He Gave Her My Home, So I Took Back My Life novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Offer in the Pantry

The pantry smelled of flour and old apples.

Delphine stood between the shelves with her arms wrapped around her ribs.

"Keep your voice down," she said. "He thinks I went to check on the baby."

"I wasn't going to shout."

"No. You wouldn't." She laughed once, short. "That's why he's so afraid of you."

I waited.

She reached into her cardigan pocket and drew out a long white envelope and held it out with both hands.

"There's ninety thousand dollars in a cashier's check," she said. "It's mine, from Rhys's life insurance. And there's a key to a condo in Boston, a good one, in the North End. Take them tonight. Go and don't come back."

I looked at the envelope.

"You're buying my house."

"I'm trying to save your life," she said. "That is what I'm doing, Nora, for once in this house somebody is trying to do that."

"From Graham?"

"From all of it."

Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her hair had come loose at the nape.

For the first time she looked her actual age.

"He isn't a monster," she said. "He's a man who needs things to stay the way they are. Every time someone gets in the way of that, it costs more."

"What did it cost Rhys?"

She went completely still.

"Don't," she said. "Don't say his name like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you know."

"I know he had a bag packed in his trunk," I said. "I know what a three-year-old's sweater looks like."

The color left her face so fast I thought she might fall.

I put a hand out, and she grabbed it with both of hers, ice cold.

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