When He Finally Found Her, She Was Already Married novel · Chapter 4 of 24
Chapter 4: A New Price
On Saturdays I sell bread from a folding table on Water Street, between the fish stand and the man who sells wind chimes.
By nine the line ran past the bank.
I was handing a woman her change when a gray wool coat stopped in front of my table.
It belonged to a man of about fifty with a leather folder and a very good watch.
"Mrs. Ferris?" he said. "Or should I say Miss Haverhill?"
My hand stopped in the air.
The woman with her change looked from him to me.
"It's Ferris," I said. "What can I get you?"
"A word, if you have a minute."
"I have a line."
He smiled, and it was a pleasant smile, and I knew exactly where I had seen it before.
It was the smile of the people who had mailed me that envelope.
"I represent the Hargrove family," he said. "We would like to settle the matter of Mr. Hargrove's visit before it becomes a nuisance for you."
"There's nothing to settle."
"Mrs. Hargrove feels otherwise. She has authorized me to offer you five hundred thousand dollars."
The line went quiet.
Somebody behind him said "Five hundred thousand what?"
"She would like you to be comfortable," the lawyer said. "She would also like you not to speak to her son again. There is a short agreement, which I have with me."
He opened the folder and laid a single page on my table, on top of a basket of rolls.
I looked at it.
It was the same kind of paper, with the same kind of heading.
Heat went up the back of my neck.
"Again," I said.
"I'm sorry?"
"Mrs. Hargrove would like to be generous again. That's what you mean."
He lowered his voice. "I think we'd both prefer to do this privately."
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