Chapter 7 - The Other Side of the Fence
Travis was repairing his garden gate when Graham arrived.
The gate had been dragging along the ground for months. Travis had promised himself he'd fix it every weekend since June.
Now it seemed like an excellent way to avoid thinking about the Mercer family.
A man could accomplish a surprising amount with a screwdriver and unresolved anger.
Graham stopped on the opposite side.
"Hey."
Travis didn't look up.
"If you're here to inspect the gate, there's a waiting list."
"I wanted to talk."
"People usually do before they hit me. You're mixing up the order."
Graham flinched.
He deserved that.
"I know."
Travis tightened a screw.
"Congratulations."
"Travis."
Finally, Travis straightened.
The bruise across his cheekbone had deepened into an ugly purple patch.
Graham looked at it.
There was no pretending he hadn't done that.
"I came to apologize."
Travis folded his arms.
"Okay."
Graham hadn't expected the word to sound so unwelcoming.
"I thought Wesley was being hurt. I panicked."
"Yeah. You mentioned that with your hand."
"I was wrong."
"Also true."
Graham swallowed.
"I struck you. You were helping my son, and I struck you. There isn't an excuse for it."
For the first time, Travis's expression changed.
Not forgiveness.
Attention.
"All right," he said.
"I understand if you want to press charges."
"That's good, because I already made a report."
Graham nodded.
"I figured."
Travis leaned against the gate.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"If a stranger had grabbed Wesley out of the road because a truck was coming, would you have hit him?"
Graham hesitated.
"No."
"So what made me different?"
Graham thought about the sight of his son crying.
About his mother's voice.
About the way he'd already decided what kind of man Travis was before he reached the pool.
"I don't have a good answer."
"Then maybe that's the thing to work on."
Graham looked down.
Travis wasn't finished.
"Wesley's a great kid. He likes to build boats out of junk mail, he thinks worms have feelings, and he once spent twenty minutes trying to convince me that raccoons should pay property taxes."
Despite himself, Graham smiled.
"He did?"
"Detailed proposal. No exemptions."
The smile disappeared almost immediately.
Travis stepped closer.
"I didn't pull him out so you could owe me a favor. I pulled him out because he needed help."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Graham met his eyes.
"I'm trying to."
Travis nodded toward the mansion.
"Then stop treating this like a fight between me and your mother. Your son is the one who got hurt."
Graham looked across the lawn.
He'd spent forty years believing the most dangerous thing he could do was disappoint Marjorie Mercer.
Now he was beginning to understand how much that belief had cost other people.
Travis invited him inside.
Not because they'd become friends.
Because there was something Graham needed to see.
Spread across the kitchen table were maps, engineering diagrams, county planning documents, and a photograph of an old railway crossing.
Graham examined them.
"Ash Creek?"
"Yep."
"I know you're concerned about drainage."
"Drainage's part of it."
Travis slid a document across the table.
"County approved the connector road in July."
"I heard it was still under review."
"It was. Then the final vote happened."
"Nobody told me."
Travis raised an eyebrow.
"You're the company president."
Graham said nothing.
Travis pointed at the diagram.
"The old valuation assumed heavy industrial access only through the western service road. That made redevelopment expensive."
"And the connector changes that?"
"It potentially changes the whole deal. A legal road connection to the county corridor makes a lot more of the tract developable, assuming the permits and mitigation work check out."
Graham leaned closer.
"How much more?"
"I'm not an appraiser. I won't make up a number. But it's enough that I'd want a new appraisal before selling."
Graham remembered Nina Ellis requesting exactly that.
"Did you tell Victor?"
"I sent a formal letter to your office. I also sent a copy to Nina."
"When?"
"August twenty-eighth."
Graham stared at the letter.
He'd been attending a loan meeting that day.
Victor had said there was nothing urgent in the incoming correspondence.
Travis watched his face.
"Didn't see it, huh?"
"No."
"Then somebody at your company is doing a lousy job sorting mail."
Graham looked at the signature at the bottom.
Travis Bennett, P.E.
The man he'd struck was not an interfering stranger with a grudge.
He was a qualified engineer who had raised a legitimate concern about a multimillion-dollar sale.
And his mother had known that before Saturday.
When Graham returned to the mansion, Marjorie was waiting in his study.
"I saw you at Bennett's house."
"Yes."
"Well?"
"We talked."
"What did he want?"
Graham set a photocopy of the county approval on the desk.
"Why didn't you tell me the connector road was approved?"
Marjorie glanced at the paper.
"Because a road approval isn't a building permit."
"That's not what I asked."
"Please don't tell me he's filled your head with theories."
"He gave me county documents."
"Documents can be interpreted any number of ways."
"Then let's have an independent appraiser interpret them."
Her lips tightened.
"Graham, you know very little about what your father and I sacrificed to build this company."
"I know something about what Claire sacrificed for it too."
The name changed the room.
Marjorie looked away.
Graham noticed.
He'd never understood why his mother disliked Claire so deeply.
Claire had been patient, intelligent, warm.
But she'd also been one of the few people who didn't surrender when Marjorie insisted she knew best.
He collected the documents.
"I'm meeting Nina tomorrow."
Marjorie stared at him.
"You really think your dead wife would want you throwing away your family's future over a neighbor's opinion?"
Graham stopped at the door.
May you like
"No," he said. "I think Claire would've read the paperwork."
And when he turned back, Marjorie was looking at him with the unmistakable expression of someone who remembered exactly what Claire had once found.
