Chapter 17: On the Record

Porter set both coffees on the nearest table.

"Say that again," he told me.

"Ask Bree."

He turned.

Bree held the skirt of the gown in both hands and said nothing.

"Bree," Porter said. "My father paid you?"

"He paid off my cards."

"How much?"

"A hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars."

The seamstress stepped out of the back room with a mouthful of pins and stepped right back in.

Porter laughed once, short and ugly.

"That's the money for the funeral. You told me your uncle helped."

"I lied."

"You lied to me about money."

"Porter," I said. "Your fiancée read my private medical history into a microphone because your father told her to."

He looked at me.

I watched him decide not to believe it, and then watched that fail.

"He wouldn't do that," he said.

"He did it."

"My father loves you."

"Your father bought a stranger's silence about me," I said. "I don't know whether he loves me."

"You'd say anything to get at us."

"I already got at you, Porter. I did it with a champagne tower."

Bree made a small noise that might have been a laugh.

Porter didn't look at her.

Porter's mouth opened.

He looked at the gown, at Bree's swollen eyes, at the door.

"I need to think," he said.

"Porter," Bree said.

"I need to think."

He walked out, and the bell rang behind him.

He had left both coffees on the table.

Bree stared at the door.

"He didn't ask about the baby," she whispered. "He didn't even ask if I was all right."

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