The Scandal Before the Vows novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Morning Of

My phone was dead in a bag of rice on Margo's counter, so at seven twenty I opened my bank on Dean's laptop.

Dean sat beside me at the kitchen table, and he watched the screen.

The page loaded.

Incoming wire: $180,000.00. Sender: Trenton Keele.

I read it three times, and I did not feel happy.

I felt like a bookkeeper who had finally seen the entry she was waiting for.

"He did it," said Elliot, from the doorway.

"He did what he signed." I closed the page. "That's all it is."

"Don't let me stop you from being pleased."

"I'll be pleased after."

Dean found the email he'd sent himself five years ago.

The file was there, a green bar and a date.

Margo came in with a drawer full of USB sticks from her school days, every one of them stamped with a red tiger.

"Two copies," she said, and plugged in the first. "One for the lectern. One for the hall's office, in case somebody sits on the first."

"Three," said Dean, and pulled a third from his shirt pocket. "My lanyard."

"I like him," said Margo to her son.

"You like everyone who's had a bad year."

"Yes, dear, and you've had a good one." She patted his arm and handed Elliot the second stick. "Put that in your sock."

Trenton came up the porch steps at a quarter to eight.

He wore the same running clothes as yesterday, looking haggard, as though he hadn't slept at all.

Elliot moved to the door.

"It's all right," I said.

Trenton stopped on the top step.

"It went through," he said. "The branch manager was a friend of my father's. He opened early and took the hold off with me standing there. I changed the passwords, and Brynn can't touch them."

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