Chapter 21: Seventy-One Four

Rafe's POV

The man from Capital Recovery took the kitchen chair Dillon had left and set his hat on his knee.

He declined coffee. He declined the cookie Eli offered him.

"I'll be brief," he said. "Mr. Harkness signed a note for forty-eight thousand dollars."

"We know," Casey said.

"With the fees and the interest, it stands at seventy-one thousand four hundred."

Dillon, standing in the doorway, made a small, wrecked sound.

"It is secured by a half interest in this house," the man said.

"And?"

"And by a house on Brookline Boulevard that belongs to his mother."

"I know what it's secured by," Casey said.

"Then you know I'm entitled to sell both on Thursday at noon."

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Because I do not enjoy selling a mother's house." He folded his hands.

"And because my business is being paid."

He turned to me.

"I watched your program on Saturday, Mr. Tolland. A man who says a woman's name to two million people will pay a stranger's note to keep her house."

Casey stood up so fast the chair scraped.

"He is not paying anything. We're not a charity."

"It would be cash," the man said. "Seventy-one four, by wire, tomorrow."

"And I get what?"

"The signed note and the security papers. Mr. Harkness owes you, instead of me."

"No," Casey said.

"Casey."

"No. It is not your debt."

I looked at her.

A month ago I would have written the wire and said nothing.

I had spent three years of my life paying for quiet.

"Give me a minute with her," I said.

The man nodded and stepped out on the porch with Eli, who followed him with the wrench.

I took Casey into the hall, where the photograph of her grandmother hung by the stairs.

"I'm going to tell you what I want to do," I said. "Before I do it, and not after."

"Rafe."

"I'm not buying this for Dillon. I couldn't care less about Dillon."

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