She Kept the Trash, I Kept the Crown novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Strike the Year

Kellan's POV

Leonie got back from Hartford at four and told me she had been at the lab.

She kissed me, washed her hands, and asked what we were having for dinner.

Her left hand was shaking, and she held it behind her back.

I had a hospital group to run and a board meeting at eight the next morning, and I did not sleep.

At seven I called the Maddox committee.

I am not proud of how I got the chair's number.

She answered on the second ring, crisp and awake.

"Mr. Slade. I wondered whether you would call."

"I'd like to know what happened in that room yesterday."

"Your fiancée has not told you."

"She told me she was at the lab."

There was a pause.

"I see," the chair said. "Then I will say it plainly, because you are entitled to it. Miss Daphne Hartwell presented a method. She presented it well. And she called your fiancée a thief to her face."

My hand closed on the edge of my desk.

"What did Leonie do?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"She sat in the back row and held Dr. Wheelock's hand down when he tried to rise. She said she had no statement. When I asked her to respond, she said she would like to hear our questions." The chair's voice sharpened. "Mr. Slade, in thirty years, I have not seen a young woman take that kind of public insult and keep her face still."

"She let her sister call her a thief."

"She let her sister finish. A week ago I received a letter from her. Two paragraphs, no heat. She asked that the committee compare any submission on the third assay with Dr. Wheelock's March progress report, and read the footnote about the twelfth tube."

I sat very still.

"She knew," I said.

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