Seven Men Called Me Her Stand-In, So I Made Them Pay novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: All Seven

The hotel heir came up in the elevator alone, with the folder held against his chest.

The lawyer stayed in the lobby. The heir had hired him himself that morning, he said, and not his mother's firm.

I met him at the end of the corridor and did not offer him a chair.

"Say it," I said.

He opened the folder on the windowsill.

Inside were photocopies of an insurance claim, a jeweler's invoice for a paste necklace, and a receipt with a Hartford address.

"My mother had a copy made in May," he said. "The real one went to Hartford on the night of the party. I carried it."

"You carried it."

"At eight she sent me to the wall safe. I put the necklace in a velvet bag and walked it down to the service gate and gave it to her." His voice shook. "She handed it to the man. Then I went back in and ate cake."

"You stood behind me in the hall when she called the police," I said. "You put your hand on my shoulder."

"I know."

"You told me you were sorry."

"I knew what I'd done, and I was twenty-six, and she was my mother."

I looked at him for a long time.

"You'll say this in front of two hundred people on Saturday," I said. "In her house. With your own mouth."

He swallowed, and nodded.

"Then you can stay," I said. "But you're last in the order. And you will not look at me until you've finished."

He took the folder and went to find the others.

By nine that night my mother was sitting up with a tray of toast and no soup, the surgeon had gone home to sleep, and I did not know where to put my hands.

Anthony drove me to his apartment on Marlborough Street because the other choice was the plastic bench.

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