My husband divorced me on national TV. He didn't know he just fired the genius behind his entire empire. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Goodbye Package

Her card is declined and Tatum arrives with a warm smile, $300,000 and a paper saying Preston owns Beacon. Dani refuses, and Tatum reminds her who pays her mother's lot rent.

Dani's debit card failed at the front desk of a roadside motel south of the city.

The clerk ran it twice.

"Declined," he said, and slid it back across the counter.

"Try the other one."

That one failed too.

Dani had known it would.

Every account she owned was a joint account, and Preston's lawyers had frozen them at 9:59, one minute after they filed.

She had planned for that.

She counted two hundred and twelve dollars out of the zippered pocket in her backpack, folded tips from the diner job she had worked at nineteen.

She had never once been able to throw that money away.

The clerk gave her a key to room nine.

It had a flickering lamp, a bed with a brown blanket, and a window that looked out on a gas station.

Dani sat down on the blanket and opened her laptop.

She did not check the news.

She checked the one thing she needed to know was still true, and typed out the first three lines of code she had ever written for Beacon, from memory.

They ran.

She breathed out.

Someone knocked at nine that night.

Dani opened the door on the chain.

Tatum Kensley stood on the cracked concrete in her camel coat, holding a paper bag with a restaurant logo and a thick cream envelope.

"Dani," she said, with her whole face soft. "I've been so worried."

"How did you find me?"

"Your company phone shares its location with comms. I'm so sorry, I should have asked first." Tatum lifted the bag. "I brought you dinner. Soup and a grilled cheese. You never eat when you're upset."

That was true.

Dani took the chain off the door.

Tatum walked into the room.

She set the bag on the dresser and sat on the very edge of the only chair.

"Preston is a coward," she said. "I want you to hear that from someone. He should have told you to your face and he made me stand there with a courier."

"You were in the room this morning," Dani said.

"And I wanted to walk out with you." Tatum smiled. "I said so in the car."

Dani almost smiled back.

Then Tatum slid the cream envelope across the dresser.

"He wants you to land softly. That's all this is."

Inside was a cashier's check for three hundred thousand dollars.

Clipped behind it was a single typed page.

It was titled, Acknowledgment of Ownership.

The page said that Halloway Systems owned every right to the software called Beacon, from the first line to the last, and always had.

There was a signature line at the bottom with Dani's name under it.

Dani read the page once, slowly.

Then she read the first line of the check again.

"Three hundred thousand dollars," she said.

"For a signature. Your name on one page, and you never have to think about him again." Tatum leaned forward. "Honestly, take it. It's more than I'd get."

Dani set the page on the dresser and put her finger on the signature line.

"No."

Tatum's smile stayed exactly where it was.

"Of course," she said. "Can I ask why?"

"Because he didn't offer me three hundred thousand dollars for nothing."

"He offered it because he's trying to be kind."

"Then he can be kind to my face, not through you."

Something small moved behind Tatum's eyes, and it was gone before Dani could decide what it was.

The paper clip had slipped.

A second sheet had come loose from behind the check and lay face up on the dresser.

It was a hotel receipt, from the Harbor Hotel downtown.

Room 1412, one night, two guests, a bottle of champagne and breakfast in bed.

The date was February ninth.

Dani remembered February ninth.

She had been home with a fever of a hundred and two, and Preston had called at six to say he was stuck at an investor dinner in Portland.

She picked up the receipt.

"This is paid for two," she said.

"That must be accounting's mistake," Tatum said smoothly. "They put everything in one envelope. Give it here, I'll shred it."

"I'll keep it."

"Dani."

"It has my husband's company card on it," Dani said. "I'd like to keep it."

The room was very quiet.

Out on the road a truck went by and shook the window.

Tatum stood, buttoned her coat, and picked up her purse.

She was still smiling.

It was a warm smile, a thoughtful smile, and it had stopped reaching her eyes.

"Preston said you would say no," she said. "He asked me to remind you of one thing before I left."

"What?"

"The Halloway Foundation pays your mother's lot rent every month. Four hundred and eighty dollars. A very kind arrangement."

Tatum opened the door and stepped into the cold.

"Checks can stop, Dani. I'd hate for that to happen."

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