The One He Never Held novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Page One

Damian filled the kettle and set it on the burner.

The notebook lay open on the counter beside the sink, exactly where I had left it.

He did not mean to look. I know that.

He reached for the sugar, and the first page was right there under the lamp.

The ink had faded to blue-grey. The handwriting was mine, younger and stiffer.

He read the first line. Then he read it again.

I watched his back stop moving.

"Jo," he said, without turning around.

"Damian."

"What is this?"

I crossed the kitchen and stood at his shoulder. I did not close the notebook.

There was no point now.

The top of the page said, in capital letters: WALTER CHAMBERLIN. Under it, four lines I had written the week before our wedding.

L. Sorensen signed the audit. L. Sorensen sits on the board.

If I am family, he will talk in front of me. S. will not ask questions.

Below that, in a column, the dates of the audit, the trial and my father's death.

Then the pages after, dozens of them, each one dated, each one a line or two of what Hailey had said over tea.

Daddy hates the Harbor Street account. Daddy burned something in the fireplace in March. Daddy says the old accountant was weak.

Damian turned a page.

"Four years," he said.

"Yes."

"You married me for this."

His voice was perfectly flat. It was worse than shouting.

"My father was the accountant," I said.

"Seven years ago somebody took two million dollars from Deverill Sorensen. They put it on his books."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The One He Never Held from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.