My Sister's Baby Was My Husband's, So I Wed Beside Them novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Welfare Check

I pulled on jeans and a sweater with my hair still wild.

Hamish buttoned his shirt wrong and fixed it on the elevator.

Neither of us said a word.

The lobby was bright and almost empty.

A night manager stood behind the desk with his hands folded, looking miserable.

Dalton waited by the fireplace in his black suit from the wedding, tie gone, with a deputy beside him.

Two guests in robes had stopped on the stairs to watch.

"There she is," Dalton said, loud enough for the stairs to hear.

"Ma'am," the deputy said. He was young and tired and he looked sorry to be there. "Your husband says your five-year-old is in this hotel with a man she's known for three days."

"It's a suite on the fourth floor," I said. "She's asleep in her own bed."

"With a stranger down the hall," Dalton said.

"That stranger is my husband."

"Since this morning."

"Since ten-fifteen this morning, in front of two hundred people, in your church."

The deputy looked at Dalton.

Dalton lifted his chin.

"She walked out on her marriage in the middle of the night. She took our daughter. She's living on another man's credit card."

"I left because you changed the locks," I said.

"I gave you an hour."

"You gave me an hour to leave my own house with a five-year-old. You gave me papers that you'd printed three weeks ago."

His eyes flicked to the stairs, to the two guests, and back.

"Let's not do this here," he said, softer.

"You brought a deputy to my hotel at one in the morning. We're doing it here."

I took out my phone.

I had only listened to it once, in the car on Wednesday, and I knew where to start.

I touched the screen and set it on the front desk.

*Here is how this goes. The house is in my name. If you make this ugly, I'll let the loan lapse. Pflueger Homes folds, and your forty percent is worth nothing.*

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