Chapter 4: The Offer

Pearl did not open the door.

She leaned her shoulder on it and shouted through the wood, "I have a rolling pin, and I'm not afraid to be photographed with it."

"Mrs. Doyle," the lawyer said calmly. "Mr. Sedgwick would like ten minutes with Miss Doyle. Then we will go."

"Miss Sedgwick," I said, loud enough to carry. "Open it, Pearl."

She looked at me, then at the rolling pin, and then she stepped back and pulled the door wide.

The lawyer came in first, gray at the temples, with a leather folder under his arm.

Preston Sedgwick followed. He had taken off his tuxedo jacket, and his white shirt was open at the collar.

He looked around the little kitchen once, at the yellow table and the lighthouse tin, and he did not hide what he thought of it.

"Sit down," he said to me.

"I'll stand."

"Then stand." He gave a small nod to the lawyer.

The lawyer opened the folder and laid two documents on the yellow table.

"Two million dollars," he said. "Paid today, into an account in the name you've been living under."

"Kit Doyle," I said.

"A fresh start, in a place of your choosing outside the northeast."

"And a statement, signed by you, that you suffered a delusion and have no claim to the Sedgwick name."

Pearl made a sound in her throat.

I slid my hand into my back pocket and thumbed my phone's recording button.

The guards had given it back with my wallet, and I was very glad of that now.

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