Daniel Whitmore did not look like a man who owned two thousand patents, a sprawling glass corporate tower downtown, or a private jet currently parked at the regional airstrip. Today, he looked like what he was trying desperately to remember how to be: a man who had forgotten to take off his winter coat inside, whose eyes were heavy with the specific fatigue of someone who had survived immense success only to realize his personal life was a quiet ruin.
Chapter 5 - The Glass Tower and the Ghost of the PastThe Grand Hotel in downtown Willow Creek was a relic of the late nineteenth century—a grand, brick-and-limestone structure that had once hosted railroad barons and lumber magnates before the town’s economy dried up. Daniel Whitmore had bought the entire property three years ago as a personal real estate whim,