The Scandal Before the Vows novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Memo

Elliot parked across from Dean's building at five minutes to nine and turned off the engine.

"I'll be right here," he said. "Text me every ten minutes. If one goes missing, I'm up the stairs."

"He's not dangerous."

"He's not what I'm watching."

I climbed three flights alone with my hand on the rail.

Dean's apartment was one room with a mattress, a hot plate and a shelf of recovery books.

He had washed his face and put on a clean shirt, and he looked so frightened that I almost took his hand.

"Lock the door," he said. "Please."

I locked it.

He sat on the edge of the mattress with an old phone in both hands, cracked across the screen.

"I kept this when I upgraded. I never could throw it out." He swallowed. "Five years ago, the week our divorce was final, Brynn came here drunk. She wanted me to sign something saying I'd never talk to you again."

"Sign what?"

"A letter. I refused. She started yelling." He turned the phone over. "I hit record in my pocket, because I'd learned by then to keep proof of everything she said."

"Play it."

"Corina, it's bad."

"Play it, Dean."

He pressed the screen.

For a second there was only a room and a clock.

Then Brynn's voice came out of the phone, loose and slurred and unmistakable.

"Don't look at me like that. You were a drunk who cheated on his wife. Who's going to believe you over me?"

"You came to my house," Dean's voice said, small and far. "You told me she was out of town."

"I told you what you needed to hear."

"Why did you do it?"

There was a long wet laugh.

"Because she took him. Do you know how long I waited for Trenton? Sophomore year, the whole thing, and then she stands in the quad and says, 'Brynn, tell him yes. Tell him it's him. I can't say it to his face.'"

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