The Paper Trail novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Truck

I walked out of the Lakeshore Club with my back straight and my hands shaking in my jacket pockets.

A black pickup was parked at the curb with its engine running.

Lars Rhodes leaned across the seat and pushed the passenger door open from the inside.

"Get in," he said. "Before somebody films you walking."

I got in.

He pulled away from the curb without a word, and the club shrank in the side mirror.

"How did you know where I was?" I asked.

"Daphne sent me a text at ten," he said. "She said to come get her, because you were going to make a scene."

"And did you come to get her?"

"I came to watch," he said. "I stayed outside, because I didn't think I should go in."

"Why not?"

"Because I was afraid I'd enjoy it."

I laughed.

It came out of me too fast, and it cracked in the middle.

He drove down to the lake, where a gravel lot faced the water and nobody parked on a Friday.

He turned off the engine, and the heater ticked in the quiet.

Out on the lake a long freighter was crawling toward Chicago.

"I put her out of my house at noon," he said. "Her suitcase and her tea cup."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

I turned in the seat to face him.

"At the club," I said, "Daphne told me to ask you how you know who I used to be."

His hands tightened on the wheel.

It was a small movement, and I would have missed it if I had not spent nine years watching witnesses.

"She told you that."

"She said it into my ear. What does it mean, Lars?"

He looked at the lake for a long moment.

"After today," he said. "I promise I'll tell you all of it. After the money is settled."

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