I Fled the Wedding, the Obsessed CEO Lost His Sanity novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: A Check for Silence

The Wakefield Gallery office was on the second floor, behind a glass door with nothing written on it.

I walked in at four exactly, with my phone recording at the bottom of my bag.

Daphne's father stood up from behind a desk the color of honey.

He was a tall man of sixty with silver hair, a soft grey suit and the same pale blue eyes as his daughter.

"Miss Hollander," he said. "Thank you for coming alone."

"I didn't know that was a choice."

He smiled.

"Please. Sit."

I stayed standing.

He sat anyway and folded his hands on the desk.

"I'll be brief," he said. "My daughter has made some mistakes."

"She stole eleven of my drawings."

"She borrowed them without telling you." He waved a hand. "I'm not here to argue the word. I'm here because I know exactly what is in the box Mr. Cochran has been carrying around town."

"How?"

"Rhys's father has golfed with me for thirty years."

"I'd like you to understand something about my family," he said. "This isn't the first time."

I said nothing.

"Six years ago, a girl in my daughter's program found Daphne's name on her thesis portfolio. It was a girl from a small town in Ohio, with a scholarship, like you. She went to the campus police. Then she went to the city police."

"And?"

"And I met her mother in a diner." He said it mildly. "I paid for the girl's tuition for two years and her mother's roof, and the report was withdrawn. I bought the school's silence the same way. It cost less than a car."

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