That Makes Two of Us novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Finley Is a Common Name

Leona keeps the secret and sits through a board dinner where Valerie calls the wife a con artist; she corrects Valerie in public, and Valerie asks how many Finleys there can be.

He had brought dumplings, soup and lemon cookies from the place on Eastern.

I ate because refusing would have looked strange.

Colton ate like a man who had not sat down all day.

"Tell me what you'll do tomorrow," he said.

"Pull the county record, find the clerk who stamped it, find the officiant. Then the hospice."

"Why the hospice?"

"Because a wedding happened there, and weddings have witnesses."

"My grandfather's lawyer says there weren't any."

"Your grandfather's lawyer is wrong or lying," I said. "Somebody signed that bottom line."

I pushed my chair back and carried the plates to the sink so he couldn't read my face.

I told myself I was keeping quiet for three reasons.

If I confessed tonight, I would be the con artist in his story before I could say a single true word.

I didn't know why my grandfather had done it, and I wanted to before anyone else told me.

And the third reason was sitting in my grandfather's chair, rolling his sleeves back down.

"You didn't say what happens when you find her," he said.

"She signs, you pay, everybody goes home."

"What if she doesn't want to sign?"

"Then she'll have a reason," I said. "I'd like to hear it first."

He thought about that.

"Fair," he said.

The next night, Colton took me to dinner.

Not a date.

A private dining room at the Maryland Club, on the top floor of a stone building with a chandelier the size of a car.

"Dennis Cobb insisted," Colton said in the elevator. "He wants to hear your plan in front of the board's executive committee."

"I thought this was quiet."

"It's quiet. It's six people."

"That's a crowd, Mr. Thayne."

"Colton."

The room had a long table and white linen and six people already seated.

At the head sat a man with a silver crew cut and a heavy gold watch.

"Dennis Cobb," Colton said. "My grandfather's lawyer, now our vice-chair."

Cobb shook my hand without looking at me.

His palm was dry and his grip was exact.

Next to him sat a woman in a cream suit with long platinum hair twisted low on her neck.

She stood to greet me, and she was taller than I was.

"Valerie Cobb," she said. "I've heard so much about you, Ms. Finley."

Her voice was soft and pleasant.

"From whom?"

"Daddy." She smiled. "And I do love a woman with a career."

She sat down very close to Colton.

His jaw tightened, and she put her hand over his on the tablecloth.

I made myself look at the salad.

Over the main course, Valerie told the table about the wife.

She did it beautifully, with a little sorrow in it.

"A girl in a nurse's uniform, I'm told," she said. "She finds an old man in his last week and asks him to sign over the grandson."

One of the board members clicked his tongue.

"She married a stranger for the Thayne name," Valerie said. "Probably took a payout from the estate. The kind of woman who sees a dying man and sees a door."

"Exactly the kind," said Cobb.

My fork was very steady in my hand.

"Where did the nurse's uniform come from?" I asked.

Valerie looked up.

"It's what I was told."

"By whom?"

"By people who know."

"The license lists no occupation," I said. "It shows no payment, and the county has no deed or transfer of any kind."

I reached for my water.

"I checked the estate filings this afternoon. Your grandfather's will was probated seven years ago. Nothing went to any Finlay."

Nobody said anything.

"So your wife didn't take a dime," I said to Colton. "She got no money and no name. She wasn't a nurse. She was a witness who signed a form."

Valerie's smile stayed in place, but her eyes didn't.

"You're awfully certain about a woman you haven't met," she said.

"I'm certain about what's on paper. That's my job."

"Who is paying you to defend her?"

"You are," I said, "if you want the divorce clean. A woman who took nothing has nothing to fight over. She signs, and it's over."

Colton was looking at me.

He had his water glass halfway to his mouth, and he had stopped.

Then he laughed.

It was a short, rough sound.

The board member beside him jumped.

"Excuse me," Colton said, and put his hand over his mouth. "Ms. Finley's right. I've been working from rumors."

Cobb's eyes went flat.

"We'll leave it to the professional," he said, in the voice of a man filing something away.

I excused myself after coffee and Colton walked me to the elevator.

"Thank you," he said, low.

"For what?"

"For making Valerie lose her place in her own story."

"She'll be mad."

"She's always a little mad. It's how she stays on her feet."

The doors opened.

Valerie came across the carpet fast, with her coat over her arm and a wide, perfect smile.

"Colton, the car's waiting. Ms. Finley, I'll ride down with you."

Colton hesitated, then stepped back.

The doors slid shut on the two of us.

We watched the floor numbers fall.

"Finley," Valerie said, pleasantly, to the brass. "That's a funny coincidence."

"It's a common name."

"Is it?" She turned and looked at me with those pale eyes.

"How many Finleys can there be in Baltimore?"

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