Pretty Baby novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Dead on Paper

I photographed the page with my phone before Stefan finished his call.

Then I put the folder back and shut the drawer.

I sat on the desk with my dress pulled straight, smiling.

"Sorry," he said, coming back in. "Singapore wants everything at once."

"I noticed," I said.

He looked at the papers on the floor, then at me.

"I should apologize," he said. "I won't, but I should."

"Don't," I said. "I'd have to say it back."

I went to bed with my heart going.

I didn't sleep.

The woman on the form was twenty years old and dead, with my name and my birthday, and there was a state seal under her.

At nine the next morning I was in a taxi to Alistair Crane's office on LaSalle Street.

Stefan had left for work before I came down.

There was a note on the kitchen island in his square handwriting.

"Mabel has art at ten. Don't let Pickle eat the glue."

It was such a plain, ridiculous thing that I stood there with it in my hand longer than I should have.

Then I put it in my pocket, next to the ring.

Crane's receptionist took one look at the diamond and showed me straight in.

"Miss Kaufman," Crane said from behind a desk the size of a car. "What a pleasant surprise."

"I wanted to talk about Mabel," I said, and sat down without being asked.

"I'm going to be her stepmother. I'd like to know where she comes from."

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