the car.
We leave Friday.
Jack’s blood ran cold.
“Someone followed me?”
Sophie looked at him.
“You were eleven.”
He barely remembered.
A gray sedan.
His mother picking him up unexpectedly.
A week later, moving boxes.
Daniel had not simply fled shame.
He believed his family was threatened.
Minh read over Jack's shoulder.
His anger softened for the first time.
Only slightly.
“What car?”
“No details.”
Sophie searched later pages.
Daniel never wrote Stonebridge again.
But there was one sentence in 1994.
Saw N.N. today.
He knows I kept the key.
N.N.
Nam Nguyen.
Bao’s father.
Minh stared at the initials.
Bao had insisted Room 27B was empty.
His father apparently knew Daniel still possessed its key.
Lan said what everyone was thinking.
“If Nam told Bao…”
Jack finished.
“Bao knew exactly what was inside my flag.”
That afternoon, Sophie traced the professional photographer from the confrontation.
Pacific Strategies Group had been paid $84,000 over six months by Crescent Pacific.
Crescent was buying Freedom Avenue.
Bao was quietly encouraging owners to sell.
And someone working with Bao had known Jack Mercer might arrive carrying the one key that could lead to documents affecting ownership of the land.
The fight over the American flag had never truly been about the flag.
May you like
The flag had identified Jack.
And somebody had needed the cameras to capture what happened next.
