Chapter 2 - The Scent of Pine and Deceit
The wrought-iron gates of Sullivan Manor in Belle Meade stood wide open when my truck skidded up the gravel driveway, sending white stones spraying across the manicured boxwood hedges. Boyd’s black utility van was already parked across the turnaround circle, blocking the three-car garage. Two of my warehouse guards stood under the carriage lights with heavy flashlights, their postures rigid.
Walter Briggs met me on the front veranda. At sixty-two, he still carried himself like an active-duty drill instructor, his silver hair cropped tight, his navy blazer unbuttoned over a tailored vest. For twenty-six years, this man had managed my father’s funeral, my corporate security, and every personal lock on this three-acre estate. He held a ring of heavy brass skeleton keys in his left hand, his face perfectly impassive.
“Garrett,” Walter said smoothly, stepping down the brick stairs with his arms open in calculated greeting. “Boyd’s boys are causing quite a stir out here. Tiffany is upstairs having her bridal fitting for the registry gala. What is the meaning of this theater?”
I didn’t answer with words. I closed the distance between us and hit him flush across the jaw with my right fist. The impact sounded like a wet piece of timber snapping. The brass keys went flying across the flagstones, clattering against the limestone fountain, and Walter dropped to one knee, coughing blood onto his spotless loafers.
“Garrett!” a shrill voice shrieked from the grand double doors.
Tiffany was standing under the crystal chandelier in the foyer, wearing a custom ivory silk evening gown, her manicured fingers flying to her mouth in staged horror. Her diamond engagement ring—the three-carat princess cut I had bought her after signing the divorce papers—flashed under the halogens.
“Have you lost your mind?” she screamed, rushing toward Walter. “He’s been like a father to you! What are your thugs doing on the lawn?”
I stepped over Walter, ignoring the low groan escaping his split lip, and grabbed Tiffany by both wrists. She tried to pull away, but my grip was steel.
“Where is Hazel?” I asked.
The color drained from Tiffany’s face so fast it looked as if someone had drained the blood from her jugular with a siphon. The faux-innocent theatrical outrage melted into raw, cornered panic. Her eyes flicked toward the east wing of the estate—the old servant quarters above the detached kitchen, a space we hadn’t used since the eighties.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered, her voice pitching up into a cracked whine. “You’ve been drinking. Walter, call the Metro police!”
“Russell opened the safe, Tiffany,” I said, leaning down so close she could smell the cold iron on my breath. “I saw the offshore wire transfers. I saw the photo alterations. I saw the bills for the transport van from Memphis. If you lie to me again in my own house, you won’t even have the clothes on your back when the sun comes up.”
Walter struggled up from the ground, leaning heavily against the fluted stone pillar. He spat out a mouthful of crimson saliva, his eyes hardening into a cold, venomous glare. The mask of the loyal servant had finally peeled away completely.
“She wasn’t supposed to keep them,” Walter rasped, clutching his bruised ribs. “Your father promised this company to my branch of the family before he went soft and left it all to you, Garrett. Megan was smart enough to figure out that I was skimming the diesel accounts through the shell holding company. She was compiling the audit documents in her private study. I couldn’t let a schoolteacher from Wilson County ruin thirty years of careful planning.”
“So you framed her,” I whispered. “You put my grandmother’s sapphire necklace in her luggage.”
“Tiffany provided the necklace,” Walter said with a dry, rattling chuckle that curdled my stomach. “She wanted your name and your trust fund. I wanted the logistics real estate in Chattanooga. It was a clean business transaction. Megan was supposed to take the divorce settlement, sign the non-disclosure agreement, and disappear to Ohio. But the stupid bitch refused the money. She walked out with nothing but the clothes she wore, pregnant with three of your heirs.”
“Where is my daughter?” I roared, turning toward the interior staircase.
From the top of the second-floor landing, a woman in a nurse’s scrub uniform appeared, carrying a bundled cotton blanket. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely hold the infant against her chest. Boyd moved up behind her, gently guiding her down the steps toward the light of the chandelier.
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Inside that blanket was a baby girl no larger than a loaf of bread, breathing through a thin nasal cannula connected to a portable oxygen condenser. She had a tiny patch of white-blond hair, wide slate-gray eyes, and a faint surgical scar peeking above the collar of her pink onesie. She looked at me without crying, her miniature chest rising and falling with fragile, miraculous stubbornness.
My knees hit the polished marble floor. For four years I had prided myself on being an unshakeable man of industry, feared by rivals and respected by banks. Looking up into the face of the daughter I had abandoned to wolves, I was nothing more than a ruined coward.
