Chapter 18: The Offer

Dustin's POV

Caleb asked me to meet him at the boathouse where we used to row.

I woke at six with Erin asleep on my arm and her bandaged hand on my chest, and I didn't want to go.

I went because the text said, Come alone, and I wanted to know what he thought I was worth.

The boathouse was cold and smelled of river and varnish.

He sat at the end of the old table with two coffees in front of him.

He had put one on my side.

"Thank you for coming," Caleb said. "I know last week was ugly."

"You called it ugly."

"I was frightened." He turned his cup in its saucer. "I've been under pressure, Dustin. You of all people know what that does."

I sat down and left the coffee where it was.

My phone was in my shirt pocket with the recorder running.

I had turned it on in the truck.

"What do you want?" I said.

"I want to keep what I've built. The Foundation. The van. All of it. You love that van."

"I do."

"Then let me give it to you."

He took a folded paper from his jacket and put it on the table.

It was a cashier's check, written out to the Halsey Night Table.

Four million dollars.

"That's an endowment. Ten years of food, a new truck, a kitchen with a roof. No board, no vendor, no Caleb looking over your shoulder."

I looked at the number for a long time.

I thought about the nights the line had been thirty people long and the pot had run dry at nine.

"What's the price?" I said.