A Night With A Stranger novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Say It Again for the Room

The Cellar looked the same as it had the night I poured whiskey in Dennis's lap.

Low lamps, red leather, forty regulars murmuring over bottles, and table nine in the back corner with a reserved card on it.

Bree walked ahead of me in her black bartender's vest, with a recorder the size of a lipstick taped under her bra band.

Her hands had stopped shaking an hour ago.

Her face had not stopped being pale.

"If I lose it," she said without turning, "just keep walking."

"You won't."

"If I do."

"Bree. I've got you."

She nodded once.

The owner stood behind the bar polishing a glass, and he gave me a look that said he'd been told everything.

Evan's lawyer sat in the service hallway behind a velvet curtain with a laptop on his knees.

Two plainclothes officers waited in a car on Fulton Street.

And at a small table by the stairs, with a glass of water and her back perfectly straight, sat Margaret Brodsky.

Nobody had invited her.

She had simply arrived at midnight, in pearls, and told the bouncer where to put her chair.

I did not look at her.

Dennis was already at table nine.

He wore his gold watch and a navy jacket, and he smiled when he saw me, slow and soft.

"Sweetheart," he said. "You came."

"I came."

"Sit. Please."

I sat across from him, and Bree took the seat on my left.

He poured himself a whiskey and none for us.

"I'm glad you've come around," he said. "Dinner Saturday, then. I'll send a car."

"Show me the rest of the photographs first."

"Ah." He patted his breast pocket. "A memory card. I'll give it to you at the restaurant."

Keep reading free with an account. Start A Night With A Stranger from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.