The Mistress in the Room novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Two Women at a Counter

I turned the sign to open at six, because a closed sign would have meant I was afraid of her.

Lydia took the corner table by the radiator and lowered herself onto the chair in two careful stages.

I put a cardamom bun in front of her without being asked.

"I don't deserve that," she said.

"It's the only thing I make that doesn't care who eats it."

She ate half of it before she spoke again.

"He's cut off my card," she said. "He sent a text that said take some time to think. The building manager told me my lease isn't being renewed in January."

"The firm pays your rent."

"Paid." She wiped sugar from her lip. "He wants me gone before the baby comes, and he wants me quiet until then."

"Why come to me?"

"Because you're the only person in Chicago who has read his phone and still has her feet under her."

I sat across from her and wrapped my hands around my own cup.

"Lydia, I don't like you."

"I know."

"You took a key to my house. You carried my dresses to a chair."

"I did."

"I'd like to hear you say you were wrong."

"I was wrong," she said, flatly. "I was wrong, and I wanted that house, and I still think I was owed something. All of that is true at the same time."

It was not an apology.

It was the most honest thing she had ever said to me, so I let it stand.

She opened her coat pocket and set a small silver drive on the table.

"The original file," she said. "Not the trimmed clip. It runs fifteen minutes. You see his friends toast him, and you hear the one man say, 'Fran will never see it coming,' and Douglas laugh."

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