Chapter 4 - The House on King Street
By midnight, the Charleston townhouse on King Street was dark and silent.
The streetlamps outside cast long, amber shadows across the heart-pine floors of the living room. The Persian rug was rolled up neatly near the doorway; the charcoal sketches and old photographs were packed into heavy archival boxes stacked against the wainscoting.
The house was empty.
Grant stood in the middle of the living room, his suit jacket discarded on the floor, his tie yanked loose around his neck. The air smelled of dust and old paper.
His phone buzzed incessantly in his pocket—calls from the company’s chief financial officer, messages from panicked board members demanding to know why the distribution hubs were locked, texts from Vanessa asking what the hell was happening at Seabrook House.
He ignored them all.
He walked into the kitchen. The marble countertops were spotless. The refrigerator was nearly bare, save for a carton of milk and a note left on the magnetic board by the pantry door.
Grant pulled the note off the metal.
In Claire’s clean handwriting:
Grant,
The lawyer has the house keys. I left the blue-and-white anniversary dishes in the bottom cabinet; they belong to your mother. Give them back to her.
Goodbye,
Claire.
May you like
Grant let the paper slip from his fingers. It drifted downward, landing softly against the tile floor.
He dropped onto the wooden kitchen stool, burying his face in his hands, finally letting out the dry, suffocating sobs of a man who had traded his entire world for an illusion and woke up to find the room completely empty.
