Chapter 12: Paragraph Nine

Odessa's lawyer had a conference room on the thirtieth floor, with a long walnut table and a bowl of green apples nobody had touched.

Odessa sat at the far end in her navy suit.

She had a legal pad in front of her and a cup of black coffee.

When I walked in with the cream envelope in my fist, she put down her pen.

"You read it," she said.

"I read it," I said.

"Sit down, Elise."

"I'd rather stand."

The lawyer, a gray-haired man in a gray suit, glanced at Odessa and slid quietly out of the room.

The door clicked shut.

I put the cover letter on the walnut table and laid my hand flat on it.

"A witness statement," I said. "Paragraph nine. Tell me what it says."

"It says what you think it says. I'll read it to you if you like."

She picked up a sheet of paper and read it aloud.

Her voice was the same flat voice she had used to tell me about the scar on Hugh's knee.

"If either spouse executes a marriage license with another person while this marriage stands, the other spouse's settlement is doubled."

She looked up.

"Executes means signs. Doubled means doubled. The agreement was drawn by my father's lawyers nine years ago, because my father never liked Hugh."

I felt the room go very quiet.

"What's the number?" I said.

"Three million dollars. It becomes six."

"And you can't get that by filing for divorce."

"I'd get three. I'd spend two years in a courtroom getting three." She folded her hands.

"It's the signature that doubles it. It has to be seen, and sworn to by someone who watched it happen."

She met my eyes. "A witness at the table. That's you."

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