Tommy left his grandfather sleeping and went to the kitchen. Poured himself water with shaking hands.
His mother. Murdered.
No. Random violence. Robbery gone wrong. That's what the police had said. What Edward had told him for fifteen years.
Why would Edward lie?
To protect me, apparently. From what? From the truth that my father was a paranoid conspiracy theorist who got my mother killed with his delusions?
Tommy looked at the lawyer's letter on the table. At the return address in Baltimore.
He could call. Could go. Could open whatever was in that vault.
And then what? Find "evidence" of some conspiracy theory? Notebooks full of crazy connections? Newspaper clippings with manic annotations?
Tommy had seen that kind of thing before. A guy in his dorm freshman year—brilliant engineering student who'd had a breakdown sophomore year. Started seeing patterns in everything. Government surveillance. Secret messages in textbook equations. His dorm room had been covered in papers, strings connecting newspaper clippings, mathematical formulas "proving" various conspiracies.
They'd taken him away eventually. Medication, therapy. He never came back to Berkeley.
That's what Rick Forsyth probably was. Brilliant mind gone wrong. Paranoia. Delusions. And Tommy's mother had paid the price for being married to him.
Tommy tore up the lawyer's letter. Threw it in the trash.
He wasn't going to Baltimore. Wasn't going to open that vault. Wasn't going to follow his father down whatever rabbit hole of madness had destroyed him.
Tommy had a future. Hawkey had offered him a position at their Burbank facility. Good salary. Challenging work. Building aircraft that actually mattered. Serving his country properly, not chasing shadows.
That's what he'd do. Build. Create. Matter.
Not waste his life fighting imaginary enemies.
Edward died that night.
Tommy was sitting with him when it happened. The old man had woken around nine, asked for water, talked quietly for a while about ordinary things. The weather. The neighborhood. How Mrs. Peterson's cat kept getting into the garbage.
Then, around midnight: "Tommy. About the vault."
"Grandpa, I'm not—"
"I know. You've decided. That's good. Smart." Edward's breathing was labored. "But do me one favor. Keep the key."
"What key?"
"Bottom drawer of my desk. Your mother's things. Wedding ring. Photos. There's a key in there too. For the vault. I never threw it away, even when I threw away everything else of your father's." Edward met Tommy's eyes. "Keep it. You don't have to use it. But keep it. Just in case."
"In case of what?"
"In case I'm wrong. In case he was right." Edward smiled weakly. "In case someday you want to know for sure."
Tommy wanted to argue. But Edward was dying, so he nodded. "Okay. I'll keep it."
"Good boy." Edward closed his eyes. "You're going to do good things, Tommy. Build good things. Make your mother proud."
"I will."
"And don't hate your father too much. He loved you. Made terrible choices, but he loved you."
Edward's breathing slowed. Became irregular. Tommy held his hand.
At 2:17 AM, Edward Henderson died.
Tommy sat with the body for a while, thinking about nothing. Then he called the funeral home. Made the arrangements. Did what needed to be done.
At dawn, he went to Edward's desk. Bottom drawer. Found the shoebox.
His mother's wedding ring. Photographs of a family that had existed briefly before falling apart.
And a small brass key stamped with "Baltimore Bank & Trust" and "247."
Tommy held the key. Should throw it away. Should forget it existed.
But he'd promised Edward.
He pocketed the key.
July 14, 1967
The funeral was small. A few neighbors. Some of Edward's old postal worker colleagues. Tommy standing alone by the grave as his grandfather was lowered into the ground next to Helen.
Two graves. Mother and the man who'd raised Tommy after she died.
And somewhere in St. Louis, in potter's field, an unmarked grave where Rick Forsyth lay. Alone. Forgotten. The conspiracy theorist who'd died believing he was right.
After the service, Tommy stood looking at his mother's headstone.
Helen Henderson Forsyth
1923-1952
Beloved Daughter and Mother
Twenty-eight years old when she died. Tommy barely remembered her. Just fragments. Warmth. Laughter. Blood on pavement. Screaming.
Random violence, Edward had said for fifteen years.
Murder, Edward had said in his final days.
Which was true?
Did it matter? She was dead either way. Whether killed by a random mugger or a conspiracy that probably didn't exist, the result was the same.
Tommy turned from the grave. He had a flight to catch. Hawkey wanted him to start next week. Orientation Monday. Real life beginning.
He drove to the airport thinking about the future. About building aircraft. About serving his country. About having a normal life.
Not about vaults in Baltimore. Not about paranoid fathers. Not about conspiracies that got people killed.
The key was in his pocket. Would stay there. Just a piece of brass. Meaningless unless he chose to make it mean something.
Tommy chose not to.
September 1967 - Burbank, California
Tommy started at Hawkey on a Monday. The facility was enormous—hundreds of thousands of square feet, thousands of employees, the hum of industry and progress.
He was assigned to the commercial aircraft division. L-1011 TriStar development. Wide-body trijet. Competing with the Boeing 747 and McDonnell Douglas DC-10.
Good work. Important work. Building the future of air travel.
His supervisor was a man named Gerald Price, late forties, ex-military, professional and demanding.
"Forsyth. You're from Berkeley?"
"Yes, sir. Aerospace engineering."
"Top of your class, says here. Good. We need smart people. The TriStar is behind schedule and over budget. We need to catch up." Price handed him a stack of technical drawings. "Start here. Stress analysis on the wing structure. I need your calculations by Friday."
Tommy took the drawings. "Yes, sir."
He spent the week buried in mathematics. Stress calculations, load analysis, fatigue testing projections. The kind of work he loved—precise, quantifiable, real.
No conspiracies. No shadows. Just engineering.
Friday afternoon, Price reviewed his work.
"Good. Very good. You have an eye for this." Price looked at him appraisingly. "How do you feel about staying late sometimes? We're pushing hard to hit delivery deadlines."
"Not a problem, sir."
"Good. Because the TriStar is critical. Hawkey is betting everything on this aircraft. We can't afford to fail."
Tommy understood. Commercial aviation was brutally competitive. Companies lived or died by their success or failure in the market.
Just: build the best aircraft, win the contracts, succeed.
Tommy could live with that.
November 1967
Tommy was working late on a Thursday when he noticed something odd.
He was reviewing supplier contracts—routine task, making sure parts deliveries aligned with production schedules. Boring work, but necessary.
One supplier name caught his eye: Meridian Technical Systems.
He didn't know why it stood out. Just... something about the name felt familiar. Like he'd heard it before but couldn't place where.
Tommy pulled the contract. Avionics components. Expensive. Delivery schedule that seemed unnecessarily protracted.
Probably nothing. Suppliers were often late in aerospace. Complex parts, high specifications, delays were normal.
But something nagged at him. Meridian. Where had he heard that name?
Tommy shook it off. Got back to work. Delivered his analysis to Price the next morning.
But the name stuck in his mind. Meridian Technical Systems.
That weekend, alone in his small apartment in Burbank, Tommy found himself thinking about it. About why that name felt familiar.
And then, against his better judgment, he got up and went to the closet.
In the back, behind his jackets, was a cardboard box. His things from Ohio. Photos. A few books. His mother's wedding ring that Edward had left him.
And at the bottom: a brass key.
Baltimore Bank & Trust. Box 247.
Tommy held the key, thinking about Meridian Technical Systems. About a name that felt familiar for reasons he couldn't explain.
About his father's letter. I have proof. In a vault in Baltimore.
About Edward's final words. In case I'm wrong. In case he was right.
No. He wasn't doing this. Wasn't going to start seeing patterns in coincidences. That's how paranoia began. That's how Rick Forsyth had ended up dying alone in St. Louis.
Tommy put the key back in the box. Put the box back in the closet.
Meridian Technical Systems was just a supplier. The name feeling familiar was just coincidence. His mind playing tricks.
He wasn't his father. He wasn't going to waste his life chasing conspiracies.
Tommy went back to his engineering work and tried to forget about the key in his closet.