In Sickness and in Lies novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: Reopening

Gwyneth's POV

Friday night my show reopened in a converted print shop in Pilsen, and there were more people in it than the old gallery had held in a month.

The video from the courthouse had gone around the city twice.

The new owner, a former art teacher with silver rings on every finger, stood at the door counting heads.

"Two hundred and ten," she said. "And the fire marshal is eating cheese, so don't tell him."

I laughed, and then I saw the middle wall.

The shirt piece was gone, sold to a collector in October.

In its place hung the new one, nine of my father's flannels cut and sewn into one tall panel.

I had finished it Thursday, left-handed, with my bandage still on.

The card beside it said Press Nine.

My litigator had texted that afternoon that Desmond's motion for the storage unit had been withdrawn.

Everything in it was mine.

I smoothed my dress and checked the door for the fifth time.

Bruce had said he would come after rounds.

He had not said what the envelope was, and I had not asked a second time.

For three days he had been kind to me in a careful, distant way, bringing me coffee, checking the dressing on my hand, keeping his eyes level.

A small cold voice in me said what it had said at the diner.

He is kind to you because you are his patient's daughter.

Because you are a case.

I told it to be quiet.

At eight I stood on a wooden crate and spoke to the room.

I thanked the owner and the people who had come.

I said that my father had been a machinist, that he had told me to read every page, and that I had learned it late.

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