“You still owe me four hundred dollars from the radiator repair in July,” I said.
He pulled his sleeves tighter over his hands. “Mom said you would handle the school part.”
“I am not handling eighty thousand dollars,” I said.
“You always have to make everything about your savings account,” he said.
He left the juice on the counter and walked out of the kitchen, his sneakers squeaking against the linoleum. The swinging door creaked twice behind him before settling back into its frame.
I picked up the invoice from the table, folded it into three perfect sections, and slid it into my coat pocket.
I walked out to the driveway and climbed into my SUV, my chest tight as I locked the doors. My hands were vibrating against the steering wheel, so I gripped the leather hard to make them stop.
I reached for my keys in the ignition to check the brass ring.
The spare key to my front door, the heavy brass one with the small square head, was gone from the loop.
I turned the brass ring around twice in my fingers, thinking it must have slipped off when I dropped my bag at the office.
But the steel ring was perfectly closed, the split gap tight against itself.
I checked the center console, then the floor mats under the pedals, running my fingers through the small debris of fallen leaves.
Nothing was under the seats except an empty water bottle and a road map of Ohio.
I sat back against the headrest and let the engine idle, the quiet vibration of the car doing nothing to calm the steady drumming in my ears.
By three o’clock that afternoon, the wind had picked up, blowing dry oak leaves across my yard on Bryden Road. Arthur was already out on his lawn, working a wide red rake with slow, rhythmic strokes that cleared the grass down to the soil.
