The Paper Trail novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Invitation

By the next morning the luncheon was in the paper.

It was on page three, under a photograph of me with red wine on my blouse and a very calm face.

Lars cut it out with kitchen scissors and stuck it to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a cow.

"Don't," I said.

"It's a good picture."

"I look like I'm about to testify."

"That's why it's a good picture."

I was eating toast at his kitchen table in his flannel shirt when a car crunched up the gravel.

It was a cream-colored sedan older than I was.

Mavis Haskell climbed out of the driver's seat in a camel coat, with a pie in a tin held out in front of her.

"I drove myself," she said, when I opened the door. "Don't tell my hip."

"Mavis."

"Don't Mavis me, dear. I've been reading about my son in the newspaper."

I took the pie and ushered her in.

She stopped in the kitchen doorway and looked at Lars, who had stood up so fast his chair tipped.

"This is the man," she said.

"Mrs. Haskell," said Lars. "I'm Lars Rhodes."

"I know who you are. My son's been saying your name for a month, like it tasted bad."

"I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be. I have a feeling it's the first interesting thing he's said."

Lars's mouth twitched.

I put the kettle on, and Mavis sat at the table with her coat still buttoned and her purse in her lap.

She watched me for a while.

Then she opened the purse and took out a thick cream envelope.

"The company's annual meeting is the day of the anniversary party," she said. "Saturday the seventeenth. Seven o'clock, the Pfister ballroom."

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