Excluded and Uninvited novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: An Ironing Board for a Fifth Seat
In the morning Cabin Three was empty.
The bed was made and the key sat on the table beside a stack of bills.
Under the bills was a note in Brandy's handwriting.
It said: "Full rate. Saturday."
Katja held it up between two fingers.
"She didn't say what Saturday," she said.
"She doesn't have to."
"Do you think she'll come through?"
"I think she'll do whatever keeps her on the right side of the room," I said. "Which is why we don't need her for the part that matters."
Katja put the note in the drawer with the phones.
We drove to Reno that afternoon, and the tall man was waiting on Jo's front step with a paper bag of donuts.
"Peace offering," he said. "For your sister."
Jo took the bag and looked inside.
"These are good donuts," she said. "I hate that."
She set up the recording at her kitchen table.
She had spent eleven years taking down testimony word for word, and she did not say a thing about it.
She put a plain white sheet on the wall behind him, angled her phone, and said, "State your name and say it slowly."
He did.
Then he said, looking straight into the lens with his taped nose, that a man called Greg Bresnahan had paid him six hundred dollars to play an escaped prisoner.
He said Greg had given him a script.
He said the script told him to say death row, and that he had been told why.
"He told me it would hurt him," the tall man said, and he glanced at me and away. "That was the point."
Keep reading free with an account. Start Excluded and Uninvited from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 18 · All chapters · Chapter 20 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend