Of All the Fake Heiresses I've Met, You're the Stupidest novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Vote at Noon

I walked into the long dining room at two minutes to noon with the ledger under my arm.

Ronan came in behind me, one pace back, as a guard should.

The table was laid for the vote.

Sean sat at the head with his big hands flat on the wood.

The Benedetti envoy sat on his right, in a gray suit, and the Orlov envoy on his left, in a black one.

Both of them had heard the radio.

Both of them looked at me and did not look away.

Savannah's chair was empty.

"Miss Calloran," said the Benedetti envoy. "We have been told you murdered a member of this Compact."

"I did," I said.

Nobody in the room spoke.

Sean's face did not change. He had already heard it from Ronan in the hall.

"I was seven," I said. "A harbor pilot named Chester MacKellar put a rifle in my arms at dawn. He pointed across the water at a man in a brown coat, and he told me the man was a pirate stealing medicine."

"Convenient," said the Benedetti envoy.

"It was not medicine."

I put the ledger on the table and opened it to the page with the smear.

"Barge Alder," I said. "Thirty-one passengers. Delivered to the Benedetti dock, short one."

I turned the book around so the envoy could read it.

"The line below is Chester's. It says the Kearney brother came aboard at dawn, that he would have talked, and that it was handled. It says T.C., age seven. Rifle. That is me."

The envoy's finger went to the page.

He did not touch it.

"This is forged," he said.

"It's in Chester's handwriting. It was locked in his desk. His blood is on the office floor, because I shot his revolver apart this morning."

"You expect us to believe..."

"I expect you to read the next page."

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