Chapter 6 - THOMAS’S LETTER
Richard read the letter twice before he could trust himself to speak.
Thomas’s handwriting was smaller than Richard remembered, more controlled.
The first line hit hardest:
If this reached you, then either I died before I got brave enough, or somebody lied to you longer than I expected.
The letter told a version of their history Richard had never heard.
When Hale & Mercer Supply nearly collapsed in 1993, Richard had been in the hospital after a highway wreck on a supplier run. Bernard Hale stepped in temporarily to “stabilize” the business.
During those weeks, Thomas discovered two things:
first, Bernard wanted full control,
and second, the company’s next financing round depended on pushing Thomas out cheaply.
Bernard told Thomas that Richard had agreed.
Then he produced documents claiming Thomas’s founder interest would be converted into a temporary payout.
Thomas refused.
A week later, a theft accusation appeared against him.
Missing inventory.
Cooked ledgers.
Witnesses ready to swear he had been siphoning goods.
The letter said Thomas never stole anything.
He also never fought publicly because by then Diane’s mother was pregnant, and Bernard threatened to ruin Thomas completely if he resisted.
“I thought if you knew, you’d come,” the letter read. “But Bernard kept saying you were done with me, and after a while pride began sounding like survival.”
Richard felt sick.
The next part was worse.
Thomas wrote that he never signed away his share.
He hid the original partnership papers and one restructuring amendment because he no longer trusted the people around Richard.
“If you truly chose this,” Thomas wrote, “then I wanted one piece of proof left in the world that I didn’t walk away from nothing.”
Richard looked up from the letter.
Diane was crying silently.
Leo did not understand the business language, but he understood enough to whisper, “Grandpa didn’t leave?”
“No,” Richard said hoarsely. “I think he was pushed.”
Inside the same pouch, folded behind the letter, was the most important page:
an original notarized founder agreement showing that Thomas Mercer retained a continuing equity interest in every successor version of the company unless he signed a release.
There was no release.
Only an unsigned buyout form.
May you like
Richard’s hands began to shake.
Because if that document was valid, then Thomas Mercer’s ownership had never died at all.
