You Are My Destiny novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Pond

I took the nurse by the arm and walked her out through the conservatory into the garden.

The garden was the only place in that house without a keyhole.

It was two in the afternoon and cold, with a thin sun on the lawn.

I could see fine in daylight.

I walked her down the gravel path to the pond, where a stone dock stood out over black water and the reeds had gone brown.

"Say it again," I said. "Slowly."

She wrung her purse strap.

"I shouldn't be talking to you."

"You followed me."

"I know." She shut her eyes. "I've had it in my chest for seven years."

I took my cheap phone out of my apron pocket, and held it up where she could see the red dot.

"I'm recording this. Do you understand?"

"Why?"

"Because someone paid you to say the wrong woman read to him. I want to know who."

Her face crumpled.

"Fifteen thousand dollars," she said.

"The lawyer brought it in an envelope."

"He said the other girl was in love and the donor had abandoned the man, and no one would be hurt."

"Who gave him the envelope?"

"The cousin. The big one with the hair. Dewitt."

"Say his full name."

"Dewitt Stannard."

"Say what you saw seven years ago."

"A girl with a bandage on her left eye sat outside the ward for eleven hours."

Her voice cracked.

"She had a ring on a chain and a ticket stub for the Chicago bus."

"When they let her in, she wasn't allowed to stay."

"A lawyer in a gray suit took her aside and said the family would see she was taken care of."

My hands were steady on the phone, but I was anxious.

"Then she went in alone for one minute."

"She came out with no ring."

"She put on her coat and walked down the hall like a ghost."

"And then?"

"And then the volunteer girl went in with her book."

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