The Tideflats King Claimed the Surveyor Who Trusts No One, and My Signature Was His Brother's Alibi novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: One True Thing
Katarina Matkovic sat me down in her kitchen on the Hilltop and told me what the paper was for.
It was a Wednesday morning, and she had sent Niko to the harbor on an errand that did not exist.
The house was narrow and warm and smelled of coffee and bay leaf.
There was a plastic cloth on the table and a Saint Nicholas in a gilt frame on the wall.
She poured two small cups of black coffee and set mine in front of me after she drank from hers.
"You have ledger," Katarina said.
"He told me.
"He tells me nothing, and he told me that."
"It's my mother's," I said.
"Good.
"A mother's book is the only book."
She sat across from me with her hands folded.
They were small and knotted, with a gold band worn thin.
She looked at me for a long time.
"Ask what you came to ask," she said.
I had not known I came to ask anything.
I turned the cup on its saucer.
"Why did he do it?" I said.
"Six years.
"He could have hired a hundred surveyors.
"He could have put pressure on the insurer.
"He's the Harbormaster.
"He could have had my uncle's office burned."
"He thought of it," Katarina said.
"He thought of it the first year.
"He sat in this kitchen with a gasoline can between his feet and told me what he would do.
"I took the can away."
"Why?"
"Because I said, then you are your father," she said.
"My husband solved a thing with a belt.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Tideflats King Claimed the Surveyor Who Trusts No One, and My Signature Was His Brother's Alibi are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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