The Gold Digger's Ledger novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Page Forty-One

Tristan's POV

I spent the night on the floor of the guest room, with my back against the bed.

The grocery bag sat on the pillow where she had left it.

Under her handwriting on the side, Deposit. Not spent., I had put a second thing: today's Friday envelope.

Seven thousand five hundred dollars, from the auction house, in soft twenties.

She had walked out on me, and I was still paying her.

I had decided that was the one term I could keep.

At seven, the front bell rang.

A bellman from the Marlowe stood on the step in his red jacket, holding a flat parcel in both hands.

"Mr. Pemberton? From Miss Dunleavy. She said it was for you and nobody else."

I carried it up to the library and sat on the couch.

I had not been on that couch since Tuesday.

Inside the brown paper was her ledger.

The cover had warped from the rain, and the little clasp was bent.

A card was tucked under the clasp.

You never read it. That was the term.

I'm breaking it for you.

Page forty-one. I can't say it out loud. M.

I did not open it for a long time.

I had made one promise to her that was entirely mine, and it was that I would not read it.

But she had put it in my hands, and she had said so.

I found page forty-one.

It had no dollar amounts on it, only days.

She had written down what I had done, in her cramped printing.

Day 1. His mother's hand was shaking on the rail.

Day 2. A bed with a lock on the inside. He knocked once and went away.

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