Chapter 20: The Board

Calvin's POV

On Sunday morning I sat in a diner off the Post Road across from Diana Whitlow.

She ate a whole stack of pancakes while I watched.

I had not slept.

After the opening Sylvia had gone back to Gwen's, and I had not been asked to follow.

I had not asked.

"You look terrible," Diana said, and poured syrup.

"Thank you."

"I mean it kindly. You're the first person who's ever sat across from me and not wanted something."

"I want the names."

She smiled, and she slid a phone across the table.

"Scroll," she said. "Start with Russell's green bubbles."

I read them with my coffee going cold.

Russell had written to her at all hours for four years.

He wrote about the beach house, and about a pair of earrings, and about what he would say when Sylvia finally broke.

[She'll never go,] he had texted her once, in the spring. [She'd stay if I burned the house down.]

Then, on the fourth of October, four weeks before Halloween, he had written:

[The lawyer's in love with her. Has been since my father's funeral. I can see it at dinner.]

[He'd never move. He's too polite.]

I put the phone down on the table, very carefully.

Diana watched my face.

"He noticed," she said. "He always noticed. He just thought it was funny."

"He thought what I felt was funny."

"He thought you were safe." She wiped her mouth. "Scroll to the end. The three directors."

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