Chapter 23: Daylight

Abel's POV

I was parked at the curb in Germantown when Linnea took the call, and I watched her face through the windshield.

She stood on the sidewalk with the phone against her ear and one hand over her mouth.

She said, "Say that again," three times.

Then she turned around and ran at the truck.

I got out, and she hit me in the chest with both arms.

"It's clear," she said into my shirt. "The scan's clear. They can't find anything."

I held her up off the pavement.

I didn't say anything, because I couldn't.

We drove to Madison and found Donna in her kitchen, wearing the sequined cap, frying an egg.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," she said. "I told you I wasn't dying in October."

She kissed Linnea on the forehead, and then she kissed me on the cheek, hard.

"Now go away and do something with each other," Donna said. "I have an egg to eat in peace."

We took the truck to my garage.

On the way I told her I had something to give her.

I put two things on the worktable.

The first was a green ledger, the kind with a cloth spine.

"Every deposit," I said. "Every dollar, six years, in my handwriting. Every dollar I took from Dax, and every dollar I spent. It's thin."

"You kept a book."

"I wanted to be able to prove I kept it clean. Nothing came out of it but your mother's bill."

She opened it to the last page and saw the $14,000 line, labeled "Donna."

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