Chapter 6 - The Long Table
In Galena, the morning arrived with the smell of wood smoke and frying salt pork.
The kitchen of the brick farmhouse was immense, occupying the entire ground floor of the west wing. Its walls were two feet thick, built of rough-dressed limestone blocks that stayed cool in August and radiated heat from the massive iron cookstove in January. A scrubbed-pine table, eight feet long and scored by decades of butcher knives, sat in the center of the room.
Eliza sat at the head of the table wearing an oversized gray wool cardigan that had belonged to her mother.
Her face was swollen to twice its normal size on the left side, the skin turning a mottled, terrifying patchwork of plum, indigo, and sickly yellow. But her eyes were clear. The strange, suffocating fog that had hung over her brain for three years—the constant, low-grade hum of anxiety that accompanied Grant’s every entrance into a room—had evaporated entirely.
Owen was sitting on a braided rug by the stove, methodically coupling his wooden train cars together, his little mouth humming an unformed, contented tune.
Naomi Vance sat across from Eliza, two laptops open before her, their screens glowing with real-time financial filings, court dockets, and bank transfers.
Wade walked in from the back mudroom carrying a heavy steel bucket filled with kindling. He set it by the stove, washed his hands at the copper sink with a bar of yellow lye soap, and sat down at the pine table.
"He called," Naomi said without looking up from her screen. "Richard Sterling."
Wade dried his hands on a clean tea towel. "What did he want?"
"He wanted to know if we would consider a confidential settlement," Naomi said, her mouth curving into a thin, predatory line. "Grant’s father called Sterling from Naples this morning, hysterical. It turns out Grant borrowed two hundred thousand dollars from his parents’ retirement account two years ago to cover his capital contribution at Aster Vale. If the partnership units are forfeited, the Calder family takes the loss."
Eliza looked down at her mug of black coffee. "Grant told me his father gave him that money as an inheritance gift."
"Grant lied," Naomi said simply. "His father is seventy-four, living on a pension from a regional paper mill in Wisconsin. If Grant defaults, the trust executes on the personal guaranty his father signed."
Eliza looked at Wade.
"Wade," she said softly. "His parents... they’re old. His mother has arthritis. They don't know what he did."
Wade leaned back in the heavy oak chair, his hands resting flat on the table.
"They raised him, Lizzie," Wade said, his voice dropping into that deep, uncompromising gravel that brooked no contradiction. "They watched him treat his first fiancée like an unpaid secretary until she walked out. They watched him borrow money he had no intention of repaying. When a man grows up believing he’s the only human being in the room, it’s usually because his parents spent thirty years telling him the furniture belonged to him."
Naomi tapped a key on her laptop.
"The Chicago Tribune just ran the business section update," Naomi said. "Page four. Aster Vale Capital announces restructuring of Midwest Logistics leadership. Peter Lang named Managing Director. Former principal Grant Calder departs to pursue other opportunities."
"They didn't mention the assault?" Eliza asked.
"Not yet," Naomi said. "Mitchell Dane wants the European debt syndicate closed before the police blotter hits the suburban papers. But the Cook County State’s Attorney has already received the medical records from Dr. Mercer’s emergency intake report last night."
Eliza touched her left cheek with two fingers. The swelling felt tight, like an overfilled balloon.
"Mercer filed a report?"
"Julian Mercer may be a ruthless corporate vulture, Eliza," Wade said, "but he has three daughters. When he saw Grant hit you, he walked out to his car and called the Chief of Police in Lake Forest from his personal cell. You don't get to be a senior partner at Aster Vale without knowing which judges owe you favors."
A soft knock sounded at the back door of the kitchen.
Wade didn't move. "Come in, Tom."
The door swung open, admitting Tom Callahan, a man of sixty in a faded Carhartt jacket and mud-caked muck boots. Tom was the manager of the Harrow family’s agricultural operations in Jo Daviess County—three thousand acres of prime timber, black dirt, and pasture land that stretched along the bluffs above the Mississippi.
"Morning, Wade. Naomi. Eliza." Tom pulled off his greasy ball cap, his weathered face breaking into a gentle, sympathetic smile as he looked at Eliza’s cheek. "Good to see you back on the ridge, miss."
"Good to see you, Tom," Eliza said, managing a small, genuine smile.
Tom dropped a set of brass keys onto the pine table.
"The Miller place," Tom said, looking at Wade. "They finished the clean-out yesterday. The roof on the guest cottage was patched last spring. Well water tested clean on Tuesday. Five parts per billion iron, zero nitrates."
Wade pushed the keys across the wood until they rested against Eliza’s coffee mug.
"The Miller place?" Eliza asked, her brow furrowing. "The old stone house by the creek?"
"Four hundred acres," Wade said. "Two barns, six pastures, and an orchard that hasn't been sprayed in forty years. Your mother used to take you down there when you were five to pick blackberries."
Eliza picked up the brass keys. They were heavy, cold, and attached to a piece of faded red leather that carried the stamped letters: H.H.I. - Property 12.
"Why are you giving me this?" she whispered.
"I’m not giving you anything, Lizzie," Wade said. "The trust is transferring the title to your name this morning. You’re the managing director of Harrow Land and Timber now. Tom reports to you. Naomi handles the legal filings. If Grant Calder wants to find you, he’ll have to walk through three miles of posted private timber to reach your front porch."
Owen suddenly squealed from the floor, his wooden train striking the leg of the iron stove. "Grandpa! Bridge broke!"
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Wade stood up, his joints making a dry, cracking sound in the quiet kitchen. He walked over to the boy, dropped down onto one knee with the slow, deliberate ease of an old cedar tree bending in the wind, and took the wooden track from Owen’s hands.
"It’s not broken, partner," Wade said, his thumb smoothing over the splintered pine. "It just needs a new pin. We can make one in the shop after breakfast."
