The Paper Trail novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Her Name

On Monday morning I sat at my old desk on the fourth floor with a legal pad and a cup of Dolores's terrible coffee.

My name was still on the drawer, in my own handwriting, on a strip of masking tape.

I made four phone calls before nine o'clock.

The first was to the fuel company that supplied Haskell Freight's trucks, where a man in accounts receivable told me I was the third person to ask about an unpaid invoice that week.

"Ninety-one thousand," he said. "Eight months late."

"Thank you," I said. "Keep that number somewhere safe."

The second call was to a tire dealer, and the third to a warehouse landlord.

Each of them was owed.

Each of them had been told, by Judson, personally and with a smile, that the check was in the mail.

I wrote their names on the legal pad and drew a line under the last.

Dolores leaned in the doorway behind me.

"You look like you did at twenty-five," she said.

"Is that good?"

"It's alarming," she said. "I love it."

The glass door at the end of the hall opened with a bang.

I knew the footsteps before I turned.

Judson walked down the corridor between the cubicles in his gray overcoat, with his lawyer a step behind him.

Every head in the cubicles popped up.

"Ella," he said, loud, to the whole floor. "We need to talk."

I stood.

I did not hurry.

"This is a place of business, Judson."

"You're sitting at a desk in a firm you quit five years ago, with files you stole from my house."

"I told you where I was."

"You are my wife."

"I'm a creditor," I said. "You can call it whatever you like."

He took a step closer, and I smelled his aftershave.

For eight years I had shrunk a little whenever he did that.

I stayed exactly as tall as I was.

"I'll take the petition to a judge today," he said, quieter. "I'll have you evaluated."

"Please do."

"I'll tell them you've been seeing Rhodes behind my back since the summer."

← Chapter 9 · All chapters · Chapter 11 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend