He Killed Me Then Loved Me novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Sixty-One Thousand

Phillip's POV

The dealer ran his hand along the black hood and whistled.

"Sixty-one thousand," he said. "Cash by check, today. It's a great car."

"I know what it is."

"Most guys your age don't sell the second one in a month."

"I'm not most guys."

He wrote the number on a card.

I signed the title, and I felt nothing, which surprised me.

I had loved the first car more. The red one had smoked against a planter while Hallie pulled me out of it.

The black one was only a thing my father's money had bought to make me feel better.

I walked out of the showroom with a check in my pocket and no keys.

Maggie's father had taken the red notice off his window by then. He stood behind the counter with a rag in his hands, looking ten years older.

I put four thousand dollars on the counter.

"What's that?" he asked.

"The week you lost."

"Son, I can't take..."

"My father's people closed your door." I pushed the envelope toward him. "I'm not saying it makes it even. I'm saying it's the first thing I've ever paid for that I'm proud of."

He looked at me a long moment.

Then he took the envelope, and he put a plate of pie in front of me that I did not deserve.

Maggie watched from the booth with her arms crossed and said nothing.

When I went to leave, she called after me.

"Hey, rich boy."

"I'm not rich."

"You're still dumb." She jerked her chin at the door. "Go find her. She's been checking her phone since you left."

At six my phone buzzed with a second message from Beckett.

Not the diner. The test center lot. Come alone.

I stood on the sidewalk and read it three times.

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