My Stepbrother's Regret novel · Chapter 4 of 32
Chapter 4: Waukegan
The box in Myles's closet had six velvet slots.
Roarke showed me the photo on his phone at seven the next morning, standing in the driveway with two coffees.
Five slots had something in them.
The sixth was a little dent in the velvet, the size of two pearls.
"He hasn't opened it since the funeral," Roarke said. "He doesn't know."
"Are you going to tell him?"
"Not till I'm holding them."
He handed me a coffee.
It was black, which was how I took it, which meant he'd watched me make it four mornings in a row.
I didn't say anything about that.
His truck was a dented green pickup with a Gibbons Hardware decal half scraped off the door.
The inside smelled like sawdust and old fries.
There was a level on the dashboard and a box of drywall screws in the cup holder.
"VP of operations," I said.
"I like the truck."
"Your father has a Mercedes."
"My father has a Mercedes and a new wife. I have a truck and a working brain."
He pulled out onto Sheridan Road without looking at me.
I sipped the coffee.
The lake went by on the right in flat silver pieces between the big houses.
"Where's the watch?" I asked.
"Desk drawer. Locked."
"Don't wear it."
He looked over.
"She knows I walked out with it," I said. "She doesn't know what I did with it. If it shows up on your wrist, she knows you know. Let her wonder till Saturday."
"You've thought about this."
"I didn't sleep."
"Me neither."
We drove for a while.
He had the radio on a classic rock station, low, and he drummed his thumb on the wheel to it without noticing.
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