The Seduction Game novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Dock

I went to the dock at four o'clock with my hands in the green gloves.

The snow had come back overnight and lay clean on the planks.

The black frame of the boathouse was gone.

A crew had taken it down that week, at the chairman's expense, and only a square of raw dirt was left on the shore.

Nash had offered to come.

I told him to wait at the top of the path, where I could see him.

He had grinned and said, "I know the rules."

Camille was already at the end of the dock.

She stood with her back to me and her hands in the pockets of a long camel coat.

There were no pearls.

Her hair was pulled back in a plain knot, and from behind she could have been any girl at Ellsworth.

I stopped ten feet away.

"You came," she said, without turning.

"You asked."

"I didn't think you would."

"I'm from Dunmore. We show up."

She almost laughed.

She turned, and I saw her face.

She looked thinner, and there was a gray hollow under each eye.

She still looked like a magazine, but a magazine left out in the rain.

"I'm leaving Monday," she said. "My mother's sister has a house in Vermont."

"I'll answer the fire marshal's questions from there, and a lawyer will answer the rest."

"Good."

"You're not going to say you're sorry for me."

"No."

"Good," said Camille, and the word sounded strangely like mine.

The lake lay flat and gray behind her.

For a minute there was no sound but the water.

"I read your exam," she said at last. "My father showed me when they printed the results. Question six."

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