Chapter 7 - The Confrontation at the Country Club
On Friday noon, twenty-four hours before the house fell, my father tried an ambush.
I had gone to an executive lunch meeting at the Merion Cricket Club—not as a guest of my family, but as the guest of Walter Briggs and the executive vice president of the Northeast Rail Corridor, who were finalizing a twelve-million-dollar distribution contract with my logistics firm.
I had my good arm resting on the table, my black cast tucked discreetly beneath the linen napkin, listening to a presentation on rail car turnaround times, when the maitre d' leaned over my shoulder.
“Ms. Thorne? Your father is in the library. He insists on a word before your party leaves.”
Walter Briggs looked up, his fork halfway to his mouth. “You want me to handle this, Merritt?”
“No,” I said, dabbing my lips with my napkin. “Excuse me for five minutes, gentlemen. Some family business needs to be settled before the weekend.”
I walked across the parquet floors of the clubhouse. The walls were lined with portraits of Pennsylvania gentry dating back to the nineteenth century—men with high collars and severe mouths who looked remarkably like Grandpa Arthur, and nothing at all like my father.
Thaddeus was standing by the large bay window overlooking the grass tennis courts. He was wearing his favorite navy blazer with gold buttons, but his face was mottled red and his tie was slightly crooked.
He didn't look like a patriarch. He looked like an actor whose cue had been missed.
“What is the meaning of this?” he hissed the moment the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind me. “Saskia spent twenty-four hours in a holding cell! With common criminals, Merritt! She had to be bailed out by Hayes’s father’s attorney!”
“Then Hayes’s father’s attorney knows she’s an abusive felon,” I said, standing three feet away, perfectly still.
“She had an emotional breakdown because you attacked her business!”
“She swung an iron skillet at my face, Dad. The doctor said another inch to the left and I’d be blind in my left eye. Or dead.”
Thaddeus waved his hand dismissively—the same dismissive wave he had used when I showed him my shredded college acceptance letters fourteen years ago.
“You’ve always been dramatic,” he sneered. “You always exaggerate your injuries. You fell on the floor and made a scene because you couldn't stand that your sister was the center of attention on Easter.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him.
I saw the fine broken capillaries around his nose from decades of gin before dinner. I saw the cheap veneer of his confidence, cracking under the weight of debts he could never repay.
“You stole my trust fund,” I said.
The color drained from his face so fast it looked as if he’d been struck by a localized stroke.
“What?”
“Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Arthur left it for me. You and Mom took it in 2019 and dumped it into Saskia’s cosmetics shell company. Then you forged my name to steal another three hundred thousand from Apex.”
“That was family money!” he stammered, stepping back until his calves hit the leather sofa. “Arthur intended that money for the family’s preservation! You were doing fine! You had your little job moving boxes!”
“My little job pays my bills,” I said. “And your big life is an empty shell.”
Thaddeus straightened his shoulders, trying to summon the thunderous authority he had used to terrorize me at the dinner table when I was twelve.
“You will go to the district attorney’s office this afternoon,” he commanded, pointing a trembling finger at my chest. “You will sign an affidavit stating that the incident on Easter was an accidental kitchen mishap. Then you will sign a release on the Apex loan. Hayes has agreed to handle the arrears once the wedding takes place. If you do not do this, Merritt, you will never set foot in Meadowbrook again. You will be cut off completely. No family. No Thorne name. Nothing.”
I stepped forward.
I didn't stop until I was six inches from his face.
He was taller than me, but he seemed tiny—a paper doll waiting for a match.
“You still think you own that house, don't you?” I whispered.
He blinked, confused by the lack of fear in my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“Ask Frank Callahan what happens when a life tenant commits a felony on trust property,” I said. “And Dad?”
He swallowed hard. “What?”
“Make sure you wear your good suit tomorrow night,” I said. “You’ll want to look nice for the moving men.”
May you like
I turned and walked out of the library, leaving him standing among the leather chairs and the portraits of dead men, his mouth opening and closing like a fish on a dock.
***
