A Grave Beneath the Floorboards novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Gerald the Fox

I wrote back to the woman the way Carly would have.

Yes!! Friday. Somewhere with chairs, I'm exhausted.

Burke read it over my shoulder in the parking lot of the station and nodded once.

"One rule," he said.

"Okay."

"You never act alone. Not once, not for anything." He waited until I looked at him. "If you think of something clever at two in the morning, you call me. You don't do it."

"I understand."

"Say it back."

"I never act alone," I said.

He held my eyes a moment longer than the rule needed.

Then he put a small black device the size of a button in my palm and folded my fingers over it.

His hand was warm and dry, and it stayed on mine for a second after I had a grip on the thing.

"It records," he said. "Clip it inside your collar. I'll be at the bar."

I walked to my car fast, because my face felt hot, and I did not have time for that.

On Friday night I sat in a booth at a quiet Italian place with a red candle and a basket of bread.

The woman slid in across from me at seven, in the green jacket with the missing button.

"Sorry, sorry, traffic," she said, and squeezed my hands.

She looked so much like Carly in that light that my chest hurt.

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