Married to My Ex-Father-in-Law novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: The Greyhound

I took her into my father's old office at the back and shut the door.

She sat on the edge of the chair with her purse still on her knees.

Up close she looked even younger, with chipped pink polish and drugstore concealer.

"He made me say it," she said. "About the baby. He wrote it on a napkin in the car and made me practice."

"Why?"

"He said you'd cry in front of everybody. He said it would be funny."

I got an ice pack out of the little freezer under my desk and handed it to her.

"When did he hit you?"

"Saturday night. I asked if I could go home to my mom's for a week." She laid the ice pack carefully against her cheek. "He said nobody goes anywhere until he does."

"Where's he going?"

She was quiet for a long time.

"He's been on the phone a lot. Out on the balcony, with the door shut. He thinks the glass is thick." She almost smiled. "It's not. It's your old condo. You know it's not."

I knew.

"There's a man in the Bottoms he calls. He fixes cars. Nicky asked him how hot a car fire burns." Her hand tightened on the ice pack. "If it's enough to, you know. So nobody could tell who was in it."

The room went cold around me.

"And he asked about teeth," she said. "If you could fake teeth. The X-rays, the records. He laughed and said his ex-wife's a dentist, she's got everybody's mouth in a drawer."

I thought about the two empty slots in my file cabinet.

Nicky's chart.

The driver's chart.

A sweet kid of twenty-six who leaned on a fender and smoked and had one porcelain crown.

"Has he said when?"

"No. Just soon. He said, when I'm gone, Pop's new wife can explain it." She looked up at me with her one good eye. "He hates you. Like, he really hates you. More than he hates his dad."

← Chapter 11 · All chapters · Chapter 13 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend