His Rival Fixed What He Broke novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Haircut

At Bridget's bar Claire arrives with a suitcase and a hug, and Bridget finds a tracker sewn into its lining.

"I don't remember," Margot said.

She stood on the gravel with the cold coming up through her shoes.

"Otto said it was a form for the hotel board. He said everyone signs one every year."

"It was a proxy," Thaddeus said from the porch. "Your forty percent votes however Otto tells it to, until you take it back."

"It's signed and it's legal," Otto said through the bars.

His voice had gone thin.

"Then I'll take it back," Margot said.

"Where? How?"

"In front of the board. On the twenty-sixth."

He looked at her for a long moment, and then at the watch in Elias's hand.

"You have no idea what you're doing," he said.

He walked back to his car, and the doctor and the two men in dark jackets followed him.

The white van turned around in the street with its lights off.

Across the way, the woman with the dog went back inside.

Elias slid the watch into its box and gave it to her.

"I'll leave two of my people here tonight," he said. "Your grandfather's house, your grandfather's rules. They stay at the gate."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because he'll come back."

"I meant why you."

He took a card out of his coat pocket and put it in her palm.

"Call me when you've decided whether you believe me."

Then he went down the drive without looking back.

Maddox's was a long narrow bar in Wicker Park with a tin ceiling and one working jukebox.

Bridget Maddox had the door locked and the chairs up on the tables by eleven.

She had also poured two glasses of bourbon before Margot got through the story.

"The Haircut," Bridget said, "said that. To nine people. With you standing there."

"Please stop calling him that."

"I will not. I've been calling him that for three years and tonight I was right."

She pushed a glass across the bar.

"I'm sorry. I should have said it at the wedding."

"You did say it at the wedding."

"I said it nicely. I should have said it with a chair."

Margot laughed, and the laugh turned over into something else halfway through.

Bridget came around the bar and held her until it stopped.

"You're staying upstairs," she said. "The flat's yours. I put the good towels out."

"I have nothing. My clothes are all at the house."

"Then you're wearing mine. Everything I own has a bar logo on it. You'll look like a mascot."

The doorbell buzzed.

Bridget frowned at the clock.

Through the glass, under the neon sign, stood a woman in a cream blazer with a suitcase and a paper bag.

It was Claire.

"Don't open that," Bridget said.

"She's alone." Margot wiped her face. "I want to hear what she says."

Claire came in out of the cold with her cheeks pink.

"Oh, Margot. I've been so worried."

She put the suitcase down and hugged her, hard, smelling of the expensive coffee she drank.

"I packed some things. I know your sizes. Your toothbrush, your good pajamas, the green sweater you love."

"How did you know I was here?"

"You always come here when you're upset." Claire gave a small, helpless smile. "Otto told me. He's beside himself."

"I'm sure."

"He's not a bad man, Margot. He panicked. He's been carrying the whole company on his own and he lost his head."

"He told the board I sign whatever he puts in front of me."

"That wasn't how it sounded in the room."

"I recorded it," Margot said. "I know exactly how it sounded."

Claire's smile stayed where it was.

"Of course you did. Good. That's smart."

She said it warmly, and then she lowered her voice.

"I only wish you'd come to the Thursday meeting and let him explain. You don't have to sign anything. Just come home."

"I won't sign anything," Margot said. "Not Thursday, not ever."

"Nobody's asking you to."

Claire picked up her bag, kissed the air near Margot's cheek and went out into the street.

Bridget locked the door behind her and stood with her forehead against the glass.

"If that woman offers me a cookie I'm calling an exorcist."

"She brought my toothbrush."

"She brought you a suitcase and a smile and a very good reason to stay in this room with the lights on."

Bridget picked up the suitcase and carried it to the bar.

She unzipped it and went through the pockets, and then she ran her thumb along the lining.

Her thumb stopped.

"Margot," she said quietly. "Come and look at this."

Sewn into the seam, behind a square of gray fabric, was a flat black disc no bigger than a coin.

A small green light was blinking on it.

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