Chapter 11
“That I would give them to you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was waiting to see whether you would come after me or after your wife.”
I looked at the photograph on my desk.
“And now?”
“Now I think you need to go to the meeting tomorrow without trying to control what happens.”
The call ended before I could answer.
For several minutes, I remained still.
Then I opened the bottom drawer of the desk and took out an old key.
My father’s office had been closed since his death. The building stood downtown, above the law firm that had handled most of the family’s affairs. I had not entered it in nearly three years.
I had told myself it was because there was no reason to.
The truth was simpler.
The room still smelled faintly of his pipe tobacco, even though he had been gone for seven years. I did not want to be reminded of how much of my confidence had been borrowed from him.
I drove there before sunrise.
The city was quiet, the roads washed clean by the storm. Nashville’s familiar streets passed beneath the headlights: dark storefronts, empty sidewalks, the pale outline of the courthouse in the distance.
At the building, the night guard recognized me.
“Mr. Keaton,” he said, rising from his chair. “I didn’t know anyone was coming in.”
“I have a key.”
He glanced toward the elevators.
“Do you want me to call the office?”
“No.”
I had spent my life moving through that building without being questioned. The guard stepped aside.
My father’s office was on the top floor.
The key still worked.
The door opened with a soft click.
Dust lay across the desk and the windowsills. The room looked smaller than I remembered. His bookshelves were still filled with legal volumes and bound financial reports. A framed photograph of my parents stood near the window, turned slightly away from the room.
I picked it up.
They were young.
My father had one hand resting on my mother’s shoulder. She was smiling at the camera, but her eyes were uncertain. I had seen that picture hundreds of times and never noticed.
Behind it, tucked against the frame, was a narrow envelope.
My name was written across it.
Not in my father’s handwriting.
My mother’s.
I sat at the desk before opening it.
The letter was dated eight years earlier, the year before she died.