He hated the fear she showed him. Hated how vulnerable she looked, unable to move yet awaiting his next words as she would a vicious blow. Which was why he swallowed down what he wanted to tell her, and instead merely said, “I think you should take the meeting with Senator Jacobs.”
He could see she was tempted to refuse, and knew with dagger-like certainty she was close to departing. “All right.”
“I might need more time down here to map out a strategy with Dale.”
“I said I would.” She ended the discussion by rising from the car.
The front portico was domed in the manner of a European palace and ringed by ornate columns. The manor’s south side was gutted and blackened, such that a dozen windows watched their arrival like charred and wounded eyes. As they started across the drive, Dale Steadman opened the front door. Marcus realized instantly the man was drunk. Dale observed their approach with a bleary gaze, muttered a half-formed greeting, pushed off the doorway, and shuffled inside.
Although the rooms through which they walked were relatively unscathed, the stench of cold ashes was everywhere. Tools were piled by sawhorses and lumber. Plastic tarpaulins split the central hallway and covered the south-facing doorways. Dale led them into a rear parlor that ran the length of the house. Three walls were fashioned as a rich man’s study, with panels of oiled walnut and burl. A spiral brass staircase rose to a long balcony fronted with bookcases. The fourth wall was a ribbon of French windows, through which Marcus could see slate decking and the precision of professional gardening. Beyond the lawn, the Intracoastal Waterway sparkled with a carnival’s myth of easy living and only good times.
As Kirsten followed Dale over and settled him into a sofa, Marcus’ phone rang. He stepped back into the hallway. “Glenwood.”
It was his secretary. “I couldn’t find you a hotel at any price. It’s summer, it’s the weekend, it’s the coast.”
“Now that I’m here, I can’t wait to get back,” Marcus replied. “Any luck on that other matter?”
The previous afternoon Marcus had given Netty a list of Wilmington attorneys he had met over the years, and asked her to call around and see if anyone would meet with him. “One lawyer by the name of Garland Perry. Now Judge Perry.”
“I don’t remember him.”
“He couldn’t place you either. But he knows Mr. Steadman, and it didn’t add a good flavor to his Saturday to hear why I was calling.”
“But he’ll see me?”
“Only if you can be there in a half hour’s time. He’s on his way out of town.”
“Call him back and tell him I’m coming.”
He slipped his phone into his pocket, reentered the back room, and asked Dale point-blank, “How drunk are you?”
Strangely, the New Horizons chairman gave his response to Kirsten and not to him. “Still looking for that place where it won’t matter anymore.”
Kirsten focused upon Marcus, finishing the triangle and keeping him from saying what he was thinking, that Dale was wasting everybody’s time.
Dale only slurred his words a small amount. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m new to this game.”
“Which game is that?”
“The one where I have mercenaries going to war in my place. I’ve always fought my own battles.”
“Your ex-wife is working hard to keep custody of the child.”
Dale used the hand holding the glass to punch himself upright, leaving a dark bourbon stain on the sofa’s arm. He weaved his way over to where he stood before the central glass doors. He was burly, loud, and almost comic in his glorious wreckage. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”
“Why do you say that?”
The bourbon stained his mouth with golden tears. “Erin never cared about the baby. Not till the publicity started.”
“That doesn’t jibe with the fact that she has hired a courtroom brawler.”
“Hamper Caisse.”
“That’s right. Yesterday he brought in witnesses who attested to your unfitness as a father.”
Dale’s next gesture collided with the window. “That makes even less sense.”
“That they would condemn you as they did?”
“No. That Erin would go to all this trouble.”
“You’re not worried about your good name being demolished in open court?”
“Only got room for one worry right now. And that’s not it.”
Kirsten spoke up for the first time. “Marcus is a fighter. But you’ve got to help him.”
“Show me how.”
Marcus extracted the custody agreement from his pocket. “Your ex-wife’s attorney has presented a notarized agreement to the court, claiming you and she settled the issue of your child privately.” He waited while Steadman gave the pages an owl-eyed scan. “Is that your signature on the last page?”
“Absolutely.” He tossed the pages to the floor. “And I’ve never seen this before.”
“You’re claiming Erin Brandt’s lawyer lied in open court?”
“Somebody sure did.”
“Sir, I dislike carrying on important business under these circumstances.”
Dale Steadman carried his laugh into his glass. “That makes two of us.”
“I have to see a local attorney about a matter. Then we’ll be leaving for Rocky Mount, since I couldn’t find us a hotel room. I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll try again. I’d appreciate it if you would try and be sober for the occasion.”
“Stay here.” Dale tapped his tumbler on the window. A long wooden finger stretched into the Intracoastal Waterway, molded into fable by the setting sun. A magnificent yacht was moored at the end. “The guest room’s not redone yet, but that thing out there sleeps eight. I bought it for Erin, she begged me for one, then never stepped on board except for cocktails at sunset. Be nice to see somebody in love out there for once.”
Marcus glanced at Kirsten, but found an unreadable stare. “Thank you, sir, we are most grateful for your invitation.”
As Marcus rose from his chair, a sudden thought occurred to him. He did a careful search of the room, then said, “Kirsten, could I have a word?”
When she joined him in the front hallway, he was still intent upon his search. “What is it?”
“Stay there just a moment, please.” Marcus walked to where the house was dissected by the plastic tarpaulin, swept it aside, and stepped through. Sawdust and old ashes drifted in the air. The house’s articles had been stuffed in packing crates and draped with more plastic sheeting. He unpacked several boxes in different rooms, until he was certain his search was both futile and discomfiting.
Kirsten called from the hallway, “Marcus?”
“Just a minute.”
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for something. Don’t come back, it’s filthy.”
When he stepped through the plastic drape, Kirsten asked, “What did you find?”
“Step outside with me.”
He waited until they were removed from the man’s influence to say, “There is no sign of the child.”
“What?”
“Not a picture, no mementos, dolls, toys, nothing.”
“The baby is sixteen months old, Marcus.”
“Listen to what I’m saying. There’s nothing. We arrive to find the man drunk. His only response to the custody document is a slurred denial. What kind of father does that imply?”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’m going to meet this local judge. See if you can find some reason for me not to drop this case.”
Wilmington’s old town held an aura of carefully preserved history, capturing through struggle and money a past that never was. Gone were the seedy bars and topless joints and the beer wagons’ rutted tracks. Wilmington had entered a second heyday, fueled by two Hollywood studios who had fled the union-dominated west coast and a sudden upsurge in high-tech business. The ancient coastal oaks had been trimmed back, the rotting wharf district restored, the pre-Revolutionary houses as carefully done up as a bevy of aging brides.
Marcus turned by the church where the British military had stabled their horses after taking the manor next door for General Cromwell’s residence. He pulled into the drive of a house only slightly smaller than a full-blown plantation.