“There you go. Like he was seeing ten moves ahead of me. Doing what had to be done.”
By this point, Sandrine’s elbows were resting on the table, her hands supporting her chin. She straightened and asked Arnold, “May I?”
“Be my guest.”
“First and foremost, the realization I’ve been making here is that you are a child no longer. It’s not just your brilliance. Far from it. You are making decisions with an adult’s capacity to see beyond your fears and your weaknesses. We all have them. Part of maturing is gaining the confidence to respond to challenges in spite of our unfinished elements and deep-seated flaws. Which you have most certainly done in this case.”
“I’ll give that a big amen,” Celeste said.
“So I am going to speak with you as one adult to another.” She looked at Arnold, who nodded. “For the past eight weeks—”
“More like three and a half months,” Arnold said.
“We only confirmed what was going on eight weeks ago, when one of the academy’s largest donors came to see me. What he wanted to discuss could not be said on the phone. His company’s outside attorney informed him, in strictest confidentiality, that private investigators had been hired to check on rumors regarding ill treatment of certain students.”
“He specifically mentioned Sojourn House,” Arnold said.
“Had to be Grey Robinson behind this,” Celeste said.
“None other,” Arnold replied.
“Dress that shark in a three thousand–dollar suit, he’s still a shark.”
“No argument there,” Sandrine said. “Since then, we’ve heard from two other major benefactors, people whose support we rely on to keep us financially afloat.”
“Tuition only covers about seventy percent of our total running costs,” Arnold said. “Not to mention renovations and building new facilities.”
“They were being pressed to withdraw support, at least until the disturbing reports—their words, not mine—could be fully investigated.”
The two of them stopped, and waited.
Celeste said it for them. “We need Roland to make sure their attack gets stopped.”
Sandrine told Colin, “I realize it is a very great deal to ask. …”
“No, it’s not.” He wanted to scream the words. Weep his rage.
“We need to contact Roland about this before he draws up the papers,” Celeste said.
“You’d better call him,” Colin said. The only way he could keep from shouting his fury with all his might was to sit on his hands, hunch down, tighten his entire body until it threatened to cramp. All he could think was, his days of hiding in some tight little space were over. “Do it now.”
CHAPTER23
Following the confrontation with his father, Colin’s days took on a languid, summertime rhythm. He sat for his last exams at Outer Banks Academy and, ten days later, his first at UNC Wilmington. In between the two, he returned twice to Roland’s law offices. The papers came back from Grey Robinson, signed by his father, forming a legal framework for Colin’s freedom.
Roland had stipulated Celeste as his legal guardian. He had carefully laid out the manner in which all future meetings between father and son would take place: inside his law offices, supervised by either Colin’s attorney or his guardian, and limited in both time and frequency.
Roland had also inserted a clause stating that both Grey and his client, Roger Eames, found no fault with the academy or Sojourn House whatsoever. In their opinion, the academy continued to fulfill all aspects of its duties, both to Colin and all its other students, in exemplary fashion.
His father’s signature had torn the original document andcreased the final page so deeply it was visible on the six copies.
Afterward Roland had taken Colin and Celeste to lunch at the City Club of Wilmington, located in a nineteenth-century antebellum-style manor. They’d sat at the restaurant’s finest table, its corner position granting them a double-aspect view of the city’s historic downtown. The meal was marked mostly by all the topics they avoided. Nothing was said about Colin’s father or the investments or exams or schools. They spoke with the easy familiarity of old friends, and dined on aged prime rib.
Three days later, Colin took a second long position on Legend’s stock. The share price had bottomed out at just under three dollars, weighed down by Microsoft’s announcement of the newly updated X Box. According to numerous online tech-journal op-ed articles, Legend’s still-unreleased game would probably not be supported on the new operating system. Colin knew his investors were nervous about his intention to reacquire a stock the pundits predicted would soon crash and burn. He met with Aaron and Roland and Ethan and Mira mostly to show them a confidence that might have been lost on the phone.
The deadline for signing onto UNCW’s summer classes came and went. Earlier Colin had intended to take the maximum course load. But now that liberty had started to take hold, he simply could not be bothered.
Several times each week Colin woke from nightmares, heart pounding, body bathed in sweat. The flashing images often changed, but the foundation was exactly the same. His father and attorney and campaign manager showed up at Sojourn House, usually with members of his father’s old sheriff’s department, always with court authorization to drag him away in chains. Often the three men grew fangs.