They Took His Inheritance, He Claimed Three Alpha Mates novel · Chapter 21 of 40
Chapter 21: What the Book Says
Raven found him in the greenhouse at four in the afternoon.
The glass roof was streaming with rain, the potted lemon trees dripped, and the air was warm and green and smelled of wet earth.
Max had gone there to be alone.
He had a cutting of mint in one hand and a pair of shears in the other, and he had not cut anything.
The door opened, and Raven stepped in, and shut it.
He had the black book in both hands, held out in front of him.
"Not now," Max said. "Please. I can't tonight."
"It isn't tonight."
Raven crossed the stone floor and set the book on the potting bench.
It was the same bench where he had pinned Max by the wrists, two weeks ago, and neither of them mentioned it.
"Read," he said.
"Raven."
"Please."
It was a word he almost never used.
Max put down the shears.
He opened the book to the marked page.
Raven's handwriting was small and square, and every line was dated.
Twelve years ago, the flood. Twenty-two lines.
He had written down everything he remembered from the age of fourteen, in a column, and next to each fact, in smaller letters, he had written how he knew.
Dream. Dream. Joel said the same thing on the stairs. James said it twice in his sleep.
Next column: Linda's account, taken at four separate dinners, with the date of each.
Blue silk cord. Boathouse. Slippers. A tear on the sleeve.
Then a third column that began last week.
Foreman, at the cousin's: coarse hemp, mill post, small omega, ten years old, Linda arrived after and sat down.
Max's own name did not appear on the page.
But in the bottom margin, in the same square hand, Raven had written a single line.
He is the one who held the rope.
Underneath, smaller and slanted, added later: I knew in the library. I did not need the foreman. I needed to be sure.
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