The Seventh Time novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Screen

I walked up the three carpeted steps to the stage and took the microphone from Broderick's hand.

It was warm from his fingers.

Out in the dark, eight hundred faces waited for the part of the evening they had come to see.

"Thank you, Mr. Ashworth," I said.

"Broderick, dear."

"Thank you, Broderick."

Behind me the barn-door screen still showed the logo, turning slowly.

A young man in a headset stood at the lectern with a cable coiled in his fist.

Broderick had meant to put my note up there, with the amounts, and let the room read it.

I had guessed that on the drive over, and I had brought a phone charger for exactly that cable.

"Before I pay what I owe," I said, "I'd like to show everyone something."

Broderick's smile tightened a hair.

"Of course. Anything you like."

He thought I meant a speech.

I held out my hand to the young man in the headset.

He looked at Broderick, then at me, then at the eight hundred people.

"I just plug it in?" he whispered.

"Please."

He did.

The logo blinked off.

My lock screen filled the barn door, a photo of Dennis the cat asleep in a laundry basket, and a ripple of laughter ran through the room.

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