Backstabbing Friend's Self-Inflicted Shame novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Cherry Street
Rafe was at the front door with his hand on the knob before I had put the phone down.
"She's in the hedge," he said. "Right now. Twenty feet."
"She'll be gone before you reach her."
"Then she'll be gone."
"Rafe."
He stopped.
I had said his name in the tone I used on dealers who wanted to renegotiate in the middle of a meeting.
"Term three," I said.
His jaw moved.
"She wants you to run across the lawn," I said. "She wants a picture of that, too. We go to her door instead, tonight, together, with the lease in my hand."
He let go of the knob.
"The lease," he said.
"I paid the first year's rent. It's in my name."
We drove to Cherry Street at dusk in my car, and neither of us said anything in it.
The building was brick, three floors, with a green door and a row of buzzers.
The woman who lived on the second floor came out as we reached the steps, with a small dog under her arm.
She looked at me and then she stopped.
"You're the lady from the video," she said. "Surprised. Oh my God. Is it true?"
"Which part?"
"All of it. My daughter sent me the clip four times." She looked past me at Rafe. "Are you the husband?"
"One of them," I said.
Rafe made a sound in his throat that was nearly a laugh.
We went up to the third floor.
There was a doormat that said HOME in cursive, and I had been there in July when she bought it.
I knocked twice.
The door opened on its chain, and then the chain came off.
Valeria stood in the doorway in the soft green cardigan I had given her for her birthday.
Her hair was down and her feet were bare.
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