The Heiress Strikes Back novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Car

Mr. Brightwell said yes before the room could stop him.

He said it in a cracked voice, with his arm still around Lorna, and the ballroom broke into applause that sounded half relief.

"Monday," he said. "The family doctor's office. In front of Joanne. Then ten days for the lab."

"Dad," Lorna whispered.

"It's only a formality, sweetheart."

Mrs. Thornley looked at me across the room, and I looked back.

We both knew what ten days was.

It was enough time to buy a nurse, a doctor, a lab, or me.

Peter drove us south out of Westport at ten, with both hands on the wheel.

"She's staying at the inn tonight," he said. "She'll be there till one, soothing Raymond. The house is empty."

"You have a key?"

"I grew up in it." He glanced at me. "My father's study. If he kept the blanket, it's in the cedar trunk under the window."

"He kept his tax returns in that trunk. He kept the receipt for every sandwich he ever bought."

We went up the hill with the headlights off for the last quarter mile.

The house stood against the sky like a stack of black boxes.

Peter let us in through the kitchen.

It smelled of floor wax and onions and Aunt Dot, and for one second I wanted to fall on my knees on the tile.

Instead I followed him through the dark hall, past the dining room where I had never sat, and into the study.

It was a small room lined with books, with a cracked leather chair and the portrait of Peter's father over the mantel.

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