Chapter 22: Payable on Demand

Conroy's POV

Lacey's father cleared his throat and read it out loud, slowly.

"Promissory note. Ninety-one thousand dollars. Borrower, me. Lender, Constance Rutledge. Secured by our house on Alder Street. Payable on demand."

He lifted his head.

"Dated June eleventh," he said. "Signed by her. Notarized."

Every face in the ballroom swung toward the clerk.

She stood in the second row with her stamp in her hand, and she nodded.

"I notarized it myself, in Mrs. Rutledge's own office," she said. "I remember because she gave me a plate of lemon bars."

Constance stood very still in the front row.

I had known her for eleven years.

I had seen her handle a bank examiner, a flooded basement, and a drunken best man at her son's graduation.

I had never once seen her without an answer.

She did not have one now.

"I said I never lent them money," she said. It was a very small voice. "I meant lately."

"You said never, ma'am," the woman with the reading glasses said.

I hadn't seen her come in.

She was standing at the end of the aisle with the other board women behind her, still in their coats from the lunch.

"I heard you say never. Twelve of us did. And I'd like to know what else you've said to us that you meant lately."

A murmur ran across the chairs.

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