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Archives: A letter to my son (cont.)
…It
is to you, dear son, that I owe an apology. I cannot even speak of what I did,
but if you have thought of that day as often as I have, you know of what I
speak. I have been haunted by the guilt of what I did to you those years ago.
You deserved better than how I treated you, and I am sorry. I hope that in
time, you can find it in your heart to forgive me for how I wronged you.
I
am ready to die, but I am deeply saddened that I will not be able to see what
wondrous things you will accomplish for this world. I could not be more proud
of the man you have become, and I rest with full confidence that you will
accomplish greater things for this world than I could ever have dreamed. The
Lester name could not rest upon a better set of shoulders than yours. Thank you
for the privilege of calling you “son.”
Your
father
Alistair
Lester
Chapter 14: Sunday Afternoon
Montgomery
Lester sat in his living room across from the private investigator he’d hired
to find the thieves that had hijacked his train. He was impatient. He usually
spent his Sundays relaxing, reading, avoiding work as much as possible. He took
a sip of hot tea hoping to calm his nerves.
“How is
the investigation going?”
“It is
complete. The entire team of thieves has been captured. One was killed.”
That news
was bittersweet to Lester. His heart ached at the thought that someone was
killed, even a criminal such as this man. “Tell me who these people were. What
did they want?”
“It seems
they were only after money. The only other thing missing from the trains was a
record book from the early revolution. It’s not clear why they took that. The
rest was gold and valuables. The team was quite diverse. Charlotte Avalon, the
airbike racer, was the first to be caught, she was injured in a car crash on
Friday. After her, we captured the inventor, Dr. Everton L. Montebanque. I was
able to turn Dr. Montebanque into an ally to capture the rest. We then
apprehended Kostas Stavraki, a burglar and explosives expert. From there, we
traced two of the thieves who were escaping the city together on a small yacht.
Anabelle Devereaux, a well-known socialite, was pulled off the boat into our
airship. Her companion, the bookmaker Phineas Derbyshire perished in the chase.
The final member of the team, the ringleader, was captured this morning. His
name is Thurmond Higgs.”
Montgomery
took note of the names. Miss Devereaux and Mr. Derbyshire were both known to
him, though he’d never met them. Miss Avalon’s name rang a bell as well. “And
what about the valuables? Were those recovered?”
“Some. Not
all. We’ve been able to recover about 2/3 of it so far. We’re hoping to find
more soon, but we know that some was lost in the exchange with Derbyshire. Some
was spent before we could do anything about it.”
Montgomery
nodded. “It is as good as I could have expected. I’ll need to cover what losses
were not recovered. I appreciate your effort to continue the recovery. Thank
you for all your work, Mr. Hawke.”
Montgomery
opened a box, and pulled out a small bag of gold coins. He handed them to the
investigator. “Your fee. I have added some, since you worked so quickly.”
Montgomery
stood and saw Hawke out of the house. He locked the door as the investigator
left. He went to sit at his desk. He looked over the list left by Hawke,
reflected on the people who had somehow broken into his train while it was
travelling faster than any train had before. He couldn’t help but be impressed
at their ability to pull it off. He wondered if it was worth the cost.
He reached
into a desk drawer and pulled out a battered leather-bound book. The cover,
which had once been red was now battered and faded to a pale brown. There was a
deep gash across the front cover, and corners were dented and bent. ARCHIVES
was written in block letters on the front. He ran a hand over the cover, and he
could feel the tears welling up in his eyes once again. This book contained the
one thing that he would have given his entire fortune to find. That a man had
died for this book was bittersweet for him.
He couldn’t bear to open it. The thought of what he might learn was almost too much to bear. He placed his hand on the cover and thought back to thirty years earlier.
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