Chapter 20: Sold

The county sold property on the courthouse steps at noon, as it had for a hundred years.

I had never seen a crowd at one before.

By ten to twelve the lawn was full.

Fishermen came, and nurses, and half the women from my mother's old cleaning crew in their church shoes.

Hattie stood at the bottom of the steps with a sign that said, "Not Today."

Nobody had asked her to make it.

Conway stood beside me with his hands in his jacket.

He had not offered a dollar.

I had told him in the truck, "No rescuing."

He had said, "I know," and looked out the window for the whole ride.

"The lien total is forty-eight thousand dollars," I said now, to the air. "I have nineteen."

"I know."

"You could cover it."

"I know that too."

"Don't."

His jaw moved.

"Annalise."

"I mean it. It's my mother's house. I won't be bought a roof."

He turned and looked at me.

His eyes were very steady.

"May I say one thing?"

"Yes."

"I won't rescue you," he said. "I'd like to ask you something else."

I waited.

"If you want, put my name on it beside yours. Not instead of yours. Beside it."

I could not say anything.

Then I nodded.

A man in a gray suit came out of the courthouse with a gavel and a clipboard.

He read the notice in a bored voice.

"Fourteen Orchard Lane. Tax lien sale. Opening bid, forty-eight thousand."

Eleanor's lawyer, a tall man in a black overcoat, raised a card.

"Forty-eight."

I raised mine.

"Forty-nine."

"Fifty," the lawyer said.

"Fifty-one."

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