Blood Debt

By Jon Saint Germain

The hills outside of Adoration Tennessee hide a sinister secret: Black Ridge Defense Initiative, where for over thirty years, frightening experiments are conducted in the name of national security. When Geoff Sayer’s brother is killed, Geoff becomes the target of a conspiracy determined to silence a leak of one of Black Ridge’s most well-kept secrets—a secret with teeth, claws and an insatiable hunger, a genetically-engineered killing machine which is hunting human victims and which bears uncanny similarities to a creature from Cherokee legend.

But Geoff has secrets of his own. For years he's harbored an obsessive love for his brother's wife. Torn between loyalty to his brother's memory and desire for the woman he loves, Geoff, with the help of a Cherokee Shaman, an urban-mercenary cop, and a woman weapons expert from the Department of Defense, digs deep into the mysteries of Black Ridge and the shadowy secrets of his family's past.

The Magi of Adoration Series:

Book One: Blood Debt
The hills outside of Adoration Tennessee hide a sinister secret: Black Ridge Defense Initiative, where frightening experiments are conducted in the name of national security. When Geoff Sayer’s brother is killed, Geoff becomes the target of a conspiracy determined to silence a leak of one of Black Ridge’s most well-kept secrets—a secret with teeth, claws and a hunger for human flesh.

Book Two: Adoration
Lieutenant Matt Riley is a detective on the Brooklyn Police department spiraling toward self-destruction until his captain “volunteers” him for an officer exchange program—to a small town called Adoration Tennessee.When a lovely young widow becomes the primary suspect in a homicide that the witnesses insist “a ghost done,” and the outbreak of an incurable plague threatens the entire town, Detective Riley finds his assignment to the backwoods a lot more interesting—and dangerous—then he’d anticipated.

Book Three: Live Bait
When the young witch Abigail Brennan and her friends accidentally release a slumbering Cherokee demon known as “the Tooth” from its underground prison, not only are their lives in jeopardy but their very souls. Can Abby summon the skills her aunt taught her and put the demon back in its prison before it savages Adoration?

Book Four: New Face in Town
Twenty-five years ago Adoration was terrorized by a serial killer known as The Decorator, Who disappeared after killing a dozen women and prominently displaying gruesome works of art created from their remains. The Decorator returns after two and a half decades and the killings resume. Detective Gabriel Wrightson, tormented by his past failure to capture the killer, is determined to solve the haunting mystery. Will Wrightson find the answers in time to save Jillian from becoming a work of art?

Book Five: Darkfire
When the Tooth was accidentally released from his underground prison in Live Bait the demon worked a good deal of mischief. Among other foul deeds, it resurrected former comrade Andrew Jackson as well as the remains of a hideous creature stashed at Black Ridge. Jackson and the creature seize control of Black Ridge and unleash a source of tremendous power. A task force consisting of people with previous experience of Black Ridge and the Tooth combat General Jackson and his unholy partner. This capstone volume brings together all the characters from the previous four novels and pits them against an apocalyptic malevolence. Who knew the fate of the world would be decided in a small town in East Tennessee?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Saint Germain
• Release date: Sep 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301824557

Jon Saint Germain

Jon Saint Germain is a professional hypnotist, psychic entertainer and author who retired from the engineering field to pursue his passion: to avoid working for a living. Since 1995, he's been quite successful at self-employment. His published works include Runic Palmistry, Karmic Palmistry and Palmistry for Lovers, published by Llewellyn Publications; The Wizard's Legacy, co-authored with Craig Karges, published by Leading Edge and the in-progress series The Magi of Adoration. Under another name and in another time and place, Jon worked as an engineer for an organization very similar to the one he writes about under the name "Black Ridge" in the Adoration series, and his experiences there led to his early retirement from the profession.

Book preview

They would have gotten away with it except for a child’s toy, something you could fit into the palm of your hand.

It all began on the dusty afternoon of 17th of July, outside the town of Adoration, Tennessee. The Honeycutt grab bag had begun, laying waste to yet another Indian burial site. It was the year America celebrated 200 years of White Male Supremacist Masons running the show, but now members of the Cherokee Nation, college kids and hippies marched around the fenced off area, shouting STAY OFF OUR SACRED LAND! and carrying signs with HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF WE DUG UP YOUR GRANDPARENTS?

Consciousness, as they call it, was being raised. The crowds were estimated to be over a thousand. When some black activists in ‘Fros and headbands joined the demonstration, the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan formed a line on the opposite side of the barricade, white hoods up, eyes beady and narrow behind their hidey holes. As no one was laying their lives out in front of the bulldozers or killing each other, none of this stopped the dig.

Several weeks earlier, while clearing the way for a road to connect Juniper County to the Interstate, a worker had spotted a pottery shard protruding from the ground. Soon more relics were unearthed, and archaeologists from the University of Tennessee swarmed onto the scene to supervise the excavation. The scholars verified the artifacts were of Cherokee origin, and brought in students to help with the dirty work. When the diggers came upon heaps of human bones, it was clear they had broken into a burial mound. Professor Artemis Honeycutt announced in a giddy tone that the West Adoration site was the single most exciting archaeological event in the history of the Southeast. A spokesperson from the Tennessee Indian Council called it the most shameful, callous and inappropriate slight to the Cherokee people since the Trail of Tears.

Along with the protestors, reporters, sightseers, tribal rituals, dances and all-night drums, some clowns, jugglers and balloon twisters—along with a random Elvis impersonator—showed up to entertain the crowd. Little white kids ran about in gaily colored fake Indian headdresses, waving plastic tomahawks and whooping it up. Vendors pushed carts around the perimeter hawking hot dogs, popcorn and neon soda pop. All they needed was an elephant.

For three months both local and national news reverberated with breathless descriptions of relics, bones, and other valuable artifacts being discovered each day. In the meantime, protestors circulated signed complaints, staged news conferences, petitioned Congress, filed for restraining orders and generally made their outrage known.

Nobody listened. You just can’t stand in the way of science.

The scene escalated to Hollywood proportions when on the 10th of September the Honeycutters unearthed a fully adorned Cherokee warrior chief packed in salt and herbs and encased in a stone coffin carved with intricate pictographs. These Stone Burials were reserved for only the most important tribal members. This will put Tennessee Archaeology on the map. This discovery rivals that of the tomb of King Tut and the excavation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, old Artemis swooned.

After four months of incredibly rich discoveries, the dig came to a halt. Police cordoned off the site and deployed security personnel to keep away the curious. Construction crews pushed the dirt back into place and the road went in as originally planned. Nothing more was heard from the lips of Honeycutt or any of his team members concerning the site. The town of Adoration, population 58,580, turned its attention to celebrating the Bicentennial and luring tourists into the Smoky Mountains National Park for autumn festivals. And the whole affair faded from civic memory as if it had never happened.

The numerous artifacts of clay, stone and wood retrieved from the Honeycutt dig can now be seen on display at the Tennessee State Museum, but there is no public record of the carved burial lid, the translation of its message, or the whereabouts and identity of the Cherokee warrior. But before landing somewhere way off the proverbial map, rumors circulated that the great Chief had exhibited several unusual deformities.

Chapter Two

Last Saturday night:

Josh McCauley was being murdered while his girlfriend watched.

But it was a hallucination. There were no two ways about it. Josh must have slipped some kind of crazy drug in her drink. How else could she explain what she saw? And what she heard. Especially what she heard.

Just a dream, just a dream, Brandi whispered. Crouching in the dark corner of the Tunnel, arms wrapped around her knees, muscles locked in total terror, she tried to convince nobody but herself. She covered her mouth with both hands and tasted Josh’s blood, metallic and thick, running between her fingers.

Not real.

Oh Josh, what have you done? Brandi squeezed her eyes shut and moved her hands to cover her ears, fingers dragging streaks of crimson across her face like war paint.

It was no good. She could still hear his screams.

It was one o’clock on Saturday morning in Adoration’s Old City area. Josh McCauley and Brandi Lafollette had been dancing at the Underground Club, a popular nightspot for young members of the alternative set. Every Friday and Saturday night The Underground Club turned into a scene out of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, packed with dozens in black makeup, floor-length leather jackets and pierced in places most of Adoration’s citizenry didn’t know existed. Blue wristbands marked the eighteens-and-over, while those under eighteen wore yellow. The bartenders were forbidden by the state to sell alcohol to the yellows, but this didn’t stop much except during the club’s probation period, when the Liquor Board had its eye on the Underground place. And if one really wanted to get high, Alpo, the bouncer at the rear entrance, could provide anything from crack to Ecstasy even though he’d been warned to shut down his freelance supply-and-demand operation. So tonight the laws were enforced—not that this stopped Josh from sneaking booze to his underage girlfriend.

Josh was blue. Brandi was yellow. Both were drunk.

The couple had been making out all night, his hands growing bolder with each drink. I love you, he breathed into her ear. You know I love you.

I know, she said with a laugh. I love you too, while his good looks under his gothic makeup got better. His black hair was dyed, but the large blue eyes were real. The more Brandi drank, the more she encouraged him.

Finally his erection was getting too urgent to ignore. Let’s go.

Where?

My brother’s place. We can use his back room. He won’t mind. Especially if we invite him for a three-way.

She hit him when he laughed at the look on her face.

They never made it to his brother’s house. They never even made it out of the Tunnel. Instead of sharing a night of carnal delights, someone or something ripped Josh to pieces behind the dumpster while Brandi tried to make herself small and invisible in the doorway of Harry’s Deli.

Josh’s screams ended in a gurgling, gasping sound, like someone finishing a thick milkshake. There was a ripping noise. A rattling sigh.

Silence.

The ripping grew louder, followed by crackling pops. Brandi thought about Thanksgiving turkeys and fried chicken wings, and suddenly she knew this was no hallucination. No matter what kind of drug she was on, she could never imagine anything as awful as that noise. She was going to be sick. Brandi knew if she made the slightest noise, the thing that was killing Josh—the thing that was eating Josh—would be after her next. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as she curled into a fetal position, stuffing her forefingers in her ears to shut out the gobbling, sucking sounds Josh’s killer made.

Something struck her foot. She opened her eyes and focused on the pale, blurred thing lying near her toes. The yin/yang ring and the shreds of blue plastic told her it was Josh’s hand, clenched into a fist. The fingers flexed open and brushed her foot almost affectionately. Brandi saw a gray, six-pointed object lying in his palm.

Oh God, it’s a werewolf or something, a vampire is eating him. Her foot jerked instinctively, kicking the medallion out of Josh’s hand.

Brandi’s mind then exploded in an endless shriek and she plummeted down, down into the dark pit of madness.

The killer stepped around the dumpster and prodded the unconscious girl with one foot. Brandi flipped onto her back, arms outflung, eyes rolled back in her head. The killer kneeled down, ran a hand gently over her face, wiping off some of the black eye shadow and lipstick with a misshapen thumb to get a better view. The killer then traced a long, curiously shaped forefinger down her neck, sternum and stomach, flicking her belly piercing with a grimy nail. The finger seemed to have too many joints, the hand, too few fingers.

Pretty, the killer said in a gravelly whisper. Picking up the medallion and the hand, the killer became part of the shadows.

Chapter Three

It’s a beautiful day for a funeral. High in the low seventies—just as Margie the Meteorologist predicted, her frozen smile and blank eyes adding to the speculation she was computer-generated—partly cloudy, mild breeze, no chance of rain. A good day to fire up the old barbecue for a Sunday afternoon cookout, or maybe load the boat with a six-pack or three and a couple of fishing rods. A nice day to spend with the kids, if you have any.

A great day to bury your brother.

In the midst of life we are in death, the minister intones, dentures clicking like clam shells, of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, O Lord.

Mom looks up from her handkerchief and catches my eye. I give her a little smile. She glances at my father to see if he notices. Her lips twitch, and she lowers her head again.

Dad’s lips are pressed together, his brows knitted and his eyes fixed on the ground. He won’t even look in my direction. I guess he wishes it were me lying there instead of Brad.

Bradley was always the family favorite, the good son who made an art out of doing what he was told. He usually brought home B’s and C’s in school, but that was okay because he played Football like a young Peyton Manning, drubbing his opponents with a detached, no-hard-feelingsfella attitude that made everyone like him. No intellectual sissy-boy he, Brad brought honor and glory to the family name. After college, he went to work in the family business, Sayers Packing Company, known locally as the Pig Plant, rising quickly to management—and you didn’t need to consult Mother Serena the South’s Number-One-Psychic to know that was going to happen—and marrying well. Extremely well.

My sister-in-law Amanda stands by the grave, dabbing her eyes with a tissue with one slender, well-manicured hand while holding the small hand of Kathleen, my three-year-old niece with the other. Amanda stands straight. She’s tiny like a pixie, with clear green eyes and every strand of her blonde hair in place. They wear matching black dresses and pinned-on hats with veils and feather tufts flickering in the autumn breeze. She seems to be holding up well, considering a few days ago her husband had slammed his car into a concrete embankment at ninety miles an hour, making her a widow at thirtytwo.

She looks great. I don’t think she suspects I’m in love with her.

It’s a small group, family and close friends only. I don’t hear the minister droning the graveside service. I think of Bradley’s hands. Big, large knuckled, strong in the tendons, he’d never used them on me in anger. That job was reserved for our father, and Brad swore he would never be like him. A framed picture of Brad sits on top of the coffin. While I inherited our mother’s green eyes, red hair and freckles, Brad resembled a smaller edition of our father, with dark, brooding eyes and sandy hair. People have trouble believing we were brothers.

We’re all looking at the picture because the funeral is a closed casket ceremony. Even Amanda hadn’t seen what was left of his body. I’m thinking about Brad’s hands because they had had been missing when they found him.

The Lord keep you, the Pastor clacked.

And with thy spirit, we reply listlessly.

Let us pray.

How are you doing, buddy?

Amanda’s brother Jules, looking very official in his police uniform, comes over and put an arm around my shoulder.

I’ll make it. Glad it’s over.

You did a great job with everything. Especially on such short notice. Are your parents pleased? I mean with the funeral?

Mmmm. Mom is. Dad’s seeking solace in his bottle.

Jules kicked a bit of sod. I hate that for you.

Nothing new, man. How’s Amanda?

Jules looked over to where Mom and Amanda held each other, sharing grief between them. Better. She’s seems calmer. When I first told her he was dead, I thought she was going to lose her mind.

I’ll bet. It was good you were able to break the news to her rather than some stranger.

He nodded. Yes, rank has its privileges.

Jules, listen. I pulled him aside. I still think we should tell her.

He shook his head. Nope. Not yet, Geoff. Not a word about how messed up he was. Nor that he was drunk. Let her remember him as he was.

You didn’t see him, Jules.

I’ve seen enough traffic fatalities to have a pretty good idea of what happens when someone hits a concrete wall at ninety miles an hour without a seatbelt. Look, Mandy has too active an imagination to deal with this. As a kid she’d have nightmares about our parents’ accident. She’d wake up scared to death. Don’t say anything to her, it would bring all that back.

All right. If you say so.

He clapped me on the shoulder. If you want to come by for dinner tonight, you know you’re more than welcome. We’ll have cold beer and pizza. It’ll be like old times. You could use some fun.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I might take you up on that.

What are you going to do now?

I shrugged. Go back to work, I guess. I have a few jobs to take care of. A couple of repos. A guy who skipped bail. Business is pretty decent for Sayers Investigation Services.

He nodded. Good. That’s good. Work’s a great way to keep your mind occupied. He glanced at his watch. I hate to run out on you, but I have to get back myself. I know you have things to take care of, so I’ll leave you to it.

All right then. Thanks for coming.

Not a problem. Jules ran over and gave Amanda a brotherly hug and a peck on the cheek. Mom had been trying to hold Katy, but my niece inherited her father’s restless nature. She squirmed free and ran in figure-eights around their legs waving a red-and-gold leaf she’d found. Jules scooped her up, kissed the top of her head, and handed her over to Mom on the way to his patrol car. Come over later, he called to me over his shoulder. I waved to him as he drove off.

The ceremonies concluded, guests and mourners either trickled away or clumped together in groups to share stories. I stood under a twelve-foot high marble angel that gazed out with stern demeanor from atop a family tomb and watched the groundskeepers take their tools off the truck. Amanda came over and stood by me, watching them work. I gave her hand a squeeze. Are you all right? I asked her.

I will be. Her voice had the unhurried, throaty quality of the well-bred Southern woman. It’s taking me a while to get used to the idea, she said.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the idea.

Amanda rested her head on my shoulder, and I hugged her, aware of the honey smell of her hair and the weight of small breasts against my chest. She felt fragile and vulnerable. I looked over at the grave, where the two groundskeepers replaced divots of sod as if working a jigsaw puzzle. How’s Katy holding up?

Amanda looked up at me and smiled. She doesn’t really understand her Daddy is gone for good. When I told her he was in heaven, she asked if we could go there to visit him. She laughed. It’s kind of morbid, when you think about it.

I dunno. I’d visit heaven if I could. Bet the tourist season is pretty bad though.

Amanda watched the groundskeepers pile the bouquets and wreaths over Brad’s plot. It just doesn’t seem right. I don’t understand how it happened.

It was fairly straightforward. He was driving really fast on a curvy road and lost control of his car.

She chewed her lower lip. I know. I guess I’m having a hard time believing he’s really gone. Your father and Jules wouldn’t let me see the . . . his body. Maybe if I’d seen him.

Mandy, I saw him. Believe me, you didn’t want to be there. It’s better you remember him the way he was.

You’re probably right. Amanda looked at her watch. Goodness, I better get home. My sister is driving up from Chattanooga to help with Katy and I have to get the house ready. She stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. Geoff, I, well, if you need anything, anything at all, just give me a call.

You too, I muttered, looking away.

Most of the guests had left by now. Nobody likes to hang around after a funeral. I stood by the tall angel, thinking about dead brothers, living sisters-in-law, and missing hands. Amanda didn’t know about how badly Brad had been mangled, or that his hands had been burned away. Or the bottle of booze the police found in the wreckage. Not many people did. Dad had decided to keep those little details out of public knowledge, and what Dad decided usually happened or people lost jobs. It wouldn’t do for anyone to know the number one son of Mr. Nicholas Gilford Sayers had been a drunk driver. I felt like a creep for lying to her. Nor did I think it necessary. She was a lot stronger than people gave her credit for. I guess because she was petite everyone thought she needed to be overprotected.

Well, I guess that’s that, a familiar voice rumbled behind me.

I composed my face into an insincere pleasant expression and turned around. Hello, Dad.

The old man was tall and even elegant in a dark gray tailored suit that probably cost three large ones which complimented his graying sandy hair, and his tie was perfectly knotted, not hard when you had a personal assistant to do those things for you. My half-assed half-Windsor looked like it had been tied by Captain Hook. He appraised me, searching for an iota of weakness on which to focus his contempt. Mom stood to the side, and even under her veil I could see her eyes ping-ponging between us.

Geoff, you did a good job with the…ah, arrangements, he said. I must admit I’m pleasantly surprised.

What, that I didn’t mess up Brad’s funeral, is that what you’re trying to say? Thank you, Dad.

His face reddened. Why can’t you just accept a compliment when it’s given? You always twist everything to make me look like the bad guy.

That’s because you are the bad guy.

Mom winced. Geoff . . . Nick.

Now look what you did, Dad said. You’ve upset your mother.

I upset her—

Look, Geoff. I didn’t come here to argue with you. He looked exhausted, and I felt sorry for the old guy. I’d lost a brother, but he’d lost a son. Now that Brad’s gone, I—we, that is, we need to help each other through it. This has been a terrible time for your mother.

What about you?

His frowned deepened. Of course, this has been distressing for me too. Regardless of what you may think, I do have feelings. We have to help each other through this. I know things haven’t been good between us for a long time, but we have to put it behind us.

I felt my face soften. I couldn’t believe it. The old man was trying to bury the rusty familial hatchet.

Now that Brad is gone, I need you to come back to work at the plant. I thought perhaps you . . .

Aha.

This is what you wanted to talk to me about? Saving your ass at the plant?

My mother moaned. Geoff, please! And wasn’t this just typical? We couldn’t even bury our dead without making a scene in front of everybody.

I don’t know what you mean, he said. But this isn’t the time to be difficult. Don’t you care about your family? This is your legacy. I built Sayers Packing Company from nothing. With my own two hands I took a tiny farm and turned it into one of the South’s largest pork processing facilities. I worked eighteen hours a day when I had to. I sacrificed everything—everything—so you and your brother and your mother could enjoy a quality of life most people only dream about. I didn’t want you to grow up doing without like I did. You walked away from it. But Brad stepped up to the plate and accepted his responsibilities. He was going to take my place, but even he couldn’t do it alone. He was counting on your help.

I never promised him or you I would help with anything. You just assumed it. I have my own life.

He smirked. I’m sure you do. But things have changed. We have to face reality, son. You can’t keep running away from your responsibilities. We’re your family, you owe us.

What you don’t seem to understand, I said. Is that any so-called debt you may feel me or Brad owed you was paid in full when you beat the crap out of us when we were too small to defend ourselves. You’re not family to me. You’re a drunken bully who terrorized my childhood and I don’t owe you a damned thing.

Geoff! Mom cried.

His face went even darker. You always had a smart mouth. I spanked you when you got out of line, although it didn’t seem to do any good.

I still have marks from some of your ‘spankings.’ Want to see them?

Mom took my arm. Oh Geoff, don’t. Not today.

Dad tapped his foot on the ground. This is getting nowhere. What’s your answer, Geoff? Are you going to quit embarrassing yourself and your family and do the right thing? Think of what Bradley would have wanted you to do. Think about your mother. Answer me! He grabbed the lapel of my jacket.

I slapped his hand away. Go to hell. Now I was starting to act like him.

How dare you.

This time he was going to hit me. I could see the cold, hard warning in his eyes. His fists clenched, and so did mine. Old man, I’m not a little kid anymore. You think you can handle an adult?

Mom jumped between us, wailing. Oh dear God, please stop it you two! Won’t you please stop!

Dad’s shoulders slumped. His hands dropped to his sides. He shook his head and turned away. Mom looked at me with a heartbreaking expression of grief and followed him to the car. I just couldn’t help being a jerk, and on the funeral of her favorite son.

The groundskeepers had taken a break from their chores to watch the family dynamic at work. I glared at them until they looked away. After a while I walked over to my car.

The sky was the color of faded jeans. I punched the roof of my car, got in and sat behind the wheel, watching my parents drive away.

I loved him too, you son of a bitch.

It probably would have ended there except I had nothing better to do that evening than go by the office. I’d spent the last two days helping arrange the details of the funeral and was a little anxious over being gone from the office so long. Sayers Investigation Services had two rooms in the Old City just above Bettie’s Place, a four-star Restaurant located in a part of town that used to be mostly distinguished by abandoned warehouses, prostitution, numbers racketeers and meth dealers. Bettie opened the restaurant at the advice of a Palm Reader from New Zealand named Webster. In spite of the critics who predicted she would lose her shirt, Bettie’s Place took off like a rocket. Other entrepreneurs were quick to jump on the bandwagon, and within a couple of years, the Old City became the place to go.

I unlocked the door and went inside. No saucy secretary, skirt hiked over nylon-clad legs as she filed her nails greeted me. Sayers was a one-man operation, ran mostly by computer, although I had a couple of college kids on payroll to do errands for me. Most of my business involves divorce cases where I, or one of my operatives, sit outside a hotel and wait to take pictures of someone cheating on the spouse. And when I say operatives, I mean the aforementioned university students I pay minimum wage to sit in a car with a digital camera. The rest of the time I look for people who jumped bail, guys refusing to pay court-ordered child support, and the occasional missing person. In my experience though, when a person goes missing they usually don’t want to be found. Sometimes the missing person pays me more to submit a negative report to the person looking for them. Does this shock you? Hey, this is a business. You want justice, go to the police. In theory.

Not what I had expected when I got into the business after getting out of the Army. I guess I had read too many Mickey Spillane and Sherlock Holmes books as a kid. Not many beautiful but deadly femme fatales or mysterious killer hounds, although I did once repossess a Dachshund from an old guy whose check bounced at the pet store. I did keep a bottle of Scotch in the file cabinet. I couldn’t resist that touch. That’s what happens when a geek with a Bachelor of Fine Arts goes into the detective business: an eye for literary detail and cliché.

After checking the answering machine, I poured myself a drink and kicked back in my chair, looking at the framed Private Investigator license on the wall, hanging between my college diploma and honorable discharge from the Army.

And why did I get into this business? It was the same reason I studied literature and joined the Army instead of going to work in the family trade. I did it to piss off Dad. He wanted me to major in business. I majored in English Lit. He wanted me to go to work at the plant after college, instead I joined the Army. I believe psychologists call it passive aggression. Dad’s aggression wasn’t so passive. He cut me off from the family money. I opened the business on funds I borrowed on the GI Bill and I’ve paid some of it back.

I picked up the newspaper and reread Brad’s obituary. The article touched on his high school and college football accomplishments, and mentioned he’d been a prominent Rotarian and president of the Chamber of Commerce. His career ended while hurrying home from working overtime at the Plant. Brad had been a company man to the end. I scanned the headlines, not really paying