He Gave My Room to Her, So I Took My Life Back novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Right Address

Gabe opened my front door and stepped out onto the porch.

Kendra stopped on the second step with her suitcase in one hand.

Behind him, the whole living room had gone quiet.

"Gabe," she said, and her face lit like a window. "Baby. You left the light on."

"It's not my house."

"I know. I know it's hers." She looked past him at the forty faces, and smiled around the room as if she were hostess. "Oh, there are so many people. Is this for us?"

"No," Gabe said.

"Then why are they here?"

"To hear you."

She laughed softly.

"Honey, you're upset. Come across the street with me, and we'll talk where it's quiet." She reached for his sleeve. "Brent isn't himself. Neither is Colby. They're angry, and they did terrible things I tried to stop."

"The paint thinner," Gabe said.

"I begged Brent not to."

"You told him where to pour it."

She tilted her head, kind and patient.

"I'd never say that."

The lock company's cameraman stepped out of my doorway with a small speaker in his hand and pressed a button.

Her own voice came out of it, warm and low.

I told him where to pour it. He was happy to be useful.

The words rolled down the lawn.

Kendra didn't turn her head.

"That isn't me," she said.

I took out my phone and held it up beside Gabe's.

"That's the recording from the shed," I said. "That's the doorbell clip of you waving at it. And that's the booking for the house at the bottom of the street, in a stranger's name."

The officer came up the walk from behind the truck.

"Ms. Doyle," he said. "Ms. Ostby, if you prefer. I'd like to ask you to step off the porch."

"This is harassment." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I'm a woman who was hurt-"

"The decree says respondent," said Gabe. "I'd have liked it to say wife. It doesn't."

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