Chapter 7: Whose Money

I walked across the lobby and stopped in front of Abel.

"AT Holding," I said.

He kept his eyes on the fish.

"Abel Tennant Holding," he said. "I set it up years ago for taxes."

"Why did it pay my mother's bill?"

"Because the bill was due at eight."

"Come outside."

He followed me into the parking lot.

Wind pushed dead leaves across the asphalt, and a nurse in pink scrubs smoked by the dumpster.

I turned around and held out the envelope with five thousand two hundred dollars in it.

"Take it back."

"No."

"It's my car money. I sold the car for this."

"And I'm not taking it," Abel said. "You'll need it."

"For what?"

"Rent. Food. A lawyer. Your mother's next infusion in three weeks."

"Where did you get fourteen thousand dollars by seven forty this morning?"

He didn't answer.

"Dax pays you," I said. "Doesn't he?"

"Not a staff salary. Something extra."

"I always wondered how a session guitarist kept a truck that never breaks."

"It's mine."

"For what?"

"I earned it."

"Doing what, Abel?"

His jaw set.

A silence opened between us, and I watched him decide, again, not to fill it.

Something in me that had held through Monday and Tuesday and the red light on Gallatin Road gave way.

"You stood there," I said.

"Linnea."

"You stood in that control room on Monday with your guitar case.

"You watched him fire me in front of fourteen people. Then you carried my crate."

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