Chapter 19 - The Ghost in the Garden
By noon
the board had fled
their black cars scattering like roaches from the Buckhead driveway.
The great house was quiet again
save for the crackle of the fireplace and the distant
muffled sound of Nancy singing an old hymn while she folded laundry in the north wing.
I wheeled myself out through the tall terrace doors onto the stone patio overlooking the southern gardens.
The winter sun was pale
hanging low behind the bare oaks
casting long
slender shadows across the boxwood hedges and the gravel paths.
Megan stood by the marble fountain
holding Noah by the hand as the toddler chased a fallen maple leaf across the flagstones.
She had taken off the navy coat.
She wore a simple gray wool sweater
her sleeves pushed up to her forearms
her hair loose around her shoulders.
When she heard the hum of my electric motor
she stopped
looking over her shoulder with a faint
weary smile that reached her eyes for the first time since she had walked into my office six weeks ago.
“They looked terrified
Dominic,” she said as I rolled up beside the fountain edge.
“Board members are like guard dogs
Megan,” I replied
watching Noah stomp on the dry leaf with a triumphant giggle.
“They only bite when they think you’re running.
Stand your ground with a piece of paper
and they’ll roll onto their backs to show you their bellies.”
She looked down at her hands
the skin red from cold
the small scars across her knuckles from years of scrubbing commercial ovens.
“It doesn't feel real,” she whispered.
“Yesterday morning I was wondering if I had enough gas in my car to get to the grocery store.
Now they’re saying Noah owns shipping docks.”
“He doesn't own shipping docks yet
Megan,” I said softly.
“He owns the responsibility of keeping twenty thousand men and women employed without stealing from them the way my father did.
It’s a heavy burden for an eighteen-month-old.”
She turned to look at me
leaning against the stone basin of the fountain
the cold wind lifting a strand of hair across her cheek.
“You’ll teach him,” she said.
It was not a question.
It was a statement of fact
delivered with the absolute certainty that had broken through my silence.
“I spent twenty years thinking I was finished
Megan,” I murmured
looking down at my paralyzed legs
at the black wool trousers that hid the lifeless muscle.
“I thought my only job was to guard this cemetery until my heart stopped beating.
I thought Julian’s blood was wiped from the earth.”
“Julian didn't die for a cemetery
Dominic,” Megan said
stepping closer
resting her hand lightly on the armrest of my chair.
“He died because he thought he was protecting you.
He ran away because he thought if he stayed
Raymond would find a way to kill both of you to get the trust.
He took the blame for the fire so you could survive.”
A single tear escaped my eye
cold against the dry skin of my cheek.
I didn't wipe it away.
I let it fall
landing on the cuff of my sleeve
the first tear Dominic Mason had shed since the night the surgeons cut my spine open in 2006.
From the edge of the lawn
Frank approached
walking with his slow
deliberate stride.
He stopped ten paces away
holding a yellow telegram envelope.
“A courier just dropped this at the lower gate
Mr. Mason,” Frank said
his voice solemn.
I reached out and took the envelope.
The return address was not Atlanta.
It was Nassau
Bahamas.
The message inside was typed on a single strip of telegraph paper:
Raymond was an amateur who let his sentimentality ruin a thirty-year investment.
The boy may hold the shares in Georgia
Dominic
but the international shipping lines through Freeport belong to the Vance family.
Enjoy your grandson while the winter holds.
We will see you in Savannah when the spring tides rise.
— Preston.
I stared at the words.
The cold
predatory void inside my chest did not open with fear.
It opened with a familiar
deadly clarity that had kept me alive while better men were buried.
I folded the paper carefully
tucked it into my breast pocket
and looked up at Frank.
“Call our maritime attorneys in London
Frank,” I ordered
my voice ringing out like a bronze bell in the cold afternoon.
“Tell them to initiate an immediate admiralty arrest against every container vessel bearing the Oakhaven flag currently berthed in Savannah
Charleston
May you like
and Jacksonville.
We are cutting off Preston Vance’s oxygen before he finishes his breakfast.”
