Excluded and Uninvited novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Cabin Three

"You're not sleeping in my bed," I said. "And you're not sleeping in Katja's."

"I didn't ask for yours."

"Does your sister know you're here?"

Brandy hesitated.

"She's the one who told me where," she said. "She saw the post and the address. She said to come and cry."

"Then she's the one who gets nothing tonight."

Katja had come back down the drive without a sound.

She stopped at my shoulder and looked at Brandy through the chain.

"Cabin Three is empty," she said. "Half a dozen people cancelled on me this week."

Brandy turned to her at once.

"Thank you, I'll pay whatever."

"You'll pay full rate. Two rules. After nine your phone goes in my kitchen drawer, so your sister can't read over your shoulder."

"That's fine."

"And you don't lie to me."

Brandy opened her mouth, and I watched her find out that the second rule was real.

"I won't," she said.

"Then I'll unlock the gate," Katja said. "Caleb, call your sister."

Jo arrived at four with her laptop under one arm and her jaw set.

She looked at Brandy in Katja's little cabin kitchen, in that gray coat, and said, "I'd like to hit you with a pan."

"Jo," I said.

"I'm saying it so we can both move on."

Brandy sat at the table.

She forwarded the chat export from her phone to Jo's email, and Jo opened it on her laptop.

It was eight months of messages, thousands of them, running down the page.

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