My Husband's Brother Owns My Secret novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: Beatrice

Nobody moved.

The bartender stood with a rack of clean glasses against her hip.

Fran had one arm in her coat.

The purple satin captain was still wearing the Santa hat.

"Mother," Hutch said from lane sixteen.

"Hutchinson."

Fran mouthed the word at me with her eyes huge.

I'd never heard it said out loud either.

"I'd like a word with Neve," Beatrice said. "Alone, if your friends will allow it."

"They're not my friends," Hutch said. "They're my league. And no."

"Then they can stay," Beatrice said. "I've said worse things in front of more people."

She turned her shoulder to the rest of the room and looked only at me.

I walked to the bar and sat down one stool away from her.

Close up she looked older than she had at Thanksgiving.

Her lipstick was perfect. Her eyes were tired.

She opened her handbag and took out a plain envelope.

My handwriting on the front.

"This came on Friday," she said. "No note. No return address."

"You didn't need one."

"No."

She laid the photocopy of the wire on the bar between us and smoothed it flat with one gloved hand.

The green signature looked gray on the copy.

"I noticed the page was gone on the Friday after Thanksgiving," she said. "I have read every board packet for thirty-one years. I know when one is thinner than it ought to be."

"You called the auditors."

"I called the auditors. And I asked my son what was on the missing page."

"What did he say?"

"He said a sculpture."

She looked at the copy.

"It was not a sculpture."

Hutch had come up the lane and stood at the end of the bar, a few feet away.

He didn't sit.

"The painting is in my vault," Beatrice said to me. "I didn't put it there. I learned it was there on Tuesday, from the guard, after you went down the stairs."

← Chapter 20 · All chapters · Chapter 22 →

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