Wash Her Feet novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Town Square

By noon the square was full from the fountain to the courthouse steps.

Three news vans had parked along the curb.

Teenagers sat on the statue's plinth with their phones up, and a man was selling lemonade out of a cooler.

Our courthouse stood at the far end, the same gray doors where Lance and Shelby had frozen me four times.

I stood in the middle of the paving stones in my one good white dress.

Nobody had told me to wear it.

I had put it on because I wanted her to see it.

Shelby came out of the crowd alone, in a dark blue dress and flat shoes, her hair brushed smooth, and the crowd parted for her.

She stopped three feet in front of me.

She looked at the dress and her eyes narrowed a little.

"Hal," she said, pleasant and low. "Last chance to give me the keys and go home."

"No."

"You'll lose in front of everyone you know."

"Then they'll see it."

A woman from the news stepped up with a microphone, and Shelby raised one finger without looking at her.

"No questions," Shelby said. "Just watch."

She turned back to me and lifted her chin.

"Freeze," she said.

I did not answer.

I let my arms hang, and I breathed, and I did what Rafe had taught me forty feet up on a steel beam.

I looked at one thing.

I looked at the small mole at the corner of her left eye that I had known since I was twelve.

The crowd settled into a hush.

A minute went by.

Then another.

Shelby had always been better at this than I was, and she showed it now.

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