You Had This Divorce Coming novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Her Price

Selena's text came on Saturday morning, from a number Elise did not know.

Selena: [Harbor Diner, ten o'clock. Come alone, or the drawings go online with my name on them.]

Elise read it once and handed the phone to Jodie.

"She wants a meeting," she said.

"She wants to get arrested," said Jodie. "I'm coming."

"You're sitting at the next booth with your phone in your bag."

Jodie grinned. "I'll order pie."

The diner by the harbor was nearly empty.

Selena sat in the last booth in a baseball cap and sunglasses, with a cheap duffel bag on the seat beside her.

She wore a blue dress with a hem gone gray from street dirt.

Elise slid into the opposite side.

"You look terrible," she said.

"I've been sleeping in a motel since Wednesday." Selena took off the glasses. Her eyes were red and hard. "Don't pretend you're sorry."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good." Selena's voice was low and soft again, the old voice, the one she used for rooms. "Here's what's in the bag."

She unzipped it an inch.

A battered black sketchbook lay inside, with a burned corner and a name in marker on its cover.

Elise's name, in her own handwriting, from the first year of the Tower.

Her hands went cold.

"That was in his safe."

"I took it the night his mother threw me out." Selena smiled. "It has every version of the design, with dates, and a page in the back where you cried over him on the train. I read it twice."

"Give it to me."

"Not yet. There's also a thumb drive of his accounts. Every loan, every forged page, every payment he made to keep your mother's shares quiet." She laid a small silver drive on the table, very gently. "A sample. The rest is in a place you can't reach."

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