The contents of this safe will change your life.
He suspected that his father had been conflicted. The envelope contained something important Dad wanted him to have. Yet it also contained something wild, something that might better be left untouched. Still, his father would have known that Aiden had no real choice. What mere mortal could resist such temptation?
Still envisioning a waiting fortune – maybe details for accessing a secret bank account – he broke the seal. Inside was a four-page handwritten letter in his father’s elegant cursive. The date indicated it was written when Aiden was twelve, only a few months before his parents died.
Aiden began reading. Before he got to the second page, his hands were shaking. It felt as if a giant claw had grabbed hold of his guts and was applying relentless pressure.
By the time he reached at the end of the letter, he felt numb. The notion that the contents of the safe would change his life was the grossest understatement.
His entire world had just been ripped apart.
SIX
“Aiden, are you all right?”
George Dorminy gazed worriedly at him from the shed’s doorway. Aiden, still in a daze, didn’t know how long he’d been standing there.
“I’m fine.”
“You finally got it open. What was the secret key?”
Aiden wanted him to leave. He wanted to be left alone to process the letter’s monumental impact. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen.
He forced a smile and gave Dorminy a quick explanation of “Blackie Redstone” and the safe’s self-destruct mechanism. The old man nodded and gazed at the letter clamped in Aiden’s hand.
“No secret treasure,” he said, trying to relax his tense body through sheer force of will, trying not to show the devastating emotions churning through him. “Just some personal stuff.”
“Well, either way, Irene and I would like to invite you to stay for supper.”
The last thing Aiden wanted to do was hang around and make small talk with the Dorminys. He politely declined, saying he needed to catch a train back to Philly. His original plan of staying overnight in a motel was history. He just wanted to go home.
Home. The word caught in his throat, its meaning forever altered by the letter.
Dorminy insisted on showing Aiden the basement and the hollow cavity in the wall where the safe had been concealed. It was a clever hiding place, not readily accessible until the old coal furnace had been hauled away. The removal of the furnace, an unused relic even when Aiden lived here, had disclosed a section of false wall covered by wooden slats painted the same shade of ivory as the surrounding cement.
“I know you’re eager to get on the road,” Dorminy said. “But before you go, I’d really like you to see my pride and joy.”
The old man drew aside a green drape that separated the front of the basement from the furnace area and stepped across the threshold. Aiden followed reluctantly, hoping the tour would be short.
Dorminy’s HO-scale model railroad was spectacular. Butting up against three walls, with a peninsula jutting out into the center, the miniature empire was richly detailed. A single track studded with sidings and branch lines wound its way along portions of the Squamscott River and through replicas of New England towns, forests and mountains. The track terminated at a large freight yard in an urban area representing Concord, New Hampshire.
“It’s part of the Boston & Maine rail system in the mid-1950s,” Dorminy said, removing a device resembling a TV remote control from a hook and pushing some buttons. A set of maroon and yellow diesels pulling boxcars and gondolas crawled out of the freight yard and began its journey to the other end of the layout. Authentic sounds – growling engines and multi-chime horns – emanated from the locomotives.
“Like to try it?” Dorminy asked, offering him the throttle.
“No thanks.”
Aiden feigned interest as the train threaded its way across the layout. All the while, he couldn’t help dwelling on the act of fate that had brought him here. Had George Dorminy not desired to extend his layout by adding a branch line to be constructed where the furnace stood, Aiden never would have learned that his life had been built upon an unconscionable lie.
SEVEN
After removing the test tubes of acid and making arrangements with Dorminy to ship the safe to Philly, Aiden drove back to Boston. The letter was another matter. It was tucked securely in the vest pocket of his jacket.
He called Darlene from the train station to say he was returning a day earlier than planned. He told her about the safe but not about the letter, divulging only that he’d discovered no hidden riches. She sensed from his tone that something was wrong.
“Everything’s fine,” he lied, struggling to contain his anger. Now wasn’t the time and place to unleash it. “I’ll tell you everything when I’m back.”
He hung up before she could respond.
My dearest son: There is no good way to reveal the things your mother and I kept hidden from you.
The opening words of his father’s letter surged back into awareness. For the third time since the train departed Boston, Aiden slipped the pages from the envelope and read on.
I can only guess what your reaction will be. Hurt, anger, fear, and perhaps other emotions I can’t fathom. In any event, your mother and I made a vow to one another that we would not reveal these things until you turned twenty-one. We felt that by that age, you’d have acquired a maturity that would allow the rigors of your mind to temper the turbulence that likely would tear at your heart.
We intended to sit down with you and unveil these secrets face to face. This letter is the backup plan. I can only assume that since you’re reading it, your mother and I have died or are in some way incapacitated, and that the location of the safe was passed on to Darlene, and ultimately to you, through our estate attorney.
Aiden paused, wondering again why his sister hadn’t removed the safe prior to selling the house. Had there been some sort of mixup? Had Darlene never learned about the safe?
Those details would become clear soon enough, when he confronted his sister.
He continued reading.
I’ve always considered myself a reasonably courageous man, but your reaction to all this was not something I was eager to face. But these are things you deserve to know. For better or worse, they are your heritage.
Your birth date is correct as far as we know, but not much else related to the first eighteen months of your life. You are not our biological child. You were not born in that Allentown, Pennsylvania, hospital, but in a clinic in Helena, Montana, to a poor itinerant woman who died giving birth.
We never knew your real mother’s name, only that she apparently had no close relatives who might be willing to take care of a newborn, and that she had to make some really hard choices to get by. If she even knew the identity of the father – your father – she took it with her to the grave.
You were eighteen months old when your mother and I adopted you. Had the circumstances of your early life not been so unusual, we would have revealed your true origins earlier. Maintaining this secret was partly for your own protection.
As you know, I spent most of my professional life as an engineer for Innovative Electrodyne Corp., working originally in IEC’s Allentown office. What I never revealed is that your mother, sister and I moved out west for several years. For part of that time I was with a design team sent to work at a top-secret military research facility in the wilds of Montana. It was known as Tau Nine-One.