Chapter 10: The Weight of Three Hundred Million
My father was waiting at the port.
They had arranged a Coast Guard escort to bring me in by tender, and he was standing at the end of the dock in the gray morning light — no security, no driver, just him in the same old coat he'd worn since I was twelve.
When I stepped off the tender he crossed the dock in four strides and put both arms around me and didn't say anything for a long time.
"I got your message," he finally said, into my hair.
"I know."
"The satellite app."
"I know, Dad."
He pulled back and looked at my face — really looked, the way he used to when I was small and had fallen off something and he needed to assess the damage before he allowed himself to react.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"The dr*gs he gave you—"
"The medical team on the enforcement vessel checked me.
It was a sedative.
It's mostly cleared." I squeezed his hands.
"Mom?"
"Home.
Safe.
Two federal agents with her." He exhaled.
"She wanted to come.
I told her one of us needed to stay put."
We stood on the dock while the morning light strengthened over the water.
"Flynn's lawyer is already talking," I said.
"He's going to try to make it complicated."
"Let him try." My father's voice was quiet and absolute.
"I've already called our legal team.
And I've called the family attorney about the power of attorney you signed."
"Can it be undone?"
"It was signed under duress, with an undisclosed conflict of interest, while you were being administered a sedative without your knowledge." He looked at me steadily.
"It was never valid.
It will be declared void before the week is out."
Something I had been carrying since the moment I found that phone — a cold, specific dread about the $300 million, about my parents on that mountain road, about all of it — began, slowly, to lift.
"There's something else," I said.
"Mara — the crew member who helped me — she has information about a death two years ago.
A man connected to Aidan.
It may not have been an accident."
My father was quiet for a moment.
"Tell Reyes."
"I already did.
Mara already did." I looked out at the water.
"But I wanted you to know."
He nodded.
He didn't push for more details.
He understood, I think, that there were things that would take time to say.
"Come home," he said.
"Your mother made enough food for twelve people.
She always cooks when she's frightened."
I almost laughed.
"She does."
He offered his arm.
May you like
I took it.
We walked off the dock together, into the ordinary gray morning, and behind us the water was calm and the *Celestine* was still out there somewhere — secured, boarded, its secrets no longer anyone's but the law's.
