Page 81 of Laced With Secrets

“Worse.” Richard’s voice broke. “He looked at me like I’d destroyed something precious. Like the man he loved had never existed at all.”

I could imagine Thomas’s devastation too clearly—pregnant with the child of someone who’d been complicit in the very corruption he was trying to expose. The betrayal would have been absolute.

Something shifted in my chest. The parallel and the contrast between Richard and Dominic was painfully clear.

Dominic had wounded me in a similar manner.

He’d planned to use me. But in the end, he chosenme. Immediately, completely, without reservation or hesitation.

“When was this?” I asked, though I suspected I already knew.

“June first, 1973.” Richard’s hands twisted together harder, knuckles white. “Thomas gave me an ultimatum. Two weeks to tell my father I was ending my involvement, that I’d testify against the operation if necessary, that I’d make things right no matter the cost to our family’s reputation. He said if I didn’t do it—if I chose my family over the truth, over him, over our future together—he would go to the authorities himself.”

Richard’s voice dropped so low I had to strain to hear him. “We argued. Terribly. Right there in that greenhouse.”

He gestured toward the windows. “I told him he was naive, that he didn’t understand the forces he was challenging, that exposing this would destroy both of us. He said I was a coward who cared more about money and status than justice, that he’d been wrong about me, that he couldn’t believe he’d fallen in love with someone so morally bankrupt. We were both right.”

The silence stretched, weighted beneath that final conversation.

“That was the last time you saw him,” Dominic said. Not a question.

“Yes. June first. He left angry, disappointed, probably heartbroken. Walked out of that greenhouse—” Richard’s gaze fixed on the glass structure visible through the window, “—and I never saw him again. His deadline was June fifteenth—two weeks to shut down the operation or he’d go to authorities.”

When he turned to face me again, his eyes were haunted by five decades of wondering. “And then, on June sixteenth, one day after the deadline, I received a letter.”

My breath caught. “A letter?”

Richard stood with visible effort and moved to his desk. He unlocked the bottom drawer with a small key from his pocket and withdrew a wooden box—expensive, antique, the kind meant for precious documents. His hands shook as he opened it, revealing a yellowed envelope inside, along with what looked like other mementos—a pressed trillium flower, a couple of faded photographs, scraps of paper with handwritten notes.

“I keep everything here,” he said quietly, his fingers trembling as he lifted the envelope. “I come here sometimes, late at night when everyone’s asleep, and I read it. Torture myself with it.” He held the envelope but didn’t offer it yet. “It was addressed to me, postmarked June fifteenth.”

“You believed it?” I asked carefully.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Richard’s voice turned defensive, but the defense was directed inward, at himself. “It was Thomas’s handwriting—or so I thought. It said things only Thomas wouldknow—references to conversations we’d had, private moments we’d shared in that greenhouse, intimate details about our relationship. It made sense.”

His voice cracked. “Thomas was angry with me—hurt and disappointed. He’d given me an ultimatum I couldn’t meet, discovered I wasn’t the man he thought I was. Of course he’d leave. Of course he’d want to escape all of this, start fresh somewhere I couldn’t find him. Of course he’d choose his principles over a relationship built on lies.”

He finally extended the envelope toward me. I took it carefully, noting the postmark—Millcrest, June 15, 1973. Inside was a single sheet of paper, slightly yellowed with age but still crisp, the handwriting precise and measured.

Richard,

By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I’ve decided to leave Millcrest. The situation has become impossible, and I can’t stay in a place where everything I believed in has been corrupted beyond recognition. I’m going to California to start fresh, somewhere I can practice architecture without compromising my principles.

I thought we meant something. You told me I meant something to you that time in the greenhouse when the trilliums were blooming. But I can’t reconcile the man I loved with the man who helpedfacilitate corruption. I don’t blame you for your choices, but I can’t be part of it.

Please don’t try to find me. I need to build a new life, away from all of this. Away from you.

I hope you find happiness, Richard. You deserve that, even if we couldn’t find it together.

Thomas

The letter was perfect. Too perfect. Every word calculated to make Richard believe Thomas had left voluntarily, that there was no reason to worry or investigate or ask questions. The reference to their private conversation about trilliums—intimate enough to seem authentic, specific enough to convince.

Someone had to have seen them, overheard them.

The letter had been written to make Richard grieve but not search. To tie up the loose end of their relationship so cleanly that no one would question it… even Richard.

“You kept it all these years,” I said quietly, my fingers gentle on the aged paper.