Chapter 2 - The Secret Beneath the Soil
I pulled my phone back out of my evening bag, my finger hovering over the speed dial as I stared directly at Thaddius.
"You had your chance," I said, my voice dangerously calm, devoid of any trembling emotion.
That was when my father spoke.
"Sara," Dad said again, his voice steady, carrying the quiet, weather-beaten authority of a man who had survived droughts, blizzards, and financial ruin without ever asking the world for a handout. "Put the phone down for a second. Look at me."
I blinked, my finger freezing over the screen. I turned my head to look at my father. His tired, kind eyes held a sudden, sharp glint that I hadn't seen since I was a little girl watching him stare down the bank officers who tried to foreclose our land.
"What is it, Dad?" I asked softly.
Thaddius let out a sharp, dismissive scoff, waving a hand in the air. "Oh, for heaven's sake. What could a retired dirt farmer possibly know about corporate estate law?"
Dad didn't even dignify Thaddius with a glance. He reached into the inner pocket of his worn tweed jacket—the same jacket he had worn to every high school graduation and science fair I ever participated in—and pulled out a thick, legal-sized manila envelope secured with a red elastic band.
He placed it squarely in the middle of the crystal-and-silver holiday table, right over the glittering runner.
"When you told us three years ago that you were putting this grand mansion and the surrounding acreage in your husband's name to make him and his fancy family happy," Dad said slowly, "your mother and I didn't say a word. We didn't want to meddle in your marriage."
Eleanor finally lowered her teacup, her aristocratic eyebrows knitting together in haughty confusion. "What is the meaning of this rustic intrusion? Get that garbage off the table before it stains the lace."
"It's not garbage, ma'am," Dad replied, his voice terrifyingly polite. "It's a title search."
Thaddius frowned, leaning forward. "What are you talking about?"
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"I'm talking about the land your grand-daddy lost to the county back in nineteen-eighty-four for unpaid back taxes," Dad said, sliding the envelope across the mahogany wood until it bumped against Thaddius's wine glass. "The land you claimed your family had owned 'free and clear' for four generations."
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