Chapter 7 - The Peoria Restoration
The house on Maple Avenue in Peoria was a small, two-story craftsman with a wide front porch and a big oak tree that cast a cool, trembling shadow across the green lawn. The paint was fresh—a clean, bright white that smelled of summer—and the small wooden gate at the bottom of the gravel walkway had been repaired with new brass hinges.
Grace Miller sat on the porch swing, her fingers busy with a glass of lemonade, her eyes watching the quiet street where two kids were riding their bicycles through the afternoon shadows.
A long, black sedan—not the armored ambulance from the winter, but a sleek, modern limousine with tinted windows—turned the corner of the avenue and came to a smooth, silent stop right in front of her gate.
The rear doors didn't open for ten seconds. Then, the front passenger door swung out, and Mason Reed stepped onto the gravel, his dark sunglasses catching the light as he scanned the street with a practiced, military precision. He walked to the back door and pulled it open.
Noah Callahan tumbled out first, his face brown from the California sun, his blue sneakers hitting the gravel with a loud, joyful crunch. "Miss Grace! Miss Grace! Look at my tail!"
He held up a sheet of white drawing paper. It was a drawing of a massive, fluffy red fox, its tail so big it took up the entire bottom of the page, complete with a tiny, perfect cloud of white snow at the very tip.
Lily came out behind him, wearing a bright yellow sundress, her long blonde hair braided down her back, her small hands holding a box of saltwater taffy from the San Diego boardwalk. "We found the golden valley, Miss Grace! Just like you said!"
Grace dropped her lemonade glass onto the wooden table, her legs shaking as she ran down the porch steps and threw her arms around the two children, her face burying into Noah’s warm hair as she wept with a joy that had nothing to do with the old rooming house on 63rd.
Vincent stepped out of the limousine last. He wasn't wearing his tuxedo or his charcoal suit; he was wearing a simple white linen shirt and dark trousers, his hands tucked loosely into his pockets, his face relaxed into a genuine, peaceful expression that Mason Reed hadn't seen on his boss since before the first snow fell in Chicago.
"The house looks good, Grace," Vincent said, stopping at the small wooden gate.
Grace looked up from the children, her eyes wet but clear. "You did this, Mr. Callahan. The contractors said the bills were paid through a corporate trust in Chicago."
"The trust belongs to Noah and Lily, Grace," Vincent said, lifting his hand to open the gate. "They wanted to make sure the raccoon had a dry place to stay when he came back from the west coast."
He walked up the gravel path, his large frame stopping a foot away from her. "The San Diego doctors discharged them on Monday morning. They’re clean, Grace. The blood is good."
Grace let out a small, ragged breath, her hand rising to cover her mouth as she looked from the billionaire boss to the two healthy, laughing children who were already chasing a butterfly through her green lawn.
"Thank God," she whispered.
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"God had part in it, Grace," Vincent said, his voice dropping into that low, warm register that didn't have a single ounce of the old South Side steel behind it. "But you’re the one who kept the door open long enough for Him to walk through. The Callahan network is under new management starting Monday. Mason is taking over the transit lines. I’m moving the family to the property in Lake Geneva."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound folder. "And we’re looking for a permanent residential director for the estate trust. Someone who knows how to make apples look like swans. The salary is negotiable, but the company car has a very large trunk for brown sugar."
