Chapter 11: Telling Jameson

Jameson's hand closed on the back of my chair so hard the iron creaked.

"Lisette," he said.

I put my coffee cup down before I dropped it.

Across the garden, Ollie had gone dead still by the fountain with Benji on his hip.

"She's my goddaughter," his mother said. "She was worried for you. She came to me in tears."

"I'm sure she did," I said.

My voice came out perfectly calm.

"Thank you for telling me," I said. "And thank you for the check. I'd like you to go now."

She stared at me.

She gathered her folder and stood up.

"This isn't finished," she said.

"No, ma'am," I said. "It isn't."

She walked out through the side gate.

Jameson started to speak.

I shook my head once, hard.

"Tonight," I said. "Not out here."

He knocked at nine.

I'd put Benji to bed in the submarine room.

Ollie had gone out to the porch with a beer to call his husband.

I opened the door. Jameson stood on the step with his hands in his pockets.

"You knocked," I said.

"It's in the terms."

I let him in.

The carriage house kitchen was so small two people had to turn sideways to pass.

I'd been washing Benji's sippy cups. I went back to the sink because I needed something to do with my hands.

"Tell me," he said.

So I told him.

The booking office, the keys, the girl at the desk. I told it in the order I'd learned it, and I made myself say the worst part last.

He listened to all of it without once looking away.

When I finished, he didn't say anything.

He was standing very still by the refrigerator.

Then he reached for his keys.

"Where are you going?"

"She's at a hotel on Meeting Street. She told the whole ward at the nurses' station."

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