Chapter 12: What He Sold

Tressa stood up when she saw us, and I braced for the blazer and the voice.

She was in a grey sweatshirt and jeans, with no makeup and her hair in a clip, and she looked about nineteen and very tired.

"I'm not here to fight," she said. "Your neighbor let me in. She said Dad was awake."

Gene sat beside her with the tablet on his knee and an expression I could not read.

Tressa's eyes went to Neil, a step behind me on the ramp, and her mouth thinned.

"Your therapist's still here."

"I'm off the case," Neil said mildly. "I'm just standing in the weather."

"Convenient."

"Tressa," I said.

"I need to talk to Dad," she said. "Alone. Ten minutes. Please."

It was the word please that did it.

I looked at Gene, who lifted two fingers and tipped them toward the door.

Neil went to the kitchen, and I went as far as the hall and stopped where the floorboard creaks.

I'm not proud of that.

I stood against the wall with my coat still on and listened to Gene's daughter sit down in the front room.

"Dad." Her voice was small and hoarse. "The eighty thousand's real. I need you to know that."

"It's real, and the lawyer says I can't get out of it."

The tablet did not say anything.

"My husband doesn't know." She laughed, awful and thin.

"I signed the contract in September and I never told him. I thought it would close and I'd say, surprise, we're all taken care of."