…an FBI agent. He’s been working with your brother for a year. Bring everything to me.”
I drove back to the restaurant with the suitcase. Mom was sitting on a bench outside. My brother, Richard, was standing beside her looking like he hadn’t slept in a week.
Mom explained. Eighteen months ago, Richard had sold the right to use our late father’s name, Holloway, to a developer. Our father had founded a trusted construction company in our town fifty years ago. The developer was using the Holloway name on cheap, unsafe buildings and taking deposits from families who trusted it. Several homes had already failed inspections.
Mom found out. She hid our father’s records, letters and the photo of Richard with the developer in the locker. She was afraid Richard would destroy them.
What she hadn’t known until that night was that Richard had been working with the FBI for a year to stop the developer. He’d realized what he’d done and gone to the authorities himself. The man in the photo, standing beside him, wasn’t the developer. It was the agent.
“I couldn’t tell anyone,” Richard said. “Not even you. That’s why I kept you away tonight. The developer was invited. He was going to try to get Mom to sign over the trademark officially.”
The red envelope held the developer’s signed contract. Evidence. Mom had taken it from Richard’s coat that afternoon, assuming the worst of him.
We went inside together. The developer was arrested at the party, between the main course and the cake, when the FBI agent walked in. Mom said it was the best birthday entertainment she’d ever had.
Richard apologized for what he’d said at the door. I apologized for believing the worst. Mom made us both hold her hands while she blew out ninety candles.
