Chapter 16: The Waiting Room

There were nine people in the waiting room.

There was a woman with a beagle, a boy with a hamster in a shoebox, and two retirees with a very old cat.

A man slept in the corner over a bag of kibble.

Every one of them stopped what they were doing and watched a tall man in a grey overcoat cross the linoleum.

"Miss Doyle," Miles's father said again. "I believe you have something of mine."

"I have a clinic shift," I said. "Take a number."

The man behind him opened the leather folder.

"This is a notice on behalf of Mr. Ashworth. It concerns a Miss Lydia Rhodes."

"She is in a vulnerable condition, and she has been removed from her residence."

"She walked out of her residence," I said.

"With your help. She's under contract, with obligations to Mr. Ashworth's family."

"An agreement she signed in July sets out where she lives until the child is born."

"Which agreement?"

"The one you've been told about."

I looked at the paper in his hand.

I did not take it.

"Is that a court order?"

"It's a letter."

"Then you can mail it."

The woman with the beagle made a small sound that might have been a laugh.

Mr. Ashworth looked at her, and then around the room, and for the first time he seemed to see that he had an audience.

"Miss Doyle," he said, more quietly. "This can be done here or somewhere private."

"Here is fine."

"Where is she?"

Maggie came out of the back with a clipboard and her reading glasses on her head.

She did not look at me.

She walked straight up to him and stopped at a distance of about one foot.

"This is a veterinary practice," she said. "Appointments only. The only patient on the premises with a legal guardian is the beagle."

"Madam, I don't think you understand."

"I understand a man is standing in my waiting room, upsetting my clients, and he hasn't brought an animal."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Kept Me Secret Seven Years, Then Proposed to Her from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.