Chapter 17: What I Remember

Bethany's POV

I got to the courthouse at ten past ten, with Pru's cousin's text still open on my phone and no plan at all.

I stood behind a pillar at the top of the steps.

Wyatt was down in the crowd of windbreakers with a numbered paddle, in his good jacket.

I knew what he was doing before the clerk finished the next number.

He was bidding the house up for me.

Dane came down the steps past my pillar without seeing me.

He reached Wyatt's shoulder and said something low.

Wyatt didn't turn his head.

"Four-fifty," Wyatt said, and raised the paddle.

"You're bidding on my house with her money?" Dane said, loud enough for the whole front row.

"It isn't her money," Wyatt said. "It's mine. Four sixty."

The man in the gray windbreaker looked between them, and I could see him wondering what kind of fight this was.

"Four seventy," the clerk said.

"Four seventy-two," Wyatt said.

That was the number.

I knew it because I'd done the sum on the drive down.

Four hundred and ten for the first mortgage, sixty-two for the second.

Wyatt lowered the paddle.

"Four seventy-five," the man in gray said.

"Sold," said the clerk, and the gavel came down. "To number twelve, for four hundred and seventy-five thousand."

Dane's head turned slowly from the clerk to the investor to Wyatt.

"The second lien is satisfied by the proceeds," the clerk went on, reading from a sheet, to no one.

"What does that mean?" Dane said.

"It means the bank has no reason to call anyone's name," Wyatt said. "You're done, Dane."

Dane's mouth worked.

Then he saw me at the top of the steps, and I watched him do the sum.

He turned and walked off with his coat swinging, and nobody stopped him.

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