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"I... I don't know."
"Do you think it's possible that you didn’t read the contract as you should have?"
"I don't know. Maybe.”
He leaned back in his chair, his eyes on the paper, considering. Sighing, as if disappointed in me, he bent down and picked up his alligator. “I thought you were happy with your arrangements, Miss Duvall. I don’t understand why the sudden change.”
My eyes were glued to the creature, as if trying to pull answers from it. It had a small bow tie around its neck, a leather strap around his mouth, and it looked like the tips of his ridges had been cut off. It made me sick to my stomach. “I just decided not to go through with it.” I didn’t owe them an explanation. Or the truth.
“Have you heard of caveat emptor, Summer? You should have, as it’s in the contract,” He pointed towards it, “it means buyer beware. Meaning, the buyer—you—are responsible for evaluating services rendered. Did you do your due diligence before signing the contract?”
My mouth was dry and my hands were clammy. I looked towards Olivia and Grace, hoping they would help me. “No,” I finally answered, “but I would say that you guys haven’t exactly been clear about?—”
“That’s what ‘caveat emptor’ is,” he interrupted and, with a dismissive gesture, he pushed the contract aside, a few pages drifting to the floor. “We, as provider of goods and services—money in this case—are not obligated to disclose all details about the product. I’m sorry if you weren’t as cautious as you should’ve been before signing this contract.”
“But I,” I stuttered, “I didn’t know.” I was regretting everything in my life.
Wishing I’d made better choices. That Benson had never shown me that secret room.
That I’d never heard of the Magnolia.
"Grace," Saul said, breaking the silence.
Grace stepped forward, placing the computer in her hands onto the tabletop as he smoothly passed his alligator to the unknown woman standing nearby.
Opening the computer, Grace typed in a password, and a picture came up on the screen.
It took me a moment to realize that, blended into the crop of trees, was a man, hanging from it. He'd been lynched.
The blood drained from my face and I swallowed hard.
Grace stepped away but Saul's hand snapped out, gripping her wrist. "Please stay," he said, tugging her to him.
She crawled into his lap, looking almost like a child. One arm wrapping around his neck, she pulled her knees to her chest, her head settling against his chest.
"Grace came here to us, just like you did, Summer. Isn't that right, Grace?"
"Yes sir.”
"Except Grace didn't ask for anything as trivial as money. No, she asked for employment. She knew from the beginning that we could elevate her life," he fingered her hair, playing with a strand, "not through the crass means of money but by giving her an education in experience. In how the world works. Isn’t that so?"
"Yes."
"And yet, she also asked to be released of her contract,” his dark eyes gleamed. "That was after we dealt with the ambassador of France, correct?"
"Yes," she answered him. "His wife."
"Ah, yes, that was it."
He didn't elaborate but instead, clicked on the space bar, showing the next picture—a man hanging from ropes. His chest had wounds from possibly a whip. "The history of the Veritas is a long one, long before this country was born. Of course, we don’t have photos of the early ones.” He tapped the spacebar again. A woman impaled by a wooden pole.
Tap. Two men on the ground. Two mouths screaming. Pigs eating their entrails.
Tap. A woman, her neck crooked, her dress pulled upward. Stockings ripped and bloody. A pair of bloody shears.
Tap, tap, tap. Each time a new picture emerging.
From black and white, to sepia, to color.
