He Gave Me Fifty Dollars to Live, I Left Him with Nothing novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Receipt

Tobias shows Roz the jewelry claim and the pawn receipt that proves Whitney sold her dead mother's jewelry herself, then points to the signature on the policy: Philip's.

On Tuesday I told the driver Maisie had a dentist appointment.

I dropped her at school myself, kissed the top of her braid, and took the bus to Providence.

I had not ridden a bus in six years.

The diner Tobias picked sat across from the courthouse, where nobody from Newport ever ate.

He was in the back booth in a gray wool coat, with two coffees already on the table.

He stood when he saw me.

For a second neither of us knew what to do with our hands.

"Roz," he said.

"Hi, Tobias."

He looked at my coat, which was three winters old.

He did not say a word about it.

I was grateful.

"You look tired," he said instead.

"I look like I live in a bowl."

His mouth moved, almost a smile.

I sat down and wrapped both hands around the coffee.

"You said you'd be ready in seven days," I said. "I have five."

"I've been waiting for this call for six years."

I looked up.

He pushed a plain manila folder across the table.

"Open it."

The first page was an insurance claim.

It was dated six years ago.

It listed a set of emeralds, a diamond bracelet and a pearl rope, all belonging to the late first wife of Philip Carraway.

The claimed value was three hundred and ten thousand dollars.

Under the claim, in a box marked *Cause of loss*, someone had typed: *Theft by a member of the household.*

My throat went tight.

"They paid this?"

"In full, eleven weeks later."

"I never saw this. Philip told me the police wouldn't take it because he wanted to keep it in the family."

"There was never a police report," Tobias said. "There was only a claim, and a very quiet insurer."

He turned the page for me.

"My firm was hired to review it. I was the partner on the file."

"You?"

"I closed it as unproven. Your husband stopped answering our calls and the insurer paid to make us go away." He rubbed his jaw. "I didn't know until last year that the household member in that box was you."

I stared at him.

"Last year."

"A friend of mine plays golf with a man who sits on Philip's board. He told me what the Carraways say about the second wife." His voice stayed even. "I went back to the file that night."

I turned to the next page.

It was a receipt from a jeweler on Wickenden Street.

Pearl rope, one piece. Emerald set, one piece. Diamond bracelet, one piece.

Sold for cash.

The date was three weeks before the claim.

The signature on the line marked *Seller* was loopy and glossy and familiar.

Whitney Carraway.

I knew her handwriting from every birthday card she had ever left out for show.

"She sold them," I said.

"Her own mother's jewelry. Then she told her stepfather somebody else had taken it, and he filed a claim to be paid twice."

"Why would Philip do that?"

"Maybe he didn't know she'd sold it." Tobias paused. "Or maybe he did."

I pressed my hand flat on the receipt so he would not see it shake.

Six years of *Learn to be grateful.*

Six years of a man who loved the idea of a thief in his house more than a wife.

"This isn't enough," I said.

"No. That's why I'm not giving you a plan yet. I want you to see it first."

He reached into his coat and slid a second envelope toward me.

It was thick.

"Two thousand dollars," he said. "Cash."

"I can't take that."

"Then write me a note and call it a loan. I'll charge you interest."

"What interest?"

"Whatever you'd charge a client with a bad credit report." He nodded at the envelope. "Buy Maisie boots. Buy yourself a coat."

I wanted to say no.

I had spent six years learning that anything handed to me came with a hand over it.

But Tobias's hand was already back around his coffee, and he was watching the window.

He was not waiting to see if I would be grateful.

I took the envelope and tore a sheet from the back of the folder.

*I owe Tobias Garrison two thousand dollars,* I wrote. *Roz Tierney.*

I signed it and pushed it to him.

"With interest," I said.

This time he did smile.

It changed his whole face, and I looked away first.

"Now the part you won't like," he said.

He tapped the first page of the claim again.

"Look at the signature on the policyholder line."

I had skipped it.

I looked now.

It was not Whitney's.

It was a tall, steady signature that I had watched sign a hundred checks.

*Philip R. Carraway.*

He had not been fooled by his stepdaughter.

He had signed.

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