A Marriage Left Behind novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Maura Fund

Kylie's house was a tan two-story with a wreath on the door and a new leather sofa visible through the front window.

I had driven past it a dozen times on the way to somewhere else.

I had never once been inside.

I rang the bell at ten past five on Thursday, and the door opened on the chain.

"Brady told me you'd come," Kylie said. "He said to be nice."

"Be whatever you want."

She looked past me at the street.

A man across the road was raking leaves out of his gutter and looking, with great interest, at us.

She took the chain off.

"Five minutes," she said. "I have a thing at six."

The inside was warm and smelled of vanilla candles.

There was a granite counter, a big pale rug, and a tree already up in the corner with every ornament in the same two colors.

It was a very nice house.

I looked at every inch of it and thought: thirty-six thousand, eight hundred and twelve.

"Can I have a glass of water?"

"There's a filter in the fridge."

I went to the fridge, and Kylie stayed at the counter with her phone in her hand, watching me instead of the screen.

"I know why you're here," she said. "And it's not what you think."

"What do I think?"

"That I knew."

"Did you?"

Her phone rang before she answered.

She looked at the screen, and her whole face changed into the one she wore around her mother.

"Mom," she said, and walked out to the front porch with the phone against her ear, pulling the door nearly shut behind her.

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