Contract Over: You're Free to Go novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: What the Sleeve Says

Saturday night I stood in the same ballroom with a different suit on.

It was black, and I had bought it myself.

Margot wore dark blue and no jewelry, and her hand was in the crook of my arm.

Nobody had told her where to stand.

Four hundred people in evening clothes turned their heads when we came through the doors, and this time they knew who I was.

I heard it go around the room in whispers.

Cronin. The husband. The one from the board.

"You don't have to do anything tonight," Margot said under her breath.

"He's going to say something about me."

"Then let him say it. We'll walk out."

"No," I said. "I'm tired of walking out."

We took our table near the front.

At nine, a woman in silver announced the chairman, and Alistair crossed the stage in his charcoal suit to polite applause.

He gave a short speech about the harbor and the jobs.

He thanked donors by name.

He said he was a man who believed in second chances, in the right circumstances.

Then he said, "Tonight I want to speak about a different kind of trust."

Behind him, the screen lit up.

It was a court record.

STATE v. DECLAN CRONIN, age 23.

Aggravated assault. Fourteen months.

A murmur went through the room, rising and spreading.

"My daughter has been married for three years to this man," Alistair said.

He turned and lifted one hand toward me.

"She hid it from me, and I learned of it only lately. I tell you tonight only because there is a child in the picture, and I would not be a grandfather if I kept quiet. This man put another man through a wall."

Every head in the room turned.

Margot's fingers closed on my sleeve.

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