My Second Life Starts With Divorce novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Note

On Sunday morning Declan stood at the window of the suite with his phone against his ear, listening to a man explain how to ruin a lawyer.

I could hear it from the sofa.

"A call to the state bar," the voice said. "A very quiet one. We would put the shell company's paperwork in front of the right desk, and by Monday noon nobody would be allowed to collect a dollar."

"Is it true?" Declan asked.

"It will be true enough."

"No," I said.

Declan turned.

"Hang up, please."

He hung up.

"Solveig, it would work. I have enough friends in this city to bury that firm before noon."

"I know you do." I got up and went to him. "That's what worries me."

He looked at me, and his face closed.

"You think I'll turn into him."

"I think you'll do something awful for me and call it penance." I laid my hand against his chest. "I told you to stop standing on that corner. This is the same thing. You want to throw yourself in front of a car for me one more time."

"The note is eighteen million dollars. I don't have it by tomorrow."

"Then we do it clean."

He was silent for a while.

Then he said, "There's one way I can raise it."

"Which?"

"Duluth."

I knew what Duluth was.

It was the hotel he had bought first, at twenty-six, with his own money, three blocks from his father's old yard.

He had told me about it once, at the diner.

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