I Sent Him to Prison, Now I'm Falling for His Brother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Check

Cornelia Stafford offers a quarter million dollars for Nadine's silence and Nadine tears the check up; the defense lists Brinley as a witness.

Two days later a black car stopped in front of our rental, and a woman in pearls stepped out of it.

I watched from the kitchen window with a dish towel in my hand.

My mother stood beside me, still in her cafeteria apron.

She had cried for two days straight and then gone to work anyway.

"Who is that?" she whispered.

"Luka Stafford's mother."

I knew his name by then.

The detective had said it in the hallway at the station, along with the words "arrested at his father's lake house, still drunk at noon."

The woman knocked once and walked in without waiting.

She was about fifty-five, silver hair cut sharp at the jaw, and she looked over our kitchen once, from the cracked tile to the stove.

A lawyer in a gray suit came in behind her with a leather folder.

"Mrs. Corwin," the woman said, taking my mother's hand in both of hers. "I'm Cornelia Stafford. I'm so sorry we have to meet this way."

"Please sit down," my mother said.

I did not sit.

"My son Luka is twenty-two," Cornelia said. "He has never been in trouble. He drinks too much, like boys do. He doesn't remember anything about that night."

"I remember it," I said.

She turned and gave me a warm, sad smile.

"Of course you do, dear. And I won't insult you by arguing about it."

She set her handbag on our table.

"I'm here to make this easier on everyone."

The lawyer opened his folder and slid a check across the table.

It had a lot of zeros.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars," Cornelia said. "For your pain, for any counseling, for the lost summer. Nadine can go to any college in the country. You, Mrs. Corwin, can leave that cafeteria."

My mother stopped breathing.

I saw her eyes go to the number and stay there.

We were three months behind on rent.

"All we ask," the lawyer said, "is that Nadine withdraw her statement and sign this agreement. She never speaks of the incident again."

"Never," I said.

"Never," he agreed pleasantly.

"My son has a future," Cornelia said. "His brother Darius is overseas building our family's business, and he deserves not to come home to a scandal. Think what a trial does to a girl your age. Your name, in the paper. People asking what you were wearing."

"I was wearing a dress," I said. "Until he tore it."

My mother made a small noise.

Cornelia did not blink.

"Myrna," she said, turning to my mother. "May I call you Myrna? You're a mother. You know what it is to protect a child."

"I do," my mother said.

Her voice shook.

"Then help me protect mine," Cornelia said. "And your own. Nadine is a good girl. She's tired and frightened. Girls say things in the dark."

"Mom," I said.

My mother looked at the check.

Then she looked at me, and I saw the whole rent and the whole fear and the whole hungry month in her face.

"Nadine, baby," she said. "Maybe we should just think about it."

Something in my chest went cold and quiet.

I walked to the table and picked up the check.

"Please be careful with that," the lawyer said.

I looked at Cornelia Stafford, who was still smiling at me.

I tore it in half.

Then in half again.

I put the pieces on her handbag.

"He raped me," I said. "Nothing you put on this table makes that not true."

The smile slid off her face.

What was under it was flat and hard.

"You stupid little girl," she said quietly. "Do you know who I am in this county?"

"I know exactly who you are. You're the woman who brought a lawyer to my kitchen before the police finished my statement."

"Nadine," my mother breathed.

"Mom, they knew my name at two in the morning. I never told anyone but the detective."

Nobody in the kitchen said anything.

The lawyer closed his folder very slowly.

Cornelia picked up the pieces, one at a time, and put them in her bag.

"I offered you kindness," she said. "Remember that, when you see what comes next."

She walked out past my mother without looking at her.

The car door shut.

The engine pulled away.

My mother sat down at the table and covered her face.

"We can't pay for a lawyer," she said into her hands. "We can't pay for anything. They'll destroy us."

"They can try."

I put my arms around her from behind.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

A text from Brinley.

*I'm outside. Are you okay? Want me to come in?*

I wiped my face and went to let her in.

She hugged me hard on the porch and smelled like her mother's lavender soap.

"I saw that woman leave," she said. "Was it them?"

"It was his mother."

"What did she want?"

"To pay me off."

"And?"

"I tore it up."

Brinley leaned back and looked at me, and her eyes were wide.

"You're so brave," she said. "I don't know how you do it."

I did not see what her eyes did next, because my phone rang in my hand.

The county prosecutor's office.

I answered it on the porch with Brinley's arm around my shoulders.

"Miss Corwin? I'm calling with the witness list we just received from the defense."

"Okay."

"There's a name on it you should hear before you hear it in court," the prosecutor said. "Brinley Hutton."

My best friend's arm was still around me.

I felt it get heavier.

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