Chapter 10: The Check

Gregory moved faster than I'd ever seen a man move.

He zipped his trousers, grabbed his shirt off the floor, and shoved me gently behind the refrigerator door in one smooth motion.

"Stay," he whispered.

"My underwear," I whispered back.

"Where?"

"Over your shoulder, you animal. It's on the lamp."

It was on the lamp.

It hung from the kitchen pendant light.

Heels clicked in the hall.

I yanked my skirt down, dragged the underwear off the lamp, and stuffed it into my bag.

Then Lorna Hargreave walked into the room.

She wore a camel coat and held a leather folio against her chest.

She looked at the island, at the overturned stool, at the two cold plates of eggs, and at Gregory's half-buttoned shirt.

Then she looked at me, and at my red face.

"Well," Lorna said.

"Lorna," Gregory said. "This is my home."

"And that's my daughter-in-law."

"Ex-daughter-in-law," I said.

"Not for sixteen more days." She smiled thinly. "How very modern of you both."

"What do you want?" Gregory said.

"A word with Pamela. Alone."

"You'll say it in front of me."

"Gregory, you'll want to hear this," said Lorna, "so that you remember it fondly."

She opened the folio on the island, among the egg plates, and took out a slim check.

She turned it around with one gloved finger and slid it across the marble toward me.

It was made out to Pamela Quinlan, in the amount of three hundred thousand dollars.

"I know what you want," Lorna said. "You wanted a piece of this family from the first Christmas."

"Take that. It's more than you're owed. Move to another state, and never speak to my son or my brother-in-law again."

I looked at the check.

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