Chapter 6: The Check

Constance's office had glass walls on the mezzanine side, and she lowered the blinds before she poured the tea.

I did not sit. I put my seven notebooks on her white sofa and stood beside them.

My phone was in my jacket pocket with the recording running, and my thumb was on it.

"You're being dramatic," Constance said, and added one sugar cube to her cup.

"The guard locked the door so you wouldn't hurt yourself in front of the donors. You looked distressed."

"I looked fine."

"You looked like someone who needs a rest."

"Let me out."

"In a minute." She smiled at me over the rim of the cup.

"I want you to understand what happens next. I'd hate for you to hear it from a stranger."

She opened her desk drawer and took out an envelope.

It was cream-colored, heavy, and thick at one end.

She slid it across the blotter.

Inside was a cashier's check, written to me, for two million dollars.

I read the number twice.

"That's yours," Constance said. "Today.

"The lab will be restored under your name, and I'll have your car brought back.

"Colin will move into a hotel, since I understand you're upset with him."

"And page nine?"

"Page nine," she said gently, "is a formality."

"It says I caused the crash."

"It says you accept that you're part of this family's story." She set her cup in its saucer.

"You started the argument that night, darling. Everyone agrees. You'd simply be saying it out loud."

Keep reading free with an account. Start They Faked Her Paralysis, But I Recorded Their Betrayal from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.