Chapter 10: Before the Wedding

Joaquin put the billing page on the manor kitchen table and flattened it with his hand.

It was one sheet of heavy paper, printed in a neat grid.

Every line was an invoice, and every invoice was made out to the same account.

Ashbury Estate, Household.

"First entry," he said, and tapped it with a blunt finger.

Consultation re: prospective family member, M. Quintero.

The date was three weeks before the barbecue on our farm, where Conrad had told me he'd gotten lost.

Below it, the invoices ran on month after month, then year after year.

Prescription management, M. Ashbury.

I counted them with my eyes, and stopped at sixty.

"He was billing the house for me before I had met anyone," I said.

"Before you'd met Conrad."

My brother's face was very still.

"Mari, I'm not saying what it means. I'm saying it isn't an accident."

Behind us, the swinging door opened.

Lillian came in with a basket of cut dahlias on her arm, and she saw the page.

She did not drop the basket.

She set it carefully on the counter, and she took a long breath, and she sat down across from me with her hands folded.

"Ah," she said. "Well. You should hear this from me."

"Hear what?"

"That I had him look into you."

Joaquin made a low noise.

Lillian turned her gray eyes on him, and then back to me.

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