My Sister Stole My Second Life novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Doreen

Fourteen people looked at me.

I put my napkin on the table.

"You're not my father, Mr. Purdy," I said. "You never were. I'll call the library myself on Monday."

"Course you will, sweetheart." He drank his wine. "Course you will."

Thatcher stood up.

His chair scraped loud on the floor.

"I think it's time you went home," he said.

"I think you're right, son." Lyle set down his glass. "Lovely evening, Mrs. Stanhope. Princess, coat."

"She can stay," I said. "Mrs. Stanhope, I say so."

Anne looked at me, then at Dena.

"Then she stays."

Dena got up.

She came around the table to get her coat from the back of her chair, and she bent close to me for one second.

"If I stay, he moves the papers," she whispered. "Get Doreen. She's the only one he can't explain to."

Then she straightened up and walked out after Lyle.

Anne watched her go without a word.

Thatcher sat back down and put his face in his hands.

On Monday at four I went to the high school in Pawtucket.

Thatcher waited in the parking lot.

"If you're not out in thirty minutes," he said, "I'm coming in and I'm going to be very loud."

"You're always very loud."

"Thirty minutes."

The halls smelled of floor wax and old lunch.

Doreen was mopping outside the gym with her yellow bucket, earbuds in, humming.

She saw me and pulled one out.

"What do you want?"

"Five minutes."

"I'm on the clock."

"Then mop while I talk."

She looked at me, and something in my face made her lean the mop against the wall.

"I'll tell you once," I said. "Lyle has a life insurance policy on Dena. Five hundred thousand dollars. He's the only name on it. He took it out after she moved back home."

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