Chapter 14: The Price

His house stood at the end of the ridge road, long and gray and dark.

I waited on the front step until a quarter to three.

Birdie had driven me there and then driven away, because she said some conversations don't need a woman in a windbreaker.

The sheriff's car came up the drive with its lights off.

Ramsay got out of the back seat, and the deputy handed him a folded paper and said something I couldn't hear.

He stood still until the taillights went around the bend.

Then he saw me on his step, and he stopped.

"They let you go," I said.

"For tonight. The district attorney will decide in a few days whether there's a charge."

"What did you tell them?"

"Everything. Four hours. No lawyer."

"Why no lawyer?"

"Because a lawyer would have helped me, and I didn't want to be helped."

He came up the walk slowly and stood two steps below me, so that for once I was the taller one.

"Say what it costs," he said.

"What?"

"Forgiveness. I know it isn't free. Tell me the price, and I'll pay it."

I had rehearsed this on his step for three hours, and now it all came out plain.

"You don't get to be sorry in a ballroom and call it done."

"I know."

"You step down from the Chair for good, not for a week."

"Done."

"The statement you signed stays signed, even if they charge you."

"It stays."

"And you tell the insurance company yourself, tonight, before Stanford does."

His mouth tightened.

"That one costs the club a lot of money."

"Good. It should cost somebody."

He nodded once, slowly.

"I'm not forgiving you," I said. "My father did that, and he had the right. I'm deciding about the rest."

"What's the rest?"

I stood up and took hold of the front of his jacket.

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