Chapter 4 - Behind the Golden Child's Smile
Inside the Library, Colton was in culinary heaven.
He was currently dipping a french fry into a ramekin of garlic-herb aioli, his eyes bright with accomplishment. "Daddy, this tastes like French bread and magic."
Leah laughed out loud—a clear, musical sound that I hadn't heard in weeks. The tension that had held her shoulders rigid since we pulled into the parking lot had completely melted away. Connor returned to the room, setting a small wooden treasure box in front of Colton.
"What's this, Chef Connor?" Colton asked in a reverent whisper.
"That," Connor said, winking at me, "is the secret key to the dessert cellar. Inside are three gold chocolate coins. If you give one to Marcus, he’ll bring you the giant sundae."
Colton immediately lifted the brass latch, his face glowing with pure childhood wonder.
While Colton examined his treasure, Connor pulled up a leather armchair opposite Leah and me. His expression grew serious.
"They're falling apart out there, Dustin," Connor said quietly, swirling the wine in his glass. "Her card declined. Paige and Mark don't have the cash to cover an eight-hundred-dollar tab. She tried to get me to bill your account."
I didn't feel the sudden surge of panic I usually felt whenever my mother created a financial crisis. For twenty years, whenever Jolene found herself in a corner, she threw a grenade and expected me to dive on it.
When Caleb got caught street racing his sophomore year of college and totaled a city guardrail, it was my savings that paid the restitution so he wouldn't face jail time. When Paige wanted a down payment for her four-thousand-square-foot house in the gated community of Falcon Pointe, Jolene pressured me to sign a promissory note as a guarantor, claiming that "family protects family." I had refused that time, and Jolene hadn't spoken to me for six months, telling the entire church congregation that I was cold-hearted and obsessed with money.
"Let them figure it out," Leah said, her voice steady and resolute. "They have three luxury cars in the parking lot. Let Mark put his watch on the table."
"Dustin," Connor said, leaning forward. "There's something else you need to know. Rachel was doing inventory in the front office about an hour before you arrived. She overheard your mom on the phone in the lobby while she was waiting for Paige."
I frowned. "Who was she talking to?"
"A lawyer," Connor said. "Or an estate broker. Rachel didn't catch the full name, but she distinctly heard your mom say, *'Don't worry, Dustin is coming tonight. He always folds when I put family pressure on him. I'll get him to sign the release before the weekend.'*"
A cold, sickening chill rippled down my spine.
"The release?" Leah asked, looking at me with sudden alarm. "What release?"
"My dad's land in Maryville," I whispered, the puzzle pieces suddenly locking into place with terrifying speed.
My father, Arthur Miller, had been a quiet, hardworking surveyor. Before he died, he owned a sixty-acre tract of undeveloped ridge land outside Maryville, overlooking the Great Smoky Mountains. It had been in the Miller family for four generations. In his will, he had left the family home to Jolene, but he had split the Maryville land into three equal parcels: twenty acres to Paige, twenty acres to Caleb, and twenty acres to me.
There was a specific clause in the deed of trust: no single parcel could be sold to an outside commercial developer unless all three siblings, plus Jolene, signed a joint variance agreement.
Six months ago, a luxury mountain-resort development group had started buying up the surrounding ridgeline to build multimillion-dollar short-term vacation cabins. If the sixty acres remained unified, a developer would pay millions. But if even one sibling held out, the parcel was legally landlocked by the county conservation easement Arthur had put in place.
I had refused two preliminary buyout offers because my dad had made me promise, on his deathbed in the hospice ward at Fort Sanders Regional, that I would never let developers bulldoze the hardwood ridge where we used to hunt turkey together.
"She didn't invite me here to make amends with Colton," I said, the realization tasting like ash in my mouth. "She didn't find Jesus at a church retreat in Pigeon Forge."
"She needed your signature," Leah said, her voice dropping into a register of cold, absolute disgust. "She buttered Colton up with a toy truck. She played on your grief and your desire for your son to have a grandmother, all so she could get you in a room, soften you up, and slide a legal document across the table."
"And when she realized she had to actually share space with Colton tonight," Connor added, "she couldn't even maintain the mask for fifteen minutes. Her contempt for you was stronger than her patience."
Before I could reply, the door to the Library swung open without a knock.
It wasn't Marcus.
It was Paige.
Her mascara was streaked down her cheeks, her carefully curled blonde hair disheveled. She looked frantic, cornered, and entirely stripped of her suburban country-club poise.
May you like
"Dustin," Paige gasped out, slamming the mahogany door shut behind her. "You have to come out there right now. Mom is having a full-blown panic attack, and the manager is threatening to call the Knoxville Police."
***
