Chapter 14 - The Daughter at the Gate
I remembered that day. Pike had donated money to the ramp and asked for nothing in public. In private, he'd pressed Nora to sign an agreement giving his company the option to buy the shoreline later. She refused. He left smiling, but he stopped answering her calls.
"She never told me this," Jonah said.
"Maybe she tried," I replied. "I was always good at being too busy to listen."
Audrey requested a meeting through Miriam. Bell knew about it, and the lawyers arranged it in a neutral conference room with no private side conversations. When Audrey entered, she looked smaller than she had at the dock.
"Are you all right?" she asked me.
"You saw what happened."
Her jaw tightened. "I saw an accident."
"We don't have to pretend we're having the same conversation," I said.
She looked at Jonah. "You always wanted the company. Now you get to play the good son."
"I wanted my father to hear me," he answered. "That's all."
For a second, Audrey looked as if he'd slapped her. Then she turned back to me.
"Pike said the bank would seize everything if the refinancing collapsed," she said. "Payroll, the docks, the house. You never understood how close we came to losing it all."
"Then you should have told me."
"I tried. You kept saying we'd figure it out, the way you always did when Mom was sick. You'd promise to be home and miss another appointment."
The accusation hurt because it held pieces of truth. Nora's cancer hadn't waited for my workday to end. Audrey had sat beside her more often than I had.
"I failed you in ways I can't repair," I said. "But you still had a choice."
Audrey's eyes shone. "You have no idea what he'll do if I walk away."
Miriam leaned forward. "Then cooperate with the investigators."
Audrey stood so suddenly her chair struck the wall.
May you like
"If you open the old annex," she said, "you'll make everything worse."
She left before anyone could ask what was inside.
