Chapter 13: Safe to Go

Bex went downstairs first.

She went in her socks, with the nail gun.

"He's not coming in," she said over her shoulder. "I don't care how sad his roses are."

"He's not coming in," I agreed.

I put on my work jacket and followed her out onto the porch.

The cold came straight through my flannel.

Laurence stood at the bottom of the steps with snow starting to settle on his hair.

He held the roses up to me instead.

"I remembered," he said. "White. You wanted white."

"I wanted white in October," I said. "You picked red."

He let the roses drop to his side.

Up close he looked bad.

His eyes were puffy. His gold watch was gone from his wrist. He hadn't shaved.

"Can we talk somewhere warm?"

"No."

"Dess."

"You've got until my feet freeze. I'm in socks."

He laughed, a small cracked sound, and looked up at the streetlight.

"I'm in trouble," he said again.

I took my phone out of my jacket pocket.

I opened the voice memo app and pressed the red button, and I held it up so he could see the timer running.

"I'm recording this, Laurence."

He stared at it.

Then he shrugged.

"Good," he said. "Record it. Then you'll have it when you change your mind."

Bex made a noise.

"There's a developer," Laurence said. "Condos. He wants the corner of State and Washington. The building and the land under it."

"My land."

"It was going to be our land." He swallowed. "I signed a pre-sale in the spring. A hundred and forty million dollars. It closes January second."

"You sold my windows," I said. "Before you married me."

"I sold a building that loses money ten months a year."

"And you took money for it."

"A deposit." He looked at his shoes. "Twenty million."

Bex lowered the nail gun two inches.

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