My Stepsister Stole My Husband. He Was My Killer. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Out in the Rain

Dad orders Lena to apologize and take Shane back, she refuses and walks out, and Malcolm turns down the marriage deal; in the cab, Shane texts a photo of her mother's locket taken from inside her apartment.

Brynn's whisper was still in my ear when I reached the front hall.

She remembered the terrace.

She had come back, like me.

My hands went cold, and I stood there with one arm in my coat sleeve.

Through the dining room doorway I saw her lift her glass an inch toward me.

She was not afraid of me at all.

I wanted to go back in and make her say it out loud.

But Dad's hand was already on my sleeve.

"Lena."

Dad caught me with my coat half on.

"My study. Now."

He didn't wait to see if I followed.

I followed.

Behind us the dining room had started talking again, low and fast.

Dad shut the study door and stood with his back to it.

"You humiliated your sister in front of my board."

"She kissed my fiancé in front of your board."

"Brynn is twenty-five. She made a mistake."

"It was not a mistake, Dad. She walked past a billionaire to do it."

He rubbed his forehead.

"Shane will forgive you. He's already said so."

I laughed.

I could not help it.

"He'll forgive me?"

"He loves you. He told me in the kitchen. Tomorrow you'll call Brynn, you'll tell her you overreacted, and you'll put that ring back on."

"No."

"Lena."

"No to every part of that."

His face went hard.

"The Whitakers are family," he said. "Shane's mother raised you after your mother died. That boy has eaten at my table for twenty years."

"And Brynn?"

"Brynn is my daughter."

"Your stepdaughter," I said. "You never adopted her."

"Don't be small."

I took a breath.

I could have said it all.

I could have told him that in another life his favorite boy had killed me and Dad had given a eulogy about my clumsiness on the cliff.

He would have called a doctor.

"I won't apologize," I said. "I won't wear the ring. And I won't sit next to Shane at any table you set."

"Then you leave this house tonight."

"I already said I would."

"Your allowance stops on Monday. Your credit card stops tonight."

"Fine."

He didn't expect that.

He looked at me for a long moment, and for a second he looked like my father again.

"You'll be back in a week," he said. "You always come back."

"Not this time," I said, and I went out.

The hall was empty.

Brynn's laugh rang from the dining room, bright and easy.

I took my bag and my coat and walked out the front door into the rain.

A black car was idling at the curb.

Malcolm Crowninshield stood beside it with the rear door open.

He wasn't holding an umbrella.

His shoulders were wet through.

"Ms. Caldwell."

"Malcolm," he said.

"Malcolm. Why are you waiting out here? My father spent three weeks on tonight."

"Your father wanted me to marry his younger daughter," he said. "I told him before I came out that I won't."

I stared at him.

"You turned down the deal?"

"I turned down the marriage. The rest is for another day."

He held the door a little wider.

"Can I take you home? It's raining."

I looked at the car.

I looked at his hand on the door, steady and patient.

I had been burned by every kind man in that house.

"No," I said.

"All right."

He didn't argue.

He took a card out of his coat and held it out.

"My number. Text me when you're inside."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because it's a long night to be alone after tonight."

He had said it so plainly that I took the card.

I didn't say thank you.

I walked to the corner and hailed a cab, and I did not look back to see if the car pulled away.

The cab smelled of wet wool.

I sat in the back with the pearls my mother left me still in my ears, and let myself shake.

It lasted about a block.

Then I stopped, because I had work to do.

I had two years of a life that had already ended.

I knew where the terrace was.

I knew which night.

I knew the man.

What I didn't know was how to make anyone else believe it.

My phone buzzed against my knee.

It was Shane.

I had no intention of reading it, but the preview was a photo.

I opened it.

It was my kitchen counter, in my apartment, with the light on over the stove.

In the middle of the picture, in his open palm, lay my mother's gold locket.

Behind his hand was the small steel safe I kept in the cabinet under my sink.

The door was open.

Under the photo, he had typed: You should really lock up, babe. I'm here whenever you want to talk.

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