Chapter 15: Ben's POV: Tell It In Front of Them

Ben's POV

Russell Tamblyn came to my yard on the last Friday of October, alone.

He had no driver and no tie.

He parked a rented SUV at the end of the lot.

He walked down to the shop with his hands out of his pockets where I could see them.

I was cutting a scarf joint in a cedar plank.

I finished the cut before I looked up.

"Mr. Aldous."

"Ben."

"I'd like ten minutes. You can say no."

I wiped the saw and set it on the bench.

"Maggie's in town at the lumberyard until five," I said. "She isn't here."

"I know. I waited until she left."

That told me something about him, and I didn't like that it was a point in his favor.

We walked out on the dock.

The lake was the color of slate.

The last of the summer boats had been hauled out for the winter.

He stood at the end with his coat open and looked at where he had knelt in June.

"I can still feel the wood in my knee," he said.

"Good."

He almost smiled and then didn't.

"I signed the papers," he said. "In July, the day after the mediation."

"Joanne Pace has them in her desk."

"She won't file until Maggie says."

"I know."

"She told you."

"She told me you signed. She didn't say what it cost you."

"Nothing," Russell said. "That's the point. It cost me nothing to sign."

"So?"

"I've been trying to find what would cost me something. I think I found it."

"What?"

"Her name."

I waited.

"January fourteenth," he said. "Three thousand people. Every bank that underwrote us."

"And?"

"I stand up in front of the bell. I say my wife wrote the first version of this company at our kitchen table."

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