Chapter 9 - What Grandpa Kept from the Family
Imani slept in the living room that night. Not because Gideon asked her to leave the spare bedroom, but because she could not bear to sit in a room filled with photographs of Andre as a boy while the man who had hidden his last phone call slept across the hall.
In the morning, Gideon set two mugs on the coffee table and remained standing until she invited him to sit.
“Tell me every word,” she said.
He placed a handwritten note beside her. The paper was worn at the fold.
“July nineteenth. Andre called from an unfamiliar number. He said he got out through the service pit before the flames spread. He heard Lionel calling, but there was a chain on the rear door. By the time he got around the building, the roof was coming down.” Gideon swallowed. “He thought the men who set it would come after you next.”
“Why didn’t he come home?”
“He said he had evidence connecting Northstar to the fire. He needed to put it someplace they couldn’t destroy. He told me not to tell you until he could come in safely.”
“And when he didn’t come?”
“I kept calling. The number stopped working. I convinced myself he’d been killed.” Gideon’s voice broke. “Then they identified that body by his ring. I thought the call was a last chance I’d lost.”
“So you made the decision for me.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me tell Zora her father was dead.”
“Yes.”
There was no defense Gideon could give that would make the words less cruel. He did not try.
“I wanted to protect you,” he said. “I hurt you instead. I’m sorry.”
Imani pressed a hand against her belly and looked toward the window. Her anger was not smaller because Gideon loved them. In some ways, it was larger. He had known exactly what that loss meant.
“I don’t know when I can forgive you,” she said.
“I understand.”
“Right now, you can help by telling Maya everything. No more private promises. No more hiding evidence because you’re scared for me.”
Gideon nodded. “Everything.”
Maya documented the July call and the new message without treating either as proof that Andre was alive. The telephone provider would require appropriate legal process to trace the number, and someone could have used Andre’s phone or imitated him. She warned Imani not to reply or arrange a meeting alone.
Meanwhile, the property hearing began in a small courtroom with snow melting off everybody’s coats. Mrs. Vance sat beside Imani. Trey, the teenage witness, waited with a victim-support advocate. Evelyn appeared with her own lawyer. Clint’s attorneys argued that the transfer records were valid and that the trust had been dissolved decades earlier.
Maya presented the initial charity letter, the 1994 board minutes from cabinet 14, and evidence raising doubts about the deed’s signature. She also submitted affidavits from families facing displacement. She did not ask the judge to settle the entire ownership dispute in one afternoon. She asked that the property and records be preserved while the case proceeded.
The judge granted temporary restrictions on transfer or demolition pending further proceedings. Northstar’s lawyers objected. The ruling was narrow, not a final victory, but the families waiting outside the courthouse heard the news and began to cry.
“Does that mean we can stay?” Mrs. Carter asked.
“For now, the property cannot be sold out from under this dispute,” Maya explained. “We still have work to do.”
Imani hugged Mrs. Carter. For weeks, her son had been doing his homework in a motel bathroom because it was the only room where his baby sister could sleep without the television on. That family had not received a dollar of the funds raised in its name.
At dusk, Ruby’s permitted Christmas ride rolled slowly through the neighborhood. The bikes carried wrapped coats instead of club trophies. Gideon, arm in a sling, rode in a support truck beside Pastor Lena. Zora waved from the church steps with Imani’s sister beside her. Every rider who passed the old garage rang a small bicycle bell in memory of Lionel and the people who had kept the neighborhood warm.
A child handed Zora a new box of crayons. “For your picture,” he said.
She shook her head. “The old one’s still mine. These are for the next one.”
Her next drawing showed the church basement filled with people. She drew her mother sitting down, Grandpa beside a table, Mrs. Vance holding a grocery bag, and a row of motorcycles outside. Where Andre should have been, she left a space.
Imani didn’t ask why. She already knew.
Maya called after the ride. The recovered security footage showed a man entering the motor hall the night of the banquet wearing red gloves and a blue work shirt. His face was hidden by a cap. He used a key at the red door and looked toward the toy display just before Zora approached.
“Can you tell if it’s Andre?” Imani asked.
“No. But there’s another camera outside the old railway depot. The same man appears there two nights later.”
“Alone?”
“No. He gets into a car with City Councilwoman Ada Pierce, who supported Northstar’s redevelopment bid.”
Ada Pierce was a respected Black official who had promised the displaced families that the city would protect them. Imani had voted for her. She had also been the person who recommended Clint’s club to administer the Christmas fund.
May you like
As Imani processed that news, an envelope slid through the mail slot. Gideon retrieved it without opening the front door. Inside was a photograph of Andre standing in front of the railway depot under a sign dated December twenty-third.
On the back, in block letters, someone had written: BRING THE ORIGINAL DRAWING TO THE DEPOT BY MIDNIGHT, OR HE DISAPPEARS AGAIN.
