Chapter 16: Friday

Meredith's POV

Dean was at the Brass Rail on Friday at noon, with forty strangers and eleven television screens.

Joyce found him in under an hour.

She had a way of finding things.

"He's been there since nine," she said in the truck. "Table by the window. He's betting on the afternoon games."

"With what?" Timothy asked.

"Norma's pearls," Joyce said. "Dean pawned them yesterday for sixty thousand dollars."

I closed my eyes.

Timothy's hand found my knee and stayed.

The Brass Rail smelled of fryer oil and spilled beer.

Dean sat in a corner booth with a tablet in front of him, and the numbers on it made my stomach turn.

He had a cheeseburger he hadn't touched.

He had a phone in each hand.

"Mer," he said, and he didn't even look surprised. "You came."

"You pawned your mother's pearls."

"They were a loan. I'm going to win it back. It's a lock, Mer, there's a line on the second game that..."

"Dean."

"Hold on, hold on."

I took the phones out of his hands and set them on the table.

Heads turned along the bar.

A man in a team jersey lowered his beer.

"You've got a loan due today," I said, loud enough to carry. "Do you want to tell these people who it's with?"

"Don't."

"You borrowed one and a half million dollars against a house you don't own."

"Mer, please."

"And you told a lender the deed was real."

"It was real!" Dean said. "It was real. I swear."

The door opened behind me.

The SUV had been parked at the curb the whole time, and I should have known.

The older man with the gold watch walked in with his younger partner, took in the room, and came to the booth.

"Mr. Ellery," he said. "It's Friday."

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