Condemned by My Sister novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Housekeeper

The woman who had cooked in our kitchen for twelve years lived in a yellow house two counties away.

Marianne found the address in an old payroll file at six that evening.

She drove there without calling first.

I sat beside her in the passenger seat and watched her hands on the wheel.

They were white at the knuckles the whole way.

The porch light came on before she knocked.

The door opened, and a gray-haired woman in a cardigan stood in the gap with a dish towel over her shoulder.

She looked at Marianne for a long moment.

"Well," she said. "It took you long enough."

"May I come in?"

"You can say what you came to say right there."

Marianne's shoulders dropped a little.

"I heard about Eli," the woman said. "It was in the paper. Two lines."

Her mouth went tight.

"That boy used to sneak into my kitchen at nine years old and steal the burnt edges off the brownies."

"I'm sorry," Marianne said.

"I'm sure you are."

"I need to ask you something. About the night of his birthday. The night Corbin fell."

The woman did not move.

"You were home that night. In the kitchen."

"I was."

"Tell me what you saw."

The woman looked down at the towel in her hands and twisted it once.

I stood on the doorstep and I could hear my own pulse, though I had none.

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