Contract Over: You're Free to Go novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: A Check for Silence

Broderick offers a check and a release at the shop and asks for Archie's school photo; Declan throws it out, and the school calls about a stranger in a Southwell car.

I did not sleep.

At seven I made Archie oatmeal in the flat's tiny kitchen, and he asked why we were at Timothy's.

"We're having a boys' week," I said.

"Is Mimi coming?"

"Not this week."

He frowned into his bowl.

"Did you and Mimi have a fight?"

"Eat your oatmeal, bud."

I dropped him at his school at eight-fifteen and watched him run through the gate with his backpack banging his knees.

By nine I was in my chair at the shop with a nurse's forearm under the lamp, putting a small lily on her wrist.

She had brought a photo of her grandmother's garden.

I told her the petals would heal darker and she told me she did not mind.

At nine-forty the bell over the door rang.

Timothy looked up from the counter and went still.

Broderick Lund stood in the doorway in a camel overcoat, holding a leather folder and a cup of coffee he had not bought here.

"Mr. Cronin. I hoped you would have a minute."

"I'm working."

"I can wait."

He sat in the chair by the window and crossed his legs, and he waited, and each minute made me angrier.

When the nurse left, I wiped down the station and did not offer him a seat he was not already in.

"Say it."

He opened the folder on Timothy's counter.

"Ms. Southwell asked me to see that you land well. The first item is a check for fifty thousand dollars. A thank-you for three years."

It was made out to me in a neat blue hand.

It was not Margot's handwriting.

"The second is a short release. You agree you hold no claim on the Southwell family, its companies or its property, and you will not discuss the marriage with anyone."

"She sent you with this."

"She is very busy," Broderick said, which was not an answer.

Timothy came around the counter and stood beside me.

Timothy is sixty-one and has worked on skin since before I was born.

He did not say anything. He did not need to.

Broderick smiled at him and turned back to me.

"One more small thing. The family keeps a file on anyone who has lived in the household. A school photograph of your son would help."

I did not move.

"What file?"

"Routine."

"You asked a man in this shop last night what my son's name was."

Broderick's smile stayed exactly where it was.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Grey coat," Timothy said. "Polite. That one's coat is camel, but I'll give you the shoes."

Broderick looked down at his own shoes.

I picked up the check and read the amount again.

Fifty thousand dollars was more than the shop cleared in four months.

It would have paid the back rent and the new autoclave and Archie's checkup bills for a year.

I tore it in half, and then in half again.

Then I took the release and the folder, walked to the front door, and pushed them both into the gutter outside.

It had rained overnight, and the folder landed face down in the water.

"You can send your next one with a picture of my son in it," I said, "and I'll put your face in the gutter beside it."

Broderick set down his coffee.

"That's an unwise thing to say to a man who works for the chairman."

"Tell the chairman I said it."

He picked up his gloves from the counter and put them on one finger at a time.

"Ms. Southwell will be sorry to hear you were difficult," he said, and left.

The bell rang behind him.

Timothy rubbed the back of his neck.

"I liked that," he said. "I'm a little worried about how much I liked that."

"He's counting my family."

"I know."

"Every dollar and every step. Why does a lawyer care what school Archie goes to?"

Timothy looked at the torn pieces floating by the curb.

"I don't know, Dec. But a man doesn't pay fifty thousand to learn a thing he can find for free."

My phone buzzed on the counter.

It was the number for Archie's school.

I answered it standing in the doorway, with the wet street in front of me.

"Mr. Cronin, it's the front office." The secretary sounded out of breath. "I want you to hear this from me. A woman came to the gate a few minutes ago."

"Is Archie with you?"

"He's with me, he's safe, he's drawing in my office. She said she was family. She said she'd been told to bring him to his grandfather."

"He has no grandfather who sends cars." I said it before I thought. "Who was she?"

"She wouldn't sign the book. She left in a black car with a sticker on the windshield. And Mr. Cronin, she left something with the guard."

I closed my eyes.

"A business card," the secretary said. "It says Southwell Harbor Group, Office of the Chairman."

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