Excluded and Uninvited novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Homewrecker

I broke Katja's first rule at two in the morning and her second one by breakfast.

I lay on the couch listening to the stove tick until I couldn't stand it.

Then I got up, opened the kitchen drawer as quietly as I could and took my phone out.

Part Two had gone up at 1:40.

Greg had not waited for Friday.

It was half a minute of drone footage.

It showed the lake, the pines, and then Katja's cabin from above, with my truck in the drive and smoke coming out of the chimney.

The words across the top said: "Where he's been hiding. With his new girl."

There was a freeze-frame of Katja on the porch, her braid over her shoulder, carrying firewood.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I put the phone back in the drawer and told myself I would tell her in the morning.

In the morning she was out on the dock before I woke, and I told myself I would tell her when she came in.

My sister's rental car pulled in at ten.

Jo got out in a long coat and sunglasses with two bags of bagels and a box of coffee, and she walked up the steps without knocking.

She took one look at the stitches over my eye.

"Oh, Cal," she said, and hugged me so carefully I felt it in every rib.

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