Seven Men Called Me Her Stand-In, So I Made Them Pay novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Constance

I ran up three flights of stairs because I did not trust the elevator.

Room 312 was at the end of the hall, with a glass panel in the door and my mother asleep behind it.

I got there first, which was the only reason I was standing in front of that glass when the elevator opened.

Constance Hollin stepped out in a gray wool coat with an armful of white hydrangeas.

She was sixty-three and had not changed.

The silver bob was the same, the pearl earrings were the same, and she still held her back very straight.

"Miss Averill," she said warmly. "I hoped I'd find you. My son has told me so much about you."

I had practiced this meeting a thousand times, usually with a different ending.

"Mrs. Hollin," I said, and my voice came out steady. "I didn't know you knew my name."

"I make a point of knowing the names of people who are kind to my children." She smiled. "May I walk with you? I won't keep you long."

She did not wait for an answer.

She turned me gently by the elbow, away from the glass panel, and walked me toward the window at the end of the hall.

I let her.

She set the flowers on the sill and folded her gloved hands.

"I'll be direct, because you look like a direct young woman," she said. "Seven years ago a girl named Tessa Lind was dismissed from my house. I've thought about her every day since."

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