No Longer the Clown novel · Chapter 15 of 16
Chapter 15: Second Batch
Dexter's fingers stayed locked on my arm for one more second.
Ren didn't squeeze.
He just held on, steady.
"She said no," Ren said. "You heard her."
"This is none of your business."
"She's my business," Ren said. "Let go."
Dexter let go.
He looked at the red marks his fingers had left on my sleeve.
He looked at Ren's hand, still loosely on his wrist.
Then he looked out at four hundred people and a news camera, and I watched him understand where he was.
He sat down on the edge of the stage.
Phoebe was already moving.
She went down the side steps fast, holding her white skirt up, heading for the kitchen doors.
My old caterer boss stepped into the doorway in her orange clogs and folded her arms.
"Not through my kitchen," she said.
Phoebe turned around.
Two Seattle police officers were coming in through the main entrance.
The man from table four raised his hand and pointed.
Phoebe stood in the middle of the parquet floor in her white dress, with nowhere to go and every phone in the room on her.
She started to cry.
It was very good crying.
Nobody went to her.
The news clip ran that night at eleven and again at six in the morning.
By noon it had eleven million views.
Phoebe Fenton was charged in December with wire fraud and theft by deception.
The fund had raised $214,000.
About nine thousand of it had gone to anything medical. A bottle of vitamins. A wig.
The rest went to a white Range Rover, a condo deposit, and two trips to Cabo.
Phoebe's ex-husband testified by video.
He wore a tie and looked happier than I'd ever seen a man look in a courtroom.
Susan didn't get charged with anything.
There's no law against pretending to forget.
But her church asked her to step down from the flower committee.
The neighbors in Ballard stopped waving.
Somebody put a sticky note on her blue front door that said, "Apple. Harbor. Violin."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–8 of No Longer the Clown are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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