Chapter 8
“My mother?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
Corinne and my mother had always been close. Even after my parents’ marriage collapsed, Corinne visited her regularly.
“Then where?”
Mrs. Pearl hesitated.
“She asked me to help pack a few things. I saw the address on a shipping label.”
“Where was it?”
“Outside Asheville.”
I stood so quickly the chair rolled backward.
“Asheville?”
“I said I saw an address. I don’t know whether she went there.”
“But you know more than you told me.”
“I know enough to understand that she wanted time.”
I walked to the window.
Rain moved over the street in silver sheets. Somewhere beyond it, Corinne was beginning a life I had not been invited into.
My phone buzzed on the desk.
Tessa.
I did not answer.
A second message appeared.
Please call me. I know she sent you the picture. I never meant for this to happen.
I read the words twice.
Then a third message arrived.
There’s something you need to know about the trust.
I looked at the papers spread across my desk.
For the first time, the envelope seemed less like an explanation and more like a doorway.
I called the number printed on Miriam Holt’s card.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Ms. Holt’s office.”
“My name is Grant Keaton. I need to speak with Miriam.”
There was a pause.
“Mr. Keaton, she is expecting your call.”
The calmness in the woman’s voice unsettled me.
“When can I meet her?”
“She can see you tomorrow morning.”
“Where?”
“At her office.”
“I need to speak with Corinne.”
“That decision is not yours to make.”
I glanced toward the empty hallway.
“What if I go to Asheville?”
“Then you will make this more difficult for everyone, especially your son.”
The mention of Owen quieted me.
“Tomorrow morning,” I said.
“Yes. Nine o’clock.”
The call ended.
Mrs. Pearl watched me.
“What now?” she asked.
I did not know.
I had thought losing Corinne and Owen would make me desperate to get them back.
Instead, I felt the first uncomfortable edge of something else.
The need to understand what I had done before deciding what I wanted repaired.
I gathered the papers and placed them back in the envelope.
At the very bottom, beneath the trust agreement, I found a second photograph.
This one was older.
It showed my father standing outside a courthouse beside a woman I barely recognized.