When Love Runs Dry novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Prize

Nolan read the invitation over my shoulder.

Then he read it again.

"They gave her a prize," he said. "For your numbers."

"For my numbers with the repairs cut out."

Mae climbed up on the truck's running board to see.

"Is that the plan Dad keeps in the glovebox?"

"It is."

"But that's yours. Your name's on it in Dad's truck."

"Not on that one."

Mae frowned at the gold frame with her whole face.

"That's stealing," she said. "That's just regular stealing."

That night Opal laid out three things on the kitchen table.

My original plan, rolled flat. The town clerk's stamp book. And her checkbook.

"How much is a ticket to this dinner?"

"A hundred and fifty dollars, Gran."

"Each?"

"Each."

"Robbery." She wrote the check anyway. "Three tickets. I'm going. He's going. You're going."

"Nolan doesn't own a suit."

"He owns a funeral suit," Opal said. "I've seen it. It'll do."

It did.

On Saturday night Nolan picked us up in a navy suit that fit him through the shoulders and nowhere else.

He'd trimmed his beard. He looked like a lumberjack on his way to court.

"Don't," he said when he saw my face.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were going to."

"I was going to say you look nice."

He went red to the collar and opened the truck door for Opal.

The dinner was in a hotel ballroom in New Haven.

Two hundred people in black tie.

Professors. Bankers. A man from a big pension fund who looked at Nolan's hands.

Our table was in the very back, by the kitchen door.

Delaney's table was at the front.

She sat in a dark green gown with her hand on her stomach, beside her dean.

Tobias sat on her other side.

He saw me come in.

He didn't look away, and he didn't look happy.

They served a small piece of fish and a lot of speeches.

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