After He Gave Her My Kitchen, I Left Him with Nothing novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Price of a Recording
Eli's POV
All night I had carried what Roz told me Dorothy said: on Sunday, Dean would stand up in front of the church and say she left because she couldn't give him a child.
Saturday morning I was planing a drawer front when a black sedan pulled up to the shop and parked across my bay door.
Roz had gone to her lawyer's office at eight.
I had kissed her in the stairwell before she left, and my mouth still felt it.
Dean Ames got out and buttoned his jacket.
He came in without knocking and stood looking at the walls, at the pinned drawings, at the half-built sideboard on the horses.
"Mr. Larkin," he said.
"Mr. Ames."
"You do good work."
"I know."
He smiled at that, a quick professional smile, and sat down on my customer stool without being asked.
"I'll be direct. My wife's lawyer says you hold a recording of a call that I made to this shop. I'd like to buy it."
"It isn't for sale."
"Twenty thousand dollars."
"No."
"Cash. Today. You walk away from a very awkward situation and nobody mentions your name in a deposition."
I set the plane down.
"My name's going in it anyway," I said. "I took your call."
"Exactly." He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "You took my call, and you changed a delivery address, and you did not tell my wife for a week. You're in this, Eli. Do you think a judge will see a hero or a man who helped?"
He used my first name on purpose.
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