Chapter 7 - THE FILES THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE
Richard brought in outside counsel that afternoon.
Not company counsel.
Independent counsel.
He no longer trusted the structure his father built enough to let it defend itself.
The lawyers compared Thomas’s letter and the recovered founder agreement to the official archive.
The company’s internal file contained a scanned release bearing what purported to be Thomas Mercer’s signature.
Diane took one look at it and said, “That isn’t his handwriting.”
Richard didn’t need her to say it.
He knew too.
The next clue came from the missing boxes in the archive room.
Their custody trail led not to Bernard—who had been dead ten years—but to Gerald Pike, Richard’s longtime chief financial officer.
Gerald had been Bernard’s controller in the early days.
He now claimed the missing records were lost during digitization years earlier.
Richard asked one question.
“Did Thomas Mercer ever sign a founder release?”
Gerald answered too quickly.
“To the best of my knowledge, yes.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Gerald’s face tightened.
“The company’s records reflect—”
“Did he?”
For the first time in two decades, Gerald Pike looked afraid of the man who paid him.
“I’d have to review the historical materials.”
Richard leaned back slowly.
“You already did. That’s why the boxes are missing.”
By evening, a forensic document examiner had provisionally concluded that the signature on the archived release was likely a traced simulation, not an original live signature.
The outside lawyers also traced several old dividend and rollover schedules from Hale & Mercer Supply through later corporate restructurings.
If Thomas’s founder interest truly survived those transitions, it had not remained small.
It had grown.
Greatly.
Richard sat alone in his office after midnight while the numbers were recalculated three different ways.
No matter which method they used, the result came back in the same brutal range.
Thomas Mercer’s rightful stake—through mergers, share conversions, and private recapitalizations—was now worth somewhere between $148 million and $186 million.
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The poor woman in the hospital bed was not merely the daughter of a forgotten friend.
She was the heir to one of the largest unrecognized founder claims in Richard Hale’s empire.
