Chapter 17: Nolan's Price

Nolan's mother lived in a yellow house in Grove City with a plastic deer on the lawn.

Ezra drove me there on Friday afternoon, an hour after the reporter's camera crew left my kitchen.

I was wrung out and light-headed, and my voice was scraped raw from talking.

"I'll wait in the car," Ezra said.

"You don't have to."

"I know. I have a book."

He did, a paperback with a cracked spine, and I left him with it.

Nolan opened the door before I knocked.

He had on a clean shirt, and he had combed his hair for the first time in his life.

"My mom made pot roast," he said. "She doesn't know what's going on. I just told her I'm having a friend over."

"You told her I'm a friend?"

"Aren't you?"

I didn't have an answer for that, so I stepped inside.

His mother was small and sharp-eyed, and she moved around her kitchen fast.

She put a plate in front of me and said, "Eat."

Everyone I had met this month believed a hot plate fixed a crisis.

I ate.

Nolan sat across from me with his hands in his lap and did not touch his food.

"Mom," he said. "Can you give us a minute?"

"In my own kitchen?"

"Please."

She looked at him, then at me, then picked up her tea and went into the living room.

She left the door open an inch.

Nolan lowered his voice anyway.

"I'll do it," he said. "I'll read the numbers on Saturday, in front of the whole room. The fake deck, the user count, all of it."

"Nolan, thank you."

"I'm not done." He swallowed. "There's a price."

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