Scandalous novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Study

"Boyfriend?" Burke said into my hair.

His voice was lazy and even, but his hand had gone still.

"My mother," I said. "She wants photos of the house for the realtor."

It was the nearest thing to the truth that I could say.

He was silent so long that I thought he'd heard the lie in it.

Then he turned the phone face down on the desk.

"Don't answer it tonight."

"I wasn't going to."

He kissed my bare shoulder once, and handed me my skirt.

That was all he said about it.

On Saturday he called me at four in the afternoon.

"Bring the Allegheny pages to my house," he said. "I need them before Monday, and Junie has a fever."

"I'm not on the clock."

"I'll pay you for the Saturday."

"You think I want the money?"

"I think you want to see where I live," he said. "I'm giving you the chance."

I almost hung up.

I almost told him the truth.

Nolan had asked twice that morning whether I had been inside the house yet.

Instead I took a cab to a brick colonial in Squirrel Hill, with a green door and a plastic frog on the porch step.

Burke opened it in a gray sweater with the sleeves pushed up.

For a second he just looked at me.

"Come in."

The house smelled like toast and thyme.

Junie's shoes were by the door, one on its side, and a drawing of a frog was taped to the hallway wall.

"I have to give her medicine and a bath," he said. "Wait in the study. Coffee's on the desk."

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