Chapter 10 - Rebirth in the High Country
Three months later, the Blue Ridge mountains were covered in a blanket of clean, blinding white snow.
I stood on the stone terrace of the cabin on Route 9—the very property Grant had purchased using the embezzled funds. I had acquired the deed through the civil restitution settlement for a nominal fee, claiming it as compensation for the destruction of my Mercedes and the fraud committed against my firm.
The air was crisp, clean, and bitingly cold. There was no sound except for the wind rustling through the pines and the distant rush of the river at the bottom of the gorge.
Down on the highway, fifty feet below the tree line where the old white oak stood, a new, heavy-gauge steel guardrail gleamed in the winter sun. The scars on the oak’s bark were still visible, but the tree had survived. It hadn't fallen.
My phone chimed in my coat pocket. It was an email from Arthur Vance.
*Clara,*
*The final decree of divorce has been signed by the Mecklenburg County Superior Court. The criminal sentencing hearing for Grant and Judith concluded an hour ago.*
*Judith received fifteen years at the Southern Correctional Institution in Troy, minimum ten before parole eligibility.*
*Grant received twenty-eight years at Alexander Correctional without the possibility of parole for the first eighteen.*
*Tessa has been extradited to Georgia to face trial for murder.*
*You are officially, entirely free.*
I lowered the phone and took a deep, restorative breath. For seven years, I had shrunk myself to fit into their narrow, resentful world. I had hidden my intelligence, apologized for my earnings, and allowed an insecure man and his venomous mother to make me feel like an outsider in my own home.
Now, their names were court dockets and prison ID numbers.
I walked back inside the warm, wood-paneled living room of the cabin. A fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting long, dancing shadows across the hardwood floors. On the kitchen counter sat a brand-new set of car keys—belonging to a modest, safe SUV parked in the driveway, its tires untouched, its registration solely in the name of Clara Campbell.
May you like
I picked up a glass of red wine, walked over to Grant’s antique oak desk in the corner of the great room, and prepared to pack up the remaining legal files to close this chapter forever.
***
