Chapter 6 - The Prop Money Catastrophe
The Montreat conference center sits in a high, narrow gap above Black Mountain, where the gray slate roofs of the stone lodges are buried beneath hemlocks and mountain laurel. Even in early spring, the air up there smells of wet leaf mold, woodsmoke, and cold spring water.
We arrived at five in the afternoon.
Thomas Sterling’s family cabin was built of river stone and chestnut logs that had seasoned for eighty years. Inside, a fire was crackling in the massive hearth, sending orange sparks against the black iron mesh.
Owen was sitting on a braided rag rug in front of the hearth, building an elaborate, multi-tiered fortress out of wooden blocks.
When the heavy oak door creaked open, he didn't jump up.
He froze.
His small hands stayed pinned to the wooden block he was placing on the battlement. His shoulders rose toward his ears—that instinctive, defensive posture he had developed over the last six months, waiting to see which version of an adult was walking through the door.
Then he saw my coat.
“Mom?”
His voice was tiny. It sounded like it had been pulled out of him by a thread.
I dropped my bag on the floor, went down on both knees onto the rag rug, and pulled him into my chest until his forehead was buried in the hollow of my shoulder.
He didn't cry at first. He just held on with fingers that dug into the wool of my sweater with terrifying strength.
“You didn't go to Chicago,” he whispered into my neck.
“No, baby,” I told him, kissing the soft spot behind his ear where his hair was still damp from the rain. “I didn't go to Chicago.”
“Did Dad... did Dad find out I told you?”
I pulled back so I could look into his eyes. They were wide, dark hazel, identical to my father’s.
“Your dad is dealing with some very serious police officers right now, Owen. You didn't do anything wrong. You saved this family. Do you hear me? You saved everything your grandfather left for us.”
He looked at me for a long time, searching my face with that hyper-vigilant scrutiny that children of broken marriages use to detect lies.
“He said I was going to military school,” Owen said, his lower lip trembling for the first time. “He showed me the website on his iPad. He showed me the boys in the gray uniforms with the short hair. He said if I made you unhappy, that’s where I’d have to live until I was eighteen.”
A cold, black fury washed through my veins, so pure and absolute it felt almost calming.
“Nobody is sending you anywhere,” I said, my voice steady as an iron spike. “This is our house now. The river land is yours. It was your grandfather’s, it’s mine, and it will be yours. Your father is never going to set foot on it again.”
Paige came in from the kitchen carrying a mug of hot cider for Owen. She ruffled his hair, her face still red from the drive, but her eyes bright with that fierce, protective sister-energy that had kept us both alive after our mother died.
My phone rang from the hall table.
It was Thomas Sterling.
I stood up, walked to the back pantry where the old crank-style telephone still hung on the wall, and picked up.
“Thomas.”
“The magistrate just finished the arraignment for Victoria Vance,” Thomas said. His voice was dry, clipped, and immensely satisfied.
“What are the charges?”
“Three counts of attempting to utter a forged instrument, one count of possession of five or more counterfeit instruments under NCGS 14-119, and one count of felony conspiracy. The judge set her secured bond at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Did she make bail?”
“Not yet,” Thomas said. “Her personal accounts have been frozen under a temporary restraining order issued by the Superior Court on behalf of the Department of Environmental Quality. And she’s talking, Meredith. She started talking the second they told her that the Secret Service had been notified about the theatrical bills.”
“The Secret Service?”
“Any time counterfeit currency exceeding ten thousand dollars face value enters a member bank of the Federal Reserve system, the Treasury Department gets an automated notification,” Thomas explained. “Of course, they’ll determine within forty-eight hours that the notes are non-circulating movie props, but until that determination is filed in writing, Miss Vance is being held in the federal annex on fourth-degree currency fraud. She thinks Grant set her up.”
I closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the cool pine paneling.
“She thinks Grant gave her the fake money on purpose?”
“Precisely,” Thomas chuckled. “She told the SBI investigators that Grant Hughes gave her the cash box as partial payment for an unrecorded deed transfer. She produced the text messages between them from last night. Grant texted her at midnight: *‘I have forty-two thousand in clean cash in the safe. She won’t know it’s gone until she gets back from Illinois on Thursday.’*”
“He signed his own indictment,” I murmured.
“He handed them the pen, the paper, and the blotter,” Thomas agreed. “The grand jury meets on Monday. But we have one remaining problem, Meredith.”
My eyes snapped open. “The deed.”
“The folder Grant gave her did not contain the original blue-ribbon deed,” Thomas said. “I checked with the clerk in Hendersonville an hour ago. The original document—the one your father recorded in 1974—was removed from the county archives four months ago for digitizing. Grant must have retrieved the master physical duplicate from your safe before you put the conservation papers in there.”
“He doesn't have it,” I said, my mind racing through every drawer, every closet, every shoe box in the Queens Road house. “If he had it, he would have given it to Victoria this morning.”
“Then where is it?” Thomas asked.
I looked through the pantry door into the den.
Owen was sitting on the hearth rug, his small hands carefully arranging the wooden blocks.
*‘He said kids who cause problems get sent away.’*
I walked back into the living room and knelt beside my son.
“Owen,” I said softly.
He looked up from his blocks.
“When Dad was looking in the safe last week... the day he showed you the website for the school in Virginia... did he have paper in his hands?”
Owen’s eyes flicked to the fire.
“He had the big blue paper,” Owen whispered.
My heart stopped.
“The one with the ribbon?”
Owen nodded. “The one with the gold sticker that smelled like old dust.”
“What did he do with it, baby?”
Owen lowered his head, his voice dropping so low I had to lean within three inches of his mouth to hear him over the crackle of the oak logs.
May you like
“He told me to put it in my backpack,” Owen said.
***
