Scandalous novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Her Father's Study

My father's study was the one room in the house nobody ever cleaned.

Trophies crowded the shelves: bowling league, Rotary, the Chamber of Commerce award for twenty-five years of local employment.

A framed photo of Ruddock Metals hung above the desk, with four hundred men in hard hats squinting at the sun.

He sat beneath it with his hands folded on a leather blotter.

"Close the door," he said.

I closed it and stayed standing.

"Nolan called."

"I expect he did."

"He says you broke his phone."

"I broke his phone."

My father looked at me for a long moment.

Then he laughed, loud and delighted, the laugh from the company picnics.

"That's my girl. That's a Ruddock."

"I'm not your girl in this."

"No?"

"I read the file, Dad."

The laugh stopped, but the smile stayed on his face.

"Which file?"

"The one with your signature on the sale. The one that says you gave Hartwell the debt yourself."

"I told you. They held a pen to my hand."

"And under it is what Hartwell paid out afterward."

Nothing in the room moved.

"What pension?" my father said.

"Yours."

"The pension was fine."

"It was empty," I said. "Wasn't it?"

I had guessed.

I hadn't known I was guessing until the words were out and I watched his smile go.

It went slowly, from the eyes first.

He looked at the framed photograph, then at his hands.

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