Chapter 7: Two Million

I took Lydia into the kitchen and shut the door on everyone but Hattie.

Brogan stayed in the hall.

He said he would be there if I called, and I believed him.

Lydia sat at the long table with her coat still on and the envelope between her hands.

Hattie stood against the counter with her arms folded, and she did not say a word.

"I came on the train," Lydia said. "Nobody drove me. Dalton thinks I'm at my sister's."

"Why are you here?"

"Because I did something terrible, and I can't carry it anymore."

She wiped her face with her wrist.

"The album you sent me in March. Dalton asked me for it. He said it was for a surprise for your anniversary."

"You gave him my photos."

"I thought it was sweet," she said. "I really did. Then on Sunday I saw the pictures on his desk, and I knew what he'd done to them."

"You sat at that table and watched him hit me."

"I know."

"You cried," I said.

"I know. I'm so sorry."

I looked at her for a long time.

I wanted to feel kind, because she had been kind to me for two years.

I felt nothing but cold.

"Sorry doesn't pay for anything," Hattie said from the counter.

"No," Lydia whispered. "That's why I brought this."

She pushed the envelope across the wood.

I opened it.

It was a single page on a law firm's letterhead, and it was very short.

It offered me two million dollars.

It would be paid in full in thirty days, to an account of my choosing.

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