Chapter 24: Out on Bail

The courier's letter was one page, and Nathaniel read it standing in the doorway in a pair of trousers and nothing else.

"Gerald made bail at six this morning," he said. "His lawyer asks that we respect his client's privacy."

"His privacy."

"He wants us to stop talking to the press."

I laughed so hard that I had to sit down on the bed.

"We haven't talked to the press."

"I know." He folded the letter in half. "I think he wants us to know where he is."

"Where is he?"

"Chestnut Hill. In my mother's house."

His jaw tightened, and I put my hand on his arm.

"Not today," I said. "I have a job to go back to."

The director of the museum met me at the staff entrance with a bunch of white flowers and a letter of apology.

Four conservators stood behind her in the corridor.

"We should have asked you first," the director said. "The video, the leave, the statement. We were wrong."

"You were scared of a lawsuit."

"Yes."

"Say that in the staff meeting," I said, "and we're even."

She laughed, and she meant it.

The senior conservator, who hadn't spoken to me in two months, hugged me hard enough to knock my glasses crooked.

By ten I was at my bench, with a magnifier on a cracked eighteenth-century portrait and the first quiet hour I'd had since the dinner.

I took one long breath over the varnish.

The door opened behind me.

I didn't turn at first, because I knew the footsteps.

"Imogen," Bethany said.

She stood in the doorway without her heels, in plain jeans and a gray sweater, with her hair tied back.

She was holding a small velvet pouch in both hands.

"They told me I could come up if I didn't touch anything."

"You can come in."

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Filmed My Husband Cheating, So I Married the Brother He Fears from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.