Chapter 15: The Loading Dock

Natalie's POV

I did not close the door.

Rhys stood on my walk with Dalton hanging off one shoulder, and he met my eyes and didn't look away.

"He's drunk and he's been out here since two," he said. "I'm putting him on my couch."

"I didn't ask you to."

"No."

"What's in your pocket?"

He took out the ring and held it on his flat palm, mud and all.

Dalton lifted his head.

"Nat," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Take him inside," I told Rhys. "Keep the ring. I'm not touching it."

Rhys nodded once, and he walked Dalton across the street.

Then he stopped at his own door and called back over his shoulder.

"The books are going out of the hotel at nine. Amber booked a truck."

My stomach dropped, and then it steadied.

"I know," I said. "I have a note from Eleanor."

"Does the note have a way to carry four hundred books?"

I opened my mouth and closed it again.

"I'll bring the pickup," he said. "You don't have to say anything."

"Good," I said. "I wasn't going to."

At eight-thirty Hattie came up my steps in her green coat with her brother's van keys.

At eight-forty Rhys backed his pickup to the curb with his hair wet from a shower and his jaw tight.

Nobody talked about the corridor.

We drove to the Hawthorne in a line, and I held Eleanor's note on my knee the whole way.

The service dock was behind the hotel, under a concrete roof, with a red box truck backed against the loading bay.

Three of Amber's studio crew were stacking boxes onto a dolly.

A stack of boxes was already loaded onto the truck.

Amber stood at the bottom of the ramp in sunglasses, with a leather satchel on her shoulder and no phone in her hand.

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