Chapter 22: Paid in Public

The boathouse smelled of cold water and old rope.

Dylan sat on an overturned crate under a bare bulb, with a black duffel bag between his shoes.

Harrison had walked down the lawn beside me with his hand in my back pocket, and he stopped in the doorway and let me go in first.

"I sold the watch," Dylan said. "And the car. My mother's lawyer won't take my calls, so I did it myself."

He unzipped the bag.

It was full of bundles of cash held with rubber bands.

"Twenty-six thousand nine hundred, and some extra," he said. "Count it."

I looked at the money for a while.

It was a lot more real than a number on my banking app, and it frightened me a little.

"No," I said.

"Lena."

"Not here, Dylan. Not in a boathouse with no one looking."

He rubbed his face. "Where?"

"The boardroom. Monday at nine, with everyone who is going to be there anyway."

He actually laughed, and it cracked in the middle.

"You wanted this from the first morning," he said. "You wanted me to stand somewhere and count."

"I did. You said gifts weren't refundable."

He zipped the bag.

"Monday," he said. "I'll bring it."

The boardroom was on the fourteenth floor, with a window wall over the bay and a table that sat seventeen.

On Monday there were seven board members, Cynthia in navy, and Dylan at the foot with the duffel on a chair.

Megan sat in the back row, in her puffer coat, eating a granola bar with great seriousness.

She had traded a shift to be there.

The man with the gray beard called the meeting to order.

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