That Makes Two of Us novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Other Lenore

I hid the envelope in the bread box and was dressed before the shower stopped.

Colton came downstairs with wet hair and his jacket over his arm.

"I have a nine o'clock," he said. "Dinner tonight?"

"I'll call you."

"You'll actually call?"

"I'll actually call."

He kissed me at the door and went down the steps to a black car waiting at the curb.

I watched it pull away.

Then I took out the envelope and read the courier slip.

It had been sent from a shipping counter in Harbor East, paid in cash, billed to a foundation I knew.

The Cobb Family Fund.

I put on my blazer and walked to the garage.

Valerie was waiting for me on the third level of the parking garage across from Davenport Investigations.

She stood next to a silver sedan in a cream coat, holding two paper cups of coffee.

"Leona Finley," she said pleasantly. "Or should I say Lenore?"

"Say whatever you want."

"I brought you a latte."

I took the cup.

"You sent me my own hospice file," I said.

"I sent you a courtesy." She sipped. "I wanted you to know I know."

"Since when?"

"Since September. Daddy found the license while he was vetting Colton for the merger. I looked up the name. It took one afternoon."

"And you haven't told him."

"Why would I?"

"Because you're about to marry him."

She smiled the soft, perfect smile.

"I'm about to marry a merger," she said. "Colton is the box it comes in."

I stared at her.

"You hired me to find the wife you could have named in a minute," I said. "You had Colton hire me."

"I had Colton hire someone," Valerie said. "I'd have preferred an incompetent. I didn't expect you to be so good at it."

"Why am I here?"

"Because you and I want the same thing."

"I doubt that."

Keep reading free with an account. Start That Makes Two of Us from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.