Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Worcester Academy
The drive back to Boston took two hours and fourteen minutes through the tail end of the storm.
In the back of the Navigator, the heater was turned up high, blowing warm, cedar-scented air across my legs. Sophie was asleep with her head in my lap, her thumb tucked into the corner of her mouth, her pink party dress ruined by candle wax and soot, but her breathing deep and regular.
Everett sat across from me in the jump seat, his fingers steepened under his chin, watching the dark Massachusetts turnpike slide past the reinforced glass.
“You should have called us sooner, Maddie,” he said.
“I didn't want you to be right.”
“About what?”
“About Caleb. About men who care more about their middle names on a brass plaque than the person sitting across the table from them.”
Everett gave a short, dry chuckle that didn't reach his eyes. “Every Whitcomb woman since our great-grandmother has gone through a phase where she thinks she can domesticate a stray dog by feeding it table scraps. Some of them survive it. Most of them just end up with ruined carpets.”
“He had a training strap, Everett.”
“I saw it,” Everett said, his voice dropping into that low, flat register that meant someone somewhere was about to lose their house, their license, or their liberty. “Silas has it in his briefcase. We’ll be returning it to his attorneys tomorrow morning—along with a civil suit for assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and three counts of corporate espionage against the blonde.”
“What about Vanessa?”
“Vanessa is currently explaining to two state troopers why she has twenty-five thousand dollars in untraceable bearer bonds in her Gucci handbag while standing in a house that is legally owned by a Whitcomb holding trust.”
I looked down at Sophie’s hair. It still smelled faintly of strawberry frosting.
“Did you buy the house?”
“Dean bought it this afternoon while you were still in the dining room,” Everett said casually. “The mortgage was thirty days from default anyway. Caleb had been using the property as collateral for a private loan to cover his margin calls on those tech stocks he bought last summer without telling the board.”
I let out a long breath. The burning across my shoulders felt different now—not like a brand, but like an old scar finally beginning to heal after being scraped raw for seven years.
“I want a divorce, Everett.”
“That can be arranged by breakfast.”
“I want full custody of Sophie. No shared schedule, no mediation where he gets to pretend he’s the aggrieved father in front of some suburban judge who plays golf with him on Saturdays.”
Everett smiled—a thin, hard line that looked like a scar across his face.
“Maddie,” he said softly, “Caleb Harlan doesn't have enough money left to buy a ticket to a municipal court hearing, let alone hire a lawyer who can spell jurisdiction. By tomorrow noon, he’ll be lucky if he owns the clothes on his back and the shoes he’s standing in.”
When we pulled into the gravel drive of the old Whitcomb estate in Brookline—the sprawling stone house with the slate roof where we had grown up after our mother died—the lights were all on.
Silas and Dean were already inside. As the heavy oak front door swung open, the smell of wood smoke and hot chocolate drifted out into the cold night air.
Mrs. Higgins, who had managed the kitchen since I was four years old, was standing in the hallway holding a thick woolen blanket. She didn't say anything about my ruined blouse, or the frosting on my skirt, or the fact that I hadn't set foot in this house since I walked out the door at twenty-two to prove I could live an ‘ordinary life.’
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She just stepped forward, took Sophie out of my arms with the effortless grace of someone who had carried three generations of children through worse storms than this, and whispered:
“The fire’s going in the library, Maddie. Your room is just as you left it. Nobody’s touched a single book.”
