Reborn, I Married the Man He Feared novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: What Morton Chose
The yard crew broke for the afternoon shift at four.
Morton's car came through the gate while they were still standing around the time clock.
Clara watched from her mother's window.
Her father got out of the back seat slowly, in a rumpled grey suit, and Daphne got out the other side with a folder held against her cream coat.
She wore pearl earrings and a soft, sorry face.
Clara went down the outside stairs and met them in the middle of the gravel.
The foreman and thirty men stood a little way off.
They pretended not to listen.
"Clara, darling." Daphne smiled. "Papa wanted to come himself. We're all so sorry for what Chase did."
"You were sleeping with him."
"I didn't know what he was."
"You photographed my husband's safe."
"I was frightened." Daphne's eyes filled at once. "He made me."
"Let her talk, Clara," Morton said, in a thin voice.
He did not look at his daughter.
Daphne opened the folder.
"Chase's father has offered to drop everything," she said, gently. "He'll tell the police the men acted alone. All he asks is that the yard goes into a family trust, so nobody can ever take it again. Papa only has to sign."
"Whose trust?"
"The Loomis lawyers manage it. It's only a formality."
Clara looked at the paper.
It was a thick stack of pages, and the second signature line was hers.
"Papa," Daphne said, and held out a pen.
Morton took it.
His hand was shaking, and the men by the time clock had gone entirely quiet.
He looked at the pen for a long moment.
Then he looked at the yard.
Sixty cars waited on the sidings.
On the nearest boxcar, somebody had once painted ANNE in white letters.
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