Nobody spoke after Raymond said Eric’s name.
The video continued running, but for several seconds Raymond only looked toward the camera, as if deciding how much truth he could safely leave behind.
Brian stood beside me with one hand braced against the desk.
“Keep playing it.”
Ruiz nodded.
Raymond drew a breath on the screen.
“Eric has spent most of his life being underestimated. Victor thinks that makes him useful. Patricia thinks it makes him harmless. They are both wrong.”
Patricia stared at the floor.
Brian looked toward her.
“You knew Dad was worried about Eric?”
“No.”
The recording continued.
“Eric learned early that the safest place in a dirty business is beside the man everyone blames.”
Victor.
The obvious villain.
The violent man.
The brother who stabbed Andrew, threatened Raymond, manipulated Brian and arranged Ethan’s kidnapping.
If everyone watched Victor, someone quieter could work behind him.
Raymond reached off camera and returned holding a sheet of paper.
“The first payment that matters is dated twenty-two years ago. Find the number 417.”
The recording ended.
Brian immediately turned toward the copied files.
“Search it.”
Ruiz entered 417.
Dozens of results appeared.
Invoices.
Property numbers.
Ledger references.
Daniel narrowed the search by date.
One document remained.
A payment voucher.
$4,170.
Recipient: E.B.
Brian frowned.
“Eric Brooks.”
Patricia shook her head.
“He would have been twelve.”
“Then who is E.B.?” I asked.
Andrew answered from behind us.
“Elaine Brooks.”
Brian looked at him.
“Who?”
Patricia closed her eyes.
“My sister.”
Another relative Brian had apparently never been told about.
He stared at his mother.
“You had a sister?”
“She died.”
“When?”
“When you were little.”
“How?”
Patricia did not answer.
Andrew did.
“Car accident.”
Brian looked between them.
“Why have I never heard her name?”
Patricia’s face tightened.
“Because Raymond asked me not to talk about her.”
That answer no longer satisfied anyone.
Ruiz pulled the payment record closer.
“Why was Victor paying Elaine?”
Andrew looked troubled.
“I didn’t know he was.”
The voucher listed a consulting company.
E.B. Services.
The address led to a property demolished fifteen years earlier.
But Raymond had attached a handwritten notation:
FIRST PAYMENT. ERIC PRESENT.
Brian looked confused.
“Eric was twelve.”
Andrew shook his head.
“Not that Eric.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Eric wasn’t named after nobody.”
Andrew looked toward Patricia.
“Tell him.”
Patricia’s eyes filled.
Brian stepped closer.
“Tell me what?”
“My father had a brother,” she whispered.
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“Named Eric?”
She nodded.
“Eric Brooks Senior.”
Ruiz leaned back.
“So the Eric involved twenty-two years ago was not your nephew.”
“No.”
“What happened to him?”
Patricia swallowed.
“He disappeared.”
Brian laughed bitterly.
“Of course he did.”
Every branch of the family tree seemed to contain someone erased.
Ruiz searched the database.
Eric Brooks Senior had been reported missing twenty-one years earlier.
No body recovered.
His last known employment was with one of Victor’s companies.
Daniel looked at the dates.
“This was shortly before Brian’s injury.”
Andrew nodded.
“Then Raymond’s warning may go back further than the nephew.”
Brian looked at Patricia.
“Was Uncle Eric involved with Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Collections?”
“Yes.”
“Victor?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Andrew disagreed.
“Raymond knew.”
Patricia’s head snapped toward him.
“You told me you didn’t.”
“I told you Raymond wouldn’t tell me.”
“That’s different.”
“It kept you alive.”
Brian slammed his palm against the desk.
“Stop.”
Everyone went quiet.
“No more protecting people with lies.”
He looked at Andrew.
“If you know something, say it.”
Andrew studied him.
“Your uncle Eric discovered Victor was stealing from Raymond.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“Then?”
“He threatened to expose him.”
“What happened?”
“Victor made him disappear.”
Brian looked toward Raymond’s digital archive.
“And Dad documented it.”
“Probably.”
Ruiz searched for Eric Brooks Senior.
A folder appeared.
Inside were bank transfers and photographs.
The last image showed three men outside a warehouse.
Raymond.
Victor.
Eric Senior.
A fourth person stood partly outside the frame.
Young.
Thin.
Barely more than a teenager.
Daniel enlarged the photograph.
Patricia whispered, “No.”
It was Eric Junior.
The man currently under guard at the hospital.
He was fifteen in the photograph.
Not twelve.
Old enough to watch.
Old enough to remember.
Brian stared.
“You told me he barely knew Victor.”
Patricia said nothing.
The picture said enough.
Ruiz searched additional photographs.
Eric appeared repeatedly.
At warehouses.
Near Victor’s car.
Beside his father.
The nephew everyone considered peripheral had grown up inside the operation.
Raymond’s warning made sense.
Eric had not stumbled into Victor’s business as an adult real-estate broker.
He had inherited it.
Daniel found another file.
An audio recording.
Raymond’s voice.
Another man answered.
Eric Senior.
The recording was dated six months before his disappearance.
Eric Senior sounded frightened.
“Victor’s bringing the kid in.”
Raymond replied, “He’s fifteen.”
“He doesn’t care.”
“He should.”
“Eric worships him.”
The recording crackled.
Then Eric Senior said something quieter.
“If anything happens to me, don’t let my boy become Victor.”
The file ended.
Brian sat down.
“He did.”
Andrew looked toward him.
“Maybe.”
“No. He kidnapped Ethan.”
“Victor initiated that.”
“Eric continued it.”
“Yes.”
“He moved money.”
“Yes.”
“He probably killed Victor.”
Andrew did not answer.
Ruiz’s phone rang.
The hospital.
Eric had regained enough strength to be formally questioned.
He wanted to talk.
But only to Brian.
Ruiz refused.
Eric changed his request.
Brian and me.
That made even less sense.
“Why Angela?” Brian asked.
The officer relayed Eric’s answer.
Because Raymond chose her.
We went under strict conditions.
Eric lay propped against white pillows, his left shoulder heavily bandaged.
A uniformed officer stood outside.
Ruiz remained inside.
Brian stopped near the foot of the bed.
“You wanted me.”
Eric looked at me.
“I wanted her.”
“Why?”
“Because she has the copy.”
“The police have it.”
Eric smiled weakly.
“No. Raymond never kept only one.”
Daniel glanced at me.
“What does that mean?”
Eric looked toward Brian.
“Your father didn’t trust digital files.”
“We found the memory card.”
“That’s one archive.”
“What’s the other?”
Eric looked at me again.
“Angela has been carrying part of it for years.”
I felt a chill.
“The ring?”
He nodded.
“My grandmother’s ring?”
“It wasn’t originally hers.”
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“Your grandmother bought it from Raymond.”
“When?”
“Before you were born.”
Brian stepped forward.
“How would you know?”
“My father told me.”
Eric’s voice weakened.
“The emerald isn’t just a stone.”
Ruiz looked toward the evidence inventory.
“What is it?”
“A container.”
My grandmother’s ring had already been photographed and examined.
Nobody had dismantled it.
Eric said Raymond once used hollow jewelry settings to transport microfilm.
The emerald setting supposedly contained one.
“What’s on it?” I asked.
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“People Raymond couldn’t put in the ledger.”
“Why?”
“Because one of them was family.”
Brian stiffened.
“Who?”
Eric looked at Patricia through the observation window.
Then back at us.
“Ask her why Elaine really died.”
Patricia’s face went white.
Brian turned.
“Mom?”
She backed away from the glass.
Eric closed his eyes.
“She wasn’t killed in a car accident.”
“What happened?”
Eric opened his eyes again.
“Elaine found out who Victor’s real partner was.”
Brian’s voice dropped.
“Who?”
Eric looked straight at Patricia.
“Her.”
One Comment on “PART 13 – Raymond’s Last Recording Named Eric as the Greater Threat, but the Reason Was Buried Inside a Payment Made Before Brian’s Injury”