Chapter 11: The Receipt

Adrienne's apartment was a one-bedroom over a bakery, and it smelled like butter and burnt toast.

She stood at the stove in my hoodie, making eggs, and said nothing for ten minutes.

I sat at the little kitchen table and let her.

The ring was quiet on my finger.

I could hear her heart anyway, and it was running too fast for a woman making eggs.

"Say it," she said finally, not turning around.

"Say what?"

"What Kendra said. What you think."

"I think your father paid for the fountain."

She put down the spatula.

The eggs kept hissing in the pan.

"I think so too," she said. "I've thought so since Brock called me. I just didn't want it to be true."

"You don't have to do anything about it."

"That's the worst thing you could have said."

She turned around.

Her gray eyes were bright and furious.

"If I do nothing, I'm a Merrick," she said.

"I'm the girl who carries the folders and never asks. I know what that is."

"What if you ask?" I said.

"Then I find out he's what I think he is," she said.

"Or you find out he isn't," I said.

She laughed without any humor.

"You can hear heartbeats," she said. "Tell me which one it'll be."

"I can't hear a man who isn't in the room."

"Then I have to go look."

She crossed the kitchen and took my face in both hands.

"Monday," she said. "I'll go on Monday. Tonight I don't want to think."

I stood up.

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