Colin’s father laughed out loud. “This is a joke.”
“I assure you, sir, it is anything but.”
“I know that place. The tuition is what …”
“Thirty-five thousand dollars per annum. Room and board for live-in students, which we would like Colin to become, are an additional—”
His father laughed a second time. “This is nuts. Do I look like a moneybags to you?”
“No, sir, you do not. Which is why we are happy to announce that so long as your son proves his abilities are genuine, and he is willing to put in the required work, his costs will be fully covered.”
The mayor spoke for the first time. “I know for a fact the Outer Banks Academy doesn’t offer scholarships.”
“Officially, Commissioner, that is correct. But the majority shareholder and chairwoman of a Fortune One Hundred company is a graduate of OBA. She established a very special, and highly confidential, annuity. This trust is the reason why I and Mrs. Fitzgerald are present. A limited number of students from financially depressed circumstances have all their fees and expenses covered. They are also housed at the special campus facility that Mrs. Fitzgerald runs.” The gentleman showed a remarkable ability to smile with cold rage. “Isn’t that wonderful news, Sheriff Eames?”
“We require specifics in order to assess this revised situation,” his father’s lawyer replied. His former ire was gone now. The man’s features looked washed out.
“Which we are happy to provide.” The gentleman lookeddown the table at Colin. “Perhaps now would be a good time for the young man to leave us to settle the details of his transfer.”
Celeste rose and guided him back down the line of seated adults. He felt his father’s cold fury track him, and he knew why. Colin’s father lived by dominating. It was a cop’s method of staying alive. Colin had heard him use the words often enough. They were part of the danger chant, spoken every time the Maker’s Mark landed on the kitchen table. And here he was. Colin Eames. Stripping away his father’s control.
Only when the door clicked shut behind him did Colin allow his tremors to surface.
Celeste guided him across the hall, over to a hard wooden bench. She seated herself next to him and said, “Take as long as you need.”
Her comforting presence helped pull him back. “What does it all mean?”
“I’m going to speak with you like I would an adult. The answer is, your father came into that meeting with one thought in that cop’s mind of his. Attack first to protect himself.” Something in those words made Celeste so angry her entire body clenched. “And that is just like a cop. Bringing out his weapon and taking aim before he even understands what is going down. Only this time the person who got shot was the man himself.”
“I don’t understand.”
Celeste looked at him, her gaze burning with the coals of old pain. “Your father thought you’d been telling tales about him and what it’s like inside your home. And I expect there’s a lot of things you could tell us, if you had a mind.”
Colin had no idea how to respond.
“We all suspected that might have been the situation, what with the way you’ve acted and what we found there yesterday. But making a case is tough, especially against a decorated officer of the law. And you’re not abused in any way we can see or show a judge.” She turned to the closed conference room door. “So there we were, all concerned over how we were going to get your father to grant us the right to house you in a place where you could grow. Discover what your gifts truly mean.”
Colin recalled the words she had made him read from the book in the principal’s office. He recited from memory, “‘All too often in childhood the fires of genius falter. There is a very great risk that unless proper care is given, the fire may become snuffed out.’”
“There you go.” She pointed to the closed conference room door. “So now we know there was abuse. There are problems your father wants to keep secret.”
“He’s going to be appointed a county commissioner.”
Celeste rounded on him. “Is that a fact.”
“He told us yesterday. At breakfast. And they want him to run for state legislature.”
“That explains why the mayor drove all this way down here.” She rose to her feet. “Don’t you move a muscle. This is news that can’t wait.”
But as she started across the hall, Colin asked, “Why doesn’t he love me?”
“What that man feels is anyone’s guess. You can’t allow—”
“Did I kill my mama?” The words burned his mouth, his throat, his heart. Three years of nightmare fears pushed out. “Did I do something? Is that why Daddy is that way?”
Celeste squatted down beside him. “Listen to me, Colin. The medical records claim your mother died from what is known as an embolism. We can talk about the specifics another time, if you want. We can also discuss what it means for a child to carry the sort of guilt that you’re feeling just now. How important it is to release this, let it out, and heal.”She rose back to full height, and stayed there long enough to add, “You are alive, Colin. You havegifts.Your job is toliveand do the absolute most you can with what you’ve been given.”
Colin remained seated on the bench and felt the thought resonate through him. Like the hall and the air and the light all shook with him, trembling from the power of the words that rose like a great, silent explosion.
