Chapter 10: Rain

On Thursday a sheriff's deputy stood in my front hall with his thumbs in his belt.

I took my own things out of my own house.

Dean had moved Dorothy and Ricky into the guest room.

He stayed out of the way, leaning against the plywood where my island should have been.

I carried out the last box of my drawings and the framed kitchen drawing that had hung in the stairwell.

"Last chance to stop this," Dean said as I passed him.

"No."

"You'll regret it."

"Probably," I said. "I'll still have my money."

Eli was waiting in the driveway with his truck backed to the porch.

He had come because I had asked him to carry the drafting table.

He hadn't said a word about the deputy or about Dean, and when he lifted the table, he lifted it alone.

The rain started as we pulled out of my street.

By the time we reached the cabinet shop, it was coming down in sheets.

Eli backed in under the awning and cut the engine.

Neither of us moved.

The rain hammered the roof of the cab.

"You've been quiet for twenty minutes," he said.

"Dorothy whispered something to me on Monday."

"What?"

"'You have no idea what he owes me.'" My voice shook, and I let it. "I've been trying to decide if that was a threat or a confession."

"What do you think?"

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