They Sold Me for Five Million, So I Collected It Myself novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Route 9

I didn't call Cleo from the porch.

I didn't call anyone.

I took the bus up Chestnut Hill in the dark with the locket against my breastbone.

I rang the bell at Haverly House with my whole hand.

The housekeeper let me in.

She looked at my face and led me down the long hall without asking.

Orrin sat in his study under a green-shaded lamp, with a book open that he was not reading.

He looked up.

He took off his glasses.

"Mrs. Haverly."

"Brubaker," I said. "Who was driving?"

The clock on the mantel ticked.

He closed the book.

"Sit down, please."

"No." I said.

"Then I'll stand."

It took him two tries to get up.

He gripped the cane and stood behind his desk, and he looked straight at me and did not look away once.

I will give him that.

"Eighteen years ago this month," Orrin said, "my son left a fundraiser at the country club at eleven at night, after too much to drink. He drove down Route 9 toward home. He crossed the center line at the bend by the quarry."

I didn't move.

"A car was coming the other way. A blue Buick. Two people in the front. A child in the back in a car seat."

The lamp hummed.

"Your father was thirty-one and your mother twenty-nine," Orrin said. "They died on the road, within a minute of each other. My son died in the ditch. And you did not have a scratch on you."

I didn't know I had been holding the locket until it cut into my palm.

"I came to the hospital at one in the morning," Orrin said. "They had put you in a blanket. You weren't crying. You were looking at the lights. I stood at the window of the pediatric ward for an hour. A lawyer came to find me. He said, there's going to be a report."

← Chapter 11 · All chapters · Chapter 13 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend