The Life I Chose novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Blackstone Boulevard

Kendall snatched the folder off the counter.

"I didn't know until it was too late to do anything about it," she said.

"July eighth was nine weeks," I said. "Plenty of time to tell somebody. You waited until my rehearsal."

"Kendall," Holt said. "Don't say anything else."

She looked at him.

It was a look I'd seen a hundred times across his parents' dinner table and never once understood.

Then she turned and pressed the elevator button with her gloved thumb, and Holt went after her.

The doors closed on both of them.

Forty people let out their breath at once.

I squared my invoices into a neat stack and slid them across to the receptionist.

"Could you make copies?" I said. "One for every desk."

She looked at me for a long second.

Then she took them to the copier.

His father didn't answer his phone, so I drove to Blackstone Boulevard.

The Thackery house is white brick with black shutters and a front lawn the size of a soccer field.

I'd spent three Christmases there.

I knew the code to the side gate.

It hadn't been changed.

The driver was in the garage, washing the big black Mercedes with a chamois.

He looked up and nodded at me, the same as always.

"He's in the kitchen," he said. "He's been in there since Saturday."

I went in through the mudroom.

Holt's father was sitting at the kitchen island in an old cardigan with a cup of coffee he wasn't drinking.

The cook was at the stove, stirring something, pretending she wasn't there.

He looked up when I came in.

His eyes were red around the rims.

"Margo."

"I'm sorry to come in the back," I said.

"Don't be. You've always come in the back. It's the only door in this house that tells the truth."

I put my phone down on the marble in front of him.

I'd taken a picture of the printout before Kendall grabbed it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Life I Chose from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.