Chapter 14: The Sealed Folder

I told my mother everything from the parking lot, and she said, "Good," and then, "Eat something."

Bethany had left first, with her phone face down in her fist.

Before she went I had made her answer her ex with one line: Not yet, I'll explain Monday. Don't tell anyone.

If he talked, the whole plan died before the lab did, and I could not do anything about it from a parking lot.

I drove to the warehouse instead.

On Saturdays it was only the loading crew and the radio, and Abel's door was open.

He looked up from a stack of invoices and stood, and I saw him decide not to ask.

"Bethany met me," I said.

His eyes went to the window behind me.

"I didn't follow you," he said. "You said not to."

"I noticed."

"I did think about it."

"I noticed that too."

The corner of his mouth went up, and he sat on the edge of the door-desk.

I told him what Bethany had said, and he listened with his arms folded and his head down.

When I finished he said, "So the baby isn't his."

"The baby can't be his."

"And he's going to find that out in front of people."

"That's the plan."

"Good," Abel said, and the word came out harder than I expected.

I held out my hand.

"I'm ready for the folder."

He didn't ask which one.

He went to the green safe and knelt, and the clunk of the handle was the same as last time.

The sealed folder was softer than the first, the tape yellow at the edges.

He put it in my palm and stepped back to the window.

"Stay," I said.

"You said no one watching."

"I said I'd ask when I was ready. I want you to watch me read it."

He came back and stood by the desk with his hands in his pockets.