Chapter 29: Room 214

Jude ran down the stairs in his bare feet.

The front door was unlocked.

The drive was empty, and the gravel still showed two long tire tracks where a car had waited and gone.

He stood there in his boxers while the sky turned from black to gray.

Then he went back inside, and up the stairs, and into the blue guest room.

The bed was made.

The notebook with the green cover sat squared on the desk, and the pen lay across it.

On the shelf above, where the red tin had stood since the first week, there was a clean rectangle in the dust.

The gold ring sat in the middle of the desk.

Under it was a sheet of paper torn from the notebook.

I'm going to finish the term at the dorm. Room 214. Please don't come yet. It isn't the work. I'll explain when I can. K.

Jude read it four times.

On the fifth, he sat down on the bed and put his face in his hands.

July found him there at seven, in her robe, with her hair flat on one side.

"The housekeeper said the front door was open."

She saw the ring on the desk and the empty shelf and stopped in the doorway.

"Oh, darling."

"He left it." Jude's voice came out strange. "He left the ring and took the tin."

"The tin?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Took Jude's Money, Ken Won His Heart from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.