Pretty Baby novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Five Hundred Thousand

I slept that night on a friend's couch, if you can call it sleeping.

At nine the next morning a courier knocked on the door and handed me a cream envelope with a gold crest.

Inside was a cashier's check.

It was made out to Lydia Kaufman for five hundred thousand dollars, with a one-page agreement stapled behind it.

The agreement said I would never contact Stefan Hartwell or Mabel Hartwell, and I would never speak about "any prior family matters" to any person.

It was signed in a thin, elegant hand.

Winifred Hartwell.

I stood there with the paper trembling in my fingers.

She hadn't even bothered to hide it.

She had bought my daughter for three hundred thousand, and now she was buying me for five.

The price of silence had gone up with inflation.

"Is there an answer?" the courier asked.

"Tell her yes," I said. "I'll bring it myself."

The Hartwell Freight board met for lunch on the twelfth floor of the Hartwell Freight tower, once a month, around a table that seated fourteen.

I knew because Stefan had once mentioned it, to explain how bored he was.

I went in through the front doors in the green dress, with my hair pinned back, and nobody stopped me.

You'd be amazed what a person can walk through with a good dress and a calm face.

The maitre d' pointed to a private dining room at the end of a corridor.

I opened the double doors without knocking.

Thirteen people sat around the table with their salads.

Winifred sat at the head of it in a navy suit and pearls.

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