Chapter 7: The Toolbox

Keir's POV

Freya Teller made me promise something before she would get in the truck.

I had rented it that morning, a gray pickup with a bad radio.

She wanted her father's things out of the Orwell garage, and a duffel bag wasn't going to carry them.

She stood with her hand on the passenger door and didn't open it.

"Two rules," she said.

"Okay."

"The first one is the account. You stay out of it. Whatever happens with that money, I'm the one who decides, and I'm the one who does it."

"That's fair."

"It isn't fair. I need you to say yes."

"Yes," I said. "It's yours. I won't touch it."

She looked at me for a few seconds, searching for the lie.

She didn't find one, because there wasn't one.

I had written two letters in two years and done nothing else, and I knew it.

"The second rule is that you don't feel sorry for me," she said.

"I can't promise that one."

"Try."

"I'll try."

She got in.

It was Thursday, a little before eleven.

Bernadette had a standing brunch at her club every Thursday, and Stanton drove her.

Brittany's shop was closed on Thursdays, so that gave us ninety minutes.

I parked at the end of Fairmont and walked to the house with Freya beside me, her key in her fist.

The key still worked.

Bernadette hadn't thought to change the locks, because she had never believed Freya would use it again.

We went in through the side door and into the garage.

It was cold and smelled of oil and old cardboard.

My father's workbench ran along the far wall.

His stool was still there, a wooden one with a cracked seat, where he used to sit at night with the radio on.