The Heir Who Quit Luxury novel · Chapter 7 of 32

Chapter 7: Across the Street

I put the watch in my pocket.

I didn't say anything to Blair.

I didn't say anything to Carter.

I nodded to Doug, who still had the check in his hand, and I walked out through the kitchen.

A cook holding a tray of crab cakes stepped aside to let me pass.

"Rough night?" he said.

"Getting better."

The back door let out onto the service lot, beside the dumpsters.

Pop's old tow truck was parked under the only light, with its engine running.

Frankie was sitting behind the wheel with her cap pulled low.

She leaned across and pushed the passenger door open.

"I was going to be your getaway driver," she said. "If they called the cops."

"You waited three hours?"

"Pop wanted to know how it went."

"Pop wanted to know."

"Get in, Brannock."

I got in.

She took one look at my face and didn't ask anything.

She just drove.

Back on Eight Mile she handed me a ladder.

"Roof," she said.

The roof of the office was flat tar and gravel, with two lawn chairs and a cooler.

You could see the whole lot from up there.

The string lights. Pop's window glowing in the little house behind the bays.

Across the road, the empty lot full of weeds.

Frankie pulled two beers out of the cooler and handed me one.

I took off Pop's jacket and laid it over the back of my chair.

"She gave back the watch," I said.

"I figured something like that. You walked out like your shoes hurt."

I took it out of my pocket and turned it in the light.

"Who gives back a watch?" Frankie said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Heir Who Quit Luxury from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.