Salvation (The Protectors, Book 2) (6 page)

I barely managed to keep my expression neutral as an idea began to rattle around in my head.

“So he still lives there?” I asked.

“Oh dear Lord, no,” she said. “I haven’t seen Seth in years. I keep expecting the house to go up on the market but it hasn’t.”

I nodded. “Well, thank you.”

She gave me a smile and focused on her flowers as I made my way back to my car. The men who’d killed Seth’s parents had never been found and it had been chalked up to a random event, but the idea that Seth’s father was supposed to have been there by himself that night had me wondering things I probably shouldn’t. I supposed I’d gotten too used to dealing with the worst of humanity to blindly accept that sometimes random events were just that – random.

The trip to Mercer Island caused more questions than answers, so I made my way back to the city but didn’t go to Seth’s office. The GPS showed he’d already gotten back there so I knew I had some time before he headed out for the day. I made my way to the southern side of the city and parked in front of a small, converted house that said
Harold Brighton, Esquire & Associates
.

I’d only met Harry Brighton once when I’d met with him to discuss the surprise inheritance Trace had left me. His office hadn’t changed much over the years. The furniture and décor were outdated and worn and the reception area consisted of one small desk with the same old receptionist sitting behind it, her silver hair twisted around the top of her head in a sloppy bun with a couple of pencils shoved through it to hold it in place. She was looking over the top of her glasses at an ancient looking computer screen that took up about half her desk and there were papers strewn everywhere. There was no one in the waiting area but the TV in the corner of the room was tuned to a talk show of some kind.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked without looking up at me.

“Is Mr. Brighton available?”

“I’m afraid not,” she said before finally straightening her glasses and looking up at me. “Mr. Grisham, how nice to see you again.”

I couldn’t help but be surprised that she remembered me, considering I’d only been there the one time nearly six years ago. Since I couldn’t recall her name, I merely nodded.

“Dolores! I need the Conway file!” I heard a high pitched voice yell and then there was the click-click of heels. A woman rounded the corner from the back of the building where I knew the offices were and stopped when she saw me. Her frown disappeared and she straightened her elegant suit. She was quite attractive and put together and I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t quite match the laid back atmosphere of the office.

“Tabby, this is Mr. Ronan Grisham,” Dolores said with a wave of her hand. “He’s a friend of the Nichols family.”

The woman stiffened and then smoothed her jacket again before jutting out her hand. “Tabitha Brighton,” she said formally, her high-pitched voice now low and clear and much less screechy.

“Tabby is Harry’s daughter, Mr. Grisham,” Dolores said as she began clicking away at her keyboard again.

“It’s Tabitha,” the woman said crisply, though I wasn’t sure if she was telling me or Dolores that. “How can I help you, Mr. Grisham?”

“I was hoping to speak with your father.”

Tabitha’s face fell but she recovered quickly. “I’m afraid my father has retired. Are you looking for someone to assist you with your inheritance?”

The question caught me off guard and she must have sensed my surprise because she said, “I’ve taken over the majority of my father’s clients. I remember seeing your file a few weeks ago as I was trying to familiarize myself with his cases. I noticed we didn’t have an attorney listed for you…”

The not so subtle query irritated me, though I couldn’t really explain why. Maybe because the woman seemed so much like the stereotypical attorney whereas I’d found her father to be much more relaxed and laid back when I’d worked with him so many years ago. “I’m just passing through town and I wanted to say hi to your father. Is he around?”

Tabitha’s jaw hardened for a moment and then she forced a smile to her lips. “He’s retired, Mr. Grisham,” she repeated as if that was answer enough.

“Here,” Dolores said as she handed me a piece of paper. “He’s at Sunny Oaks – two streets over and down a few blocks. I’m sure he’d love the company,” the old woman said as she shot Tabitha a stern look. Tabitha didn’t look pleased and turned on her heel and stalked back in the direction she’d come from.

“Thanks,” I said as I waved the paper at Dolores.

“He likes the fries from the diner down the street,” Dolores said in response. “Mayonnaise, not ketchup,” she added.

I chuckled at the subtle order. “Yes, ma’am.”

It took about twenty minutes to get the fries from the diner and find the assisted living community. The receptionist pointed me in the direction of a common room where there were a few senior citizens milling around playing cards or watching TV. I recognized Harry almost instantly because of his hair. It was almost all white except for a thick patch of black hair above his forehead. I had no idea if he dyed it that way on purpose but it looked almost exactly like it had six years ago.

“Mr. Brighton,” I said as I stopped next to the table where he was playing a game of Solitaire. His eyes lit on the white paper bag in my hand before lifting up. Like Dolores, he recognized me instantly.

“Mr. Grisham,” he said with a nod. “I see you stopped by the office,” he said with a nod towards the bag in my hand.

I laughed and handed him the bag and then took the seat across from him when he invited me to do so.

“How is Seth?” Harry asked the second I sat.

“I was going to ask you that,” I admitted. “I’ve been away for a bit and just got back to the city yesterday,” I hedged, not wanting to explain to this man the details of why I’d stayed away.

Harry began rifling around the bag for a fry and the small to-go container of mayonnaise I’d been given. “I’m sorry to say, I haven’t been able to get up to see him as much as I’d like,” he said. “Tabby doesn’t have time to drive me up to Whidbey Island and cabs are terribly expensive.”

“He doesn’t come down to see you?” I asked.

“Oh no,” Harry said as he began chewing on the fry. “Well, you know how tough it is for him to leave the house.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that so I said, “It is a long drive.”

Harry stopped chewing for a moment and studied me. While his body might have aged, his brain certainly hadn’t and I could see him putting the pieces together. His friendliness faded away and suspicion clouded his gaze as he pushed the bag away. “What can I do for you, Mr. Grisham?”

The man in front of me was the man I remembered. His less than neat office and too relaxed manner of dress had made me wonder about his abilities the first time I’d met him, but I’d known as soon as he’d started talking to me that he was much sharper than he appeared. And loyal. And not just to Seth’s father who he’d gone to school with as kids, but to Seth as well if the current hard look he was giving me was anything to go by.

I knew it was going to be a challenge getting anything out of him at that point but I was desperate for answers that I doubted I’d be able to pull out of Seth anytime soon. “I fucked up, Mr. Brighton,” I finally admitted. “I got caught up in my own grief and I wasn’t there for him the way I should have been. I get that now.”

Harry seemed to soften somewhat and the fact that he reached for the fries again was a good sign. “How can I help, Mr. Grisham?”

“It’s Ronan,” I said.

He nodded. “Ronan.”

“Are you still his lawyer?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I retired about six months ago. Tabby handles some of the day to day stuff but I suspect her…personality might not be a good match for Seth.”

“What do you mean?”

“I love my girl but she’s got a lot of ambition and sometimes that can get her into trouble. Seth – he’s a smart boy but my Tabby likes it when she’s smarter.”

“Is Seth looking to take his business elsewhere?”

Harry paused and then said, “I think he’s holding off on making a decision out of respect for me, but a colleague who visits me once a month mentioned rumors that his father’s business partner, Stan Sadorsky, is urging Seth to use the company’s counsel for his personal affairs.”

I could only imagine that with Seth’s personal fortune, the financial loss would hit Harry’s daughter pretty hard. But I didn’t press Harry any further because I could see his loyalties were torn between Seth and his daughter.

“You mentioned it being tough for him to leave the house,” I prodded.

“I didn’t notice it myself at first when I went up to Whidbey Island to meet with him regarding his parents’ estate. I thought he was just still grieving and he also had his grandmother to look after. He’d missed so much school that it made sense for him to have a tutor to help him catch up, but he ended up hiring the tutor to home school him so he wouldn’t have to go back to school at all. About a year after the incident, my wife and I started inviting him down to the city to join us for dinner but he’d always say he was busy. After his grandmother passed, he asked me about his options when it came to a legal guardian.”

“And you helped him become emancipated.”

Harry nodded. “He was responsible, self-sufficient and he didn’t have anyone…” Harry’s eyes settled on me. “I asked him about you looking out for him but he said that wasn’t an option.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that so I remained silent.

“I thought with his grandmother gone, he’d start getting out more. He got his GED just before he turned seventeen. The judge who’d granted Seth’s request for emancipation assigned me as trustee of his inheritance until he turned eighteen, so I paid a lot of the bills. I was excited for him when he enrolled in college at the University of Washington in Seattle but he dropped out after a few weeks and enrolled in an online program. I’m not sure if he completed the program – he didn’t talk much about himself when I’d go visit him.”

“And his dad’s company?”

“His father’s business partner offered to buy Seth out of the controlling ownership of the business a couple of times but Seth always said no.”

My mind was churning with all the new information but all it had done was make me feel even more guilty for how blind I’d been. I’d spent so much time lecturing Trace on how traumatized Seth must have been as a result of the attack that killed his parents and left him for dead, but when I’d had the chance to step up and make sure he was getting the help he needed, I’d said nothing. I hadn’t even noticed. I’d just made assumptions that other people like his grandmother had helped him work through it. But from what Harry was telling me, Seth had suffered in silence for a long time.

“Thank you, Mr. Brighton,” I said as I started to stand. “I’m going to do better by him. I’ll try to bring him by for a visit real soon. Otherwise, I’d be happy to drive you up to see him.”

Harry smiled and reached out his hand. “You’re a good boy,” he said with a smile. “I had my doubts about you, but Seth was right.”

“What do you mean?” I asked in confusion.

“I wasn’t so sure giving you half his inheritance was such a good idea, but he said you were family and he knew you’d do good with it.”

I felt my stomach drop out. “
His
inheritance? You mean Trace’s, right?”

“It was Trace’s but it reverted to Seth when he died.”

I could barely manage to get the words out of my mouth. “Trace didn’t leave me the money?”

Harry finally seemed to catch on to my distress and he stood. “I thought you knew,” he whispered. “I tried meeting with Trace about his half of the inheritance before he left the States after Seth got out of the hospital, but he kept putting me off. If he intended to leave the money to you, he never mentioned it. But Seth…Seth was adamant that the money should go to you.”

I didn’t think I even managed to say goodbye to Harry because I heard him call my name a couple times as I walked down the hallway towards the exit. I ended up sitting in my car trying to absorb the turn of events and when I finally got myself together long enough to pull out my phone, I saw it was almost two o’clock. I checked the app and saw that Seth was on the move and I realized from the location of his car that he was probably on his way home since he was nearing the ferry dock in Mukilteo.

Even with the early hour, traffic in downtown Seattle was starting to build so I focused on the road until I got out of the city and then let my mind start to wander. Somehow when it had been Trace’s money I’d used to set up my organization, I’d felt like it was the universe’s way of telling me I’d made the right choice to give up medicine and focus on bringing justice to men and women who had no qualms about taking innocent lives. But knowing that Seth had deliberately chosen to give me the money made me want to throw up.

He knew you’d do good with it
.

Harry’s words rang in my ears. I
had
done good with it but only in my eyes, not Seth’s. What would Seth think if he found out I’d used the money to kill people or to set them up so they could be convicted of crimes the law couldn’t otherwise prove they’d committed? What would he think if he learned that every bullet I’d fired into a man’s brain was paid for by his money? Trace wouldn’t have cared because he understood what the real world was like. He understood that doing what was right sometimes meant using methods most people deemed wrong…like Seth would. Because Seth was gentle and sweet and kind and utterly innocent. He hadn’t seen the shit I’d seen. He hadn’t felt it or touched it or tasted it…that evil that consumed every cell, every fiber of your being until you had no choice but to change to accommodate it, to accept it, to find a way to live with it.