Here by Mistake Read Free

come.”
    Stephen appeared nervous but fascinated. “We’d need the keys,” he said. “Do you have them, B?”
    “No.”
    “Well, what then?”

TWO
The Keys
    Quinton Coster—Quint, everyone called him—was a whiz of a business and financial consultant. His desktop computer was his main tool. He toiled away on it most nights and early mornings until four or five a.m., then slept until noon. His clients didn’t care about his hours. Quint’s work and advice were rock solid. When they listened to him they made money.
    Quint’s biggest non-business client had been Faye Birmingham. Over the years his advice had helped turn her considerable fortune into an enormous one. As she grew old she had relied on him to look after her house as well as her money.
    “How’d you meet my Aunt Faye?” Brandon had asked him during a Fourth of July picnic in 2004.
    “Oh, Faye and my folks in New Orleans go way back,” Quint had replied. “When I was five my momma died, and she and Faye were this close.” He held two fingers together. “My daddy then had to raise me by himself, and he wanted me as independent as I could be as fast as possible. Faye thought the world of my daddy, but I still remember her giving him hell, telling him to ‘Let Quinton be a little boy’ and ‘Let Quinton play’ and ‘Let Quinton have fun.’ My daddy’d tell her, ‘Hell, no, Faye, he needs to grow up fast and handle this world. It’s my job to make him do it.’”
    Brandon smiled as he pictured the scene. “Who won?”
    “My daddy. When I was little he always told me, ‘Now you listen to your Aunt Faye.’ I called her that then. ‘She’s the nicest lady you’ll ever meet, after your mother.’ But he didn’t listen to her about me. He had me going to school when I was sick as a dog and doing chores ’til bedtime. He was a shipping clerk, and he taught me his job. By the time I was sixteen I knew it as well as he did. I liked working with the numbers the best.”
    It all sounded grim to Brandon. “Your dad was rough.”
    “My daddy was the best. Thanks to him I was always ready for what came my way. When I was eighteen I had my own place and was supporting myself. And I put myself through college.”
    “What’d Aunt Faye think about all that stuff?”
    Quint smiled warmly, and then he laughed. “She didn’t like my daddy’s hard-drivin’ ways, but I think she liked the result. When she moved to Rollings she hired me to drive her up here, which I did. Then I went back and went to college. The very day I graduated she called and offered me a job managing her money. I said ‘Hell, yes’— but in nicer words than that—and packed my things. I came to Rollings and never left.”
    At fifty-eight Quint lived the way he wanted, and that way was informal. His wardrobe consisted of sport shirts and khakis, summer and winter. His tables and chairs were stacked with financial reports and computer CDs. A can of Pledge and a dust rag draped over the top of it gathered dust in the living room.
    “What a mess,” Brandon would rag him when he visited.
    “Suits me,” Quint would reply, his gray eyes smiling. And it did. Broad but not fat, with tousled salt-and-pepper hair and usually two days’ beard, Quint looked a lot like his place.
    Brandon, Sarah, and Stephen walked up to Quint’s door and rang the bell. Quint opened the door, holding his coffee. “B, Sarah. How y’all been? Come on in.”
    Brandon liked how Quint always had time for him. Teachers, his track coach, even his parents might be too busy, but never Quint. He told himself it was because Quint set his own hours, but he knew it was more than that. He and Quint were friends. Each was interested in how the other was doing. Brandon didn’t feel the same way about any other adult. And, in spite of his ragging, he loved the informality of Quint’s house. It made him feel free in a way he didn’t at home.
    Sarah knew Quint through Brandon. She liked him, too, but didn’t