The Headley’s have come down from Atlanta. Jimmy and Rebecca have kept their family roots here in the area as well, and they have a place on the beach over in Seaside, a newer development just east of Grayton Beach.
In the late 50’s, I received a call from Louise Palumbo. She and Willie had moved to Havana and lived there for many years before they finally moved back to the States to live in Miami. Willie had managed to keep all of his business interests running well with the help of his sons. Unfortunately, he finally crossed someone who he couldn’t handle. He was shot and killed by two men as he was walking out of a restaurant in Coconut Grove in 1959. The big bodyguard, Anthony, was also slain that day taking several rounds from the assassins in trying to save his employer. Palumbo’s funeral was quite a spectacle back in New Jersey and attended by more federal agents and media than family, it seemed. Sara and I were both there that day and stood with Louise as her husband was lowered into the ground. She told us she was moving back to New Jersey to be near her grandchildren.
I’ve struggled my entire adult life with some of the decisions placed upon me during my time with the old gangster, but I did what I felt was best for my family and those close to me. I try not to dwell on some of the less pleasant outcomes.
There was news of Eleanor Whitlock, or Ellen I suppose I should say, sometime after the second war. I don’t recall the source, but apparently, her acting career had run out of steam, as had her marriage to the agent I met that day in New York. She moved to Las Vegas and worked at one of the big hotels. I never knew any more detail and always hoped her work allowed her to keep her clothes on.
There was no further correspondence or contact from Celeste, the young nurse who was my first love in France during World War I. Though I traveled extensively in Europe later in life promoting my books and traveling with my family, I always resisted the temptation to contact her or to visit the little village of Les Mureaux. It would have been incredibly unfair to all involved, though I still think of her often.
My mother and sister, Maggie, were able to live out lives that were certainly comfortable financially, thanks to our arrangement with Palumbo, if not occasionally thrown off course by affairs of the heart. My mother married the old cop, Charles Watermann, a year after my father died and they have both passed on now. When Prohibition was repealed, Watermann retired from the police force and eventually ran for public office, later becoming a prominent state legislator in Georgia. My mother kept on quite passionately with her civic and social pursuits. In their last years, she and the senator lived much of the time in south Florida and were among the early social elite down in Naples.
Sister Maggie remains an indelible force in our lives. Soon after the Depression she and her third husband moved west and bought a large cattle ranch in Texas, although they knew little of cows and prairies. Her husband did know about oil and they have prospered quite well as a result. Margaret Coulter Conrad carries on among the Who’s Who in Houston society. She and our Melanee remained very close through all these years and Maggie was often in New York to visit with us and to see Melanee perform with the Philharmonic, and of course to shop some.
Her first husband, Desmond Raye, didn’t fare as well after escaping the family’s wrath and running away to Florida. He fell in with a bad lot and began doing legal work for drug runners out of the Caribbean, though unsuccessfully. He spent most of the second half of his life in prison and died shortly after his release from complications attributed to a virulent strain of some social disease.
The stories all seem to run together now and the echoes of the voices of the past only come to me when I lie awake at night and let my old mind wander.
But my young granddaughter’s voice is real. Meredith is there at the bottom of the stairs by the door.
“Grandpa, don’t be rude,” she says. “You have a guest.”
I hear the woman’s voice again. She walks into the house and pulls a red silk scarf from her hair. The wind rushes through the door and the scarf blows from her hand across the space between us before it settles on the floor.
“Mathew,” she says again.
I can see her face now. The years have taken their relentless toll, but her eyes are as young as the first day I saw her those many years ago. I manage the last few steps and my granddaughter hands me the scarf. I open my arms and feel the fragile weight of her as she comes to me.
“Celeste.”
THE END
A NOTE FROM MICHAEL LINDLEY
Thank you for reading my third novel in the “Troubled Waters” series, GRAYTON WINDS. I trust if you’ve made it this far, you enjoyed the story and may want to read more of my books. If for some reason, you didn’t read my first book, Amazon #1 for Historical Fiction Mystery and Suspense, THE SEASONS OF THE EMMALEE, I would like to make the book available for FREE to encourage you to continue reading my stories and to have you join my Reader Group email list to get updates and special offers on Michael Lindley novels. Here’s your link to a FREE eBook download of THE SEASONS OF THE EMMALEE.
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ALSO BY MICHAEL LINDLEY
THE SUMMER TOWN
THE “TROUBLED WATERS” SERIES BOOK #2
The sequel to Amazon Kindle #1 THE SEASONS OF THE EMMALEE. A compelling story of historical fiction, mystery, suspense and enduring love, bridging time and a vast cultural divide.
Buy THE SUMMER TOWN
LIES WE NEVER SEE
THE “TROUBLED WATERS” SERIES BOOK #4
A South Carolina woman, struggling to endure the loss of her husband and financial ruin, finds an old journal from a distant grandmother who suffered a similar path of betrayal. Set in Pawleys Island and Charleston, South Carolina during the Civil War and in present-day, a gripping and suspenseful tale of betrayal, murder and new beginnings. A TOP 100 Amazon pick for Historical Fiction Mystery and Suspense.
Buy LIES WE NEVER SEE
A FOLLOWING SEA
THE “TROUBLED WATERS” SERIES BOOK #5
Hanna Walsh and Alex Frank return in this sequel to LIES WE NEVER SEE, an Amazon Top 100 pick for Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense. In A FOLLOWING SEA, Hanna and Alex try to make it as a new couple as Alex has to deal with an ex-wife returning, intent on making up for past sins and his father charged in the murder of a ri
val shrimp boat captain.
Buy A FOLLOWING SEA
About the Author
Michael Lindley is a #1 Amazon author for Historical Fiction Mystery Thriller & Suspense with his debut novel THE SEASONS OF THE EMMALEE. His subsequent novels follow this same genre with his most recent, A FOLLOWING SEA, focused mostly on the present-day storyline of Hanna Frank and Alex Clark in the Low Country of South Carolina.
The settings for his novels include a remote resort town in Northern Michigan in the 1940's and 50's in the Charlevoix Summer Saga Series , Atlanta and Grayton Beach Florida in the turbulent 1920's in the first of the Coulter Family Saga Series, and most recently, 1860's and present-day Charleston and Pawleys Island, South Carolina in the Hanna Walsh and Alex Frank Low Country Thriller Series.
Michael writes full time now following a career in Marketing and Advertising and divides his time between Northern Michigan, Colorado and Florida. He and his wife, Karen, are also on an annual quest to visit the country's spectacular national parks.
"You will often find that writers are compelled to write what they love to read.
I've always been drawn to stories that are built around an idyllic time and place as much as the characters who grace these locations. As the heroes and villains come to life in my favorite stories, facing life's challenges of love and betrayal and great danger, I also enjoy coming to deeply understand the setting for the story and how it shapes the characters and the conflicts they face.
I've also been drawn to books built around a mix of past and present, allowing me to know a place and the people who live there in both a compelling historical context, as well as in present-day.
Writers like Pat Conroy and Sue Monk Kidd grace my bookshelves along with Ian McEwen, Dennis Lehane, Amor Towles, Anita Shreve, Kristin Hannah, Lisa Wingate, William Kent Krueger and on and on. I have a lot of bookshelves!" ML
Copyright © 2018 Michael Lindley All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events as depicted are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or other real incidents, is purely coincidental.
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