Tell Me Not to Love You novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Check

The summons came on a cream card slipped under the gatehouse door the next morning.

Mrs. Whitcombe would see Kersti Ostlund and her daughter in the study at ten.

My mother read it standing at the sink with her hands still wet.

"You don't have to come," she said.

"You're not going alone," I said.

The study was a long room of dark books and green leather.

Rosalind sat behind her late husband's desk with a tablet propped against the blotter.

She did not offer us chairs.

"Kersti," she said. "You've worked in my house for eighteen years."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You've been loyal, and I've been grateful."

She turned the tablet around.

The photograph had been taken through the boathouse window, a little grainy and a little blue.

Anyone could see me astride a man's lap with my cardigan open and my braid undone.

My mother made a sound.

I felt the heat climb my neck, and I made myself keep my eyes on Rosalind.

"I'd like you to understand what happens to a girl who does this," Rosalind said gently.

"She becomes a story. She walks into church and the post office, and the story walks in ahead of her."

She looked at my mother.

"And it becomes her mother's story too."

"You had someone photograph me," I said.

"Blythe happened upon you."

"She followed us down ninety-one steps with her phone."

Rosalind opened a drawer and laid a cashier's check on the leather.

It was made out to me for forty thousand dollars.

"I think Illinois has been small for you for some time," she said.

"Denver is lovely. A girl with your gifts could open a shop anywhere."

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