The Miracle of You

The office was classic and elegant, much like Gregory’s taste in furnishings. The walls were lined with mahogany bookshelves that were filled with a vast collection of books on everything from business and finance to history and literature.Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

Christian wondered if his father had read every single one of them. The number seemed a little too large for his tastes.

To one side of the office, a large floor-to-ceiling window overlooked the back garden, providing a breathtaking view of the place.

Christian sat in one of the leather chairs in front of the desk. Gregory, on the other hand, was sitting in his own office chair with his arms crossed over his chest. There was this unreadable emotion in his eyes, and he seemed to be considering what to say and what to leave out.

Gregory looked at his son. Christian was so much like him at times. Even as a child, he didn’t like to get along with people just for the sake of it. Rather, he preferred to get something out of it.

So Christian was more like his father than his mother, Pamela.

Oh, Pamela. Sweet, sweet Pamela.

A corner of Gregory’s lips curved upwards as he thought of his late wife.

‘Why did you have to do that back then, my darling?’

At that moment, he thought about Christian’s words.

So, Harold Huckington knew something about what really happened to Pamela, huh?

What the public only knew was that 22 years ago, Pamela Callahan suddenly left her home and never returned. Her reasons for leaving were never revealed, and her death a few years later was also a complete mystery.

Only Gregory Callahan knew the truth.

‘Well. Looks like I’ll have to spill the beans.’

‘And I also need to know exactly what Harold Huckington knows.’

He leaned back in his chair, gazing at his son.

Christian stared back, unflinching. It was as if they were playing a silent game of chess, challenging each other. Neither was willing to back down until they had what they wanted.

‘So much like me, indeed,’ Gregory thought.

He didn’t even feel annoyed by this. Instead, he continued to think about it some more.

Would Christian knowing the truth benefit Gregory, or would it tear them apart and blow up in his face?

Twenty-two years ago, Pamela Callahan ran off with the gardener, leaving her family behind.

Left her children behind.

But what the public didn’t know was that she came back months later.

And it wasn’t of her own free will.

She was brought back by force and had no choice but to comply.

It was because something happened.

An accident.

One that led to the gardener’s… unfortunate death.

***

It was a mysterious incident that even the police couldn’t seem to solve. For some reason, the gardener – whose name was Winston Berkley – walked into the nearby woods of the small town where he and Pamela were staying. He then apparently killed himself by falling down a ravine and drowning in the lake.

The investigators in charge of the case did a thorough background check and learned some details about Winston Berkley.

According to his profile, he was a rather handsome man, but in a rugged sort of way, not like the usual cool and elegant men who posed in fashion magazines. He had short, wavy brown hair, blue eyes the color of the sea, and a beard that made him look older than he actually was.

He came from a place of poverty and worked several part-time jobs from a young age to make ends meet. As a result, he worked under a lot of people, including Gregory Callahan.

There was one notable detail about his family background. Winston used to live with his parents, but his mother died after giving birth to him. He was then left in the care of his father, Theodore Berkley, who had been a neighbor of Mason Parker.

Mason Parker’s case, as they found out, was a hit-and-run that remained unsolved for a while, as there were several fruitless investigations that led to false assumptions about the culprit.

But later on, the police finally arrested Theodore based on the evidence that they had obtained. Because of this, Winston had to be sent to an orphanage because he was a minor.

Sadly, two years later, Theodore died in prison of an unknown illness, and when Winston found out, he was extremely distraught.

He insisted to the police that his father hadn’t died of natural causes, but they just chalked it up to a son grieving and not thinking straight because he was currently emotional and mourning for the only family he had in his life.

The investigators in charge of Winston’s death found this detail interesting and filed it away, just in case it might become crucial evidence in the future.

Soon, Pamela was brought in for questioning, and she was a sobbing mess.

After she calmed down, she told the investigators that she and Winston were in love and that he trusted her. That trust included him telling her many things he had discovered over the years.

Things that seemed to involve her husband – who was still her husband because they were never officially divorced – Gregory Callahan.

It turned out that Winston had some kind of grudge against the Callahan family after what happened to his father in the past.

What exactly happened was unclear, as he never revealed much about it. But it was implied that he had been gathering information about Gregory Callahan for a long time.

The investigators were at a loss. They knew of no specific event that would trigger Winston’s grudge against the Callahan family.

But there had to be one, otherwise he would not have been doing this for years. They needed to find out more, and Pamela Callahan was the one crucial key to getting this case the closure it needed.

But they couldn’t grill her for too long, because suddenly, seemingly out of the blue…

The investigation was dropped, and Winston Berkley’s case was ruled as a suicide.