Chapter 11: The Other Note

The judge adjourned until Wednesday and we left through a side door with Marcy running interference.

In the car Jonas sat with the yellow page on his knee.

He had not said a word since the courtroom.

"It's your handwriting," I said.

"It is."

"Did you write it?"

"I wrote the page," he said. "I did not write that line."

My stomach turned.

"Jonas, in court I'm going to need more than that."

He was quiet until the car pulled into the garage under his building.

Then he took me upstairs, into the study, and unlocked a drawer I had not seen.

He lifted out a yellow legal pad with the top sheet torn off.

"In February of 2023 I wrote instructions for my attorney," he said.

"I wrote them by hand because I did not trust email."

"Five lines."

He laid the pad on the desk under the lamp.

The ghost of his pen had pressed through into the next sheet.

I tilted it and read the indentations by the light.

Find a woman who has a reason to say yes.

Pay the hospital directly.

Never let her feel owned.

If she ever asks, let her go.

Do not ever make her leave.

The last line sat there in the lamplight.

My throat closed.

"You wrote that you'd never make me leave," I said.

"I wrote it before I knew your name."

"And Delaney?"

"She was a junior assistant then, and she cleaned my desk."

His voice went flat.

"She must have kept the top sheet."

"She could trace my hand in her sleep."

"She changed one line."

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