Chapter 11: The Closet

Glenn had the drawer shut and me across the room before the elevator doors finished closing.

There was one place to hide.

Colin kept a narrow coat closet behind his desk, with a mirrored door he never closed all the way.

Glenn pulled me inside and slid the door to a crack.

It was the size of a phone booth.

His chest pressed against my back, his arm locked around my waist, and his breath came warm against my ear.

"Don't move," he whispered.

"I wasn't going to."

"Don't breathe."

"Now you're being unreasonable."

I felt him smile against my hair.

The office lights snapped on.

Through the crack in the door I saw Colin cross to the desk with Brooke trailing behind him in her cream blazer.

"It's right here," he said, crouching at the bottom drawer.

The brass dial clicked, and the drawer rolled open.

He lifted the gray phone and checked the screen.

"Five new messages," Brooke said.

"Four."

"You can't keep doing this to me, Colin. I'm tired of pretending to be sick."

"You were pretending for three days."

"When do I get my own ring?" she said, looking at her empty left hand.

Colin straightened and shoved the phone in his jacket.

"When the vote is done," he said. "My father needs the board happy until Friday. Then we get the money, and you get your ring."

"And the baby?"

"There isn't a baby, Brooke."

I felt Glenn's arm tighten around my waist.

"There never was," Colin said. "I made up the baby so my mother would shut up and Jean would fall apart. It worked, didn't it?"

"You told me to say it," Brooke said, small.

"And you were good at it."

He tapped the gray phone through his jacket.

"Friday I hand Brandt the Delmar renewal numbers, and he wires the other half. After that I'm gone. We go to Florida."

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