The Runaway Bride Is Marrying His Billionaire Boss novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Warrant

Shelby was gone down the stairs before I could say thank you.

Laurence shut the door.

"She came to warn us," I said. "Why would she do that?"

"I don't know. Get dressed."

I pulled on jeans and a sweater.

Laurence had a shirt on and was tucking it in when the elevator chimed at the end of the hall.

We stepped out into the corridor together.

The sheriff came first, a heavy man in his sixties with a gray mustache and his hat in his hand.

Marlene walked behind him in her camel coat.

Brett came last, still in his regatta jacket, with his bandaged hand and a smile he could not quite keep off his face.

The lobby clerk was behind them, wringing his hands.

"Delaney," the sheriff said heavily.

"Sheriff."

"I'm sorry about the hour."

"You knew my mother."

"I did." He turned his hat once in his fingers. "That's why I'd rather be anywhere else. I've got a warrant here for your arrest. It's for grand theft, forty thousand dollars, and it was sworn out by your father this evening."

Two doors along the hall opened.

A man in pajamas looked out, then another.

"Arrest," Laurence said, in a very quiet voice.

"I have to serve it, Mr. Hartwell."

"Let me read it."

The sheriff gave him the warrant.

Laurence read it standing in his socks.

"This is based on a withdrawal slip. Seven years old."

"That's right."

"Signed D. Whalley."

"That's what the paper says."

I stepped forward.

"May I see the slip?"

The sheriff looked at Marlene, and Marlene nodded, so he pulled a photocopy out of his coat.

I held it under the hall light.

The signature was neat, round and careful, with letters that stood very straight.

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