Condemned by My Sister novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Staircase

The lawyer had him out by Sunday.

Corbin had walked in front of three hundred people, but walking was not a crime, and a man in a good suit stood beside him at the station and said so.

He called Marianne at nine that night.

"I want to talk," he said, in his old soft voice. "Just us. At the house."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you want to hear it. And I'm tired of the lawyers."

He waited.

"Come alone, Marianne. I'll tell you everything about Eli."

She put the phone down, and I saw her hand shake.

Then she called the detective.

"He wants me alone," she said. "I'll go."

"I won't be far," the detective said.

The front hall was dim when we came in.

Marianne had left one lamp on in the study.

The detective and the housekeeper had come in through the back an hour before, and they were in the kitchen with the door ajar.

I could see the edge of the housekeeper's cardigan from where I stood.

Corbin was waiting at the top of the stairs.

He wore the dark suit from the funeral and he had no cane.

He stood on the landing with one hand on the rail, easy and straight.

"There it is," he said. "That's where I stood."

Marianne stopped at the bottom.

"Come up," he said. "I want you to see what I saw."

"I can see it from here."

"Suit yourself."

He looked down at her with an interested, fond expression.

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