Dominated by My Dad's Boss novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Collar

Billie lived above a tire shop on Lorain, three rooms and a cat that hated men.

At three in the morning she had the collar laid out on her kitchen table.

It was black leather, soft and new, with a brass tag riveted to the front.

BRON.

I turned the tag over with one finger.

31 OCT.

"My friend found it on top of your pillow," Billie said. "Door open, nothing taken, nothing moved."

"They didn't need to take anything."

"No."

"They wanted me to see that they could walk in."

Torin stood by the window with his arms folded, not saying a word.

He had not said one since the lakeshore.

I didn't know whether he was giving me room or hiding.

"I called my father from the car," I said. "He'll be here."

Billie raised her pierced eyebrow.

"At three in the morning?"

"I told him it was Mom."

The buzzer went off at ten past.

My father came up the stairs one step at a time, holding the rail.

He was in yesterday's work shirt, with his reading glasses still swinging on their cord.

He stopped in the kitchen doorway and looked at the collar.

Then he looked at Torin, and at me, and his big face came apart.

"I have to tell you something," he said, "and I want you to let me finish."

He sat down at Billie's table.

"The year she left, there was a note on the kitchen counter," he said.

"She wrote that she needed twelve months to find out who she was.

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