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“Someone is at the door. I will call you back,” she told him, ending the call and going to answer. She gaped at Saul Turner standing on her doorstep. It was only seven o'clock.
"I called to warn you," he said, "but your answering machine picked up."
"I was vacuuming. I didn't hear the phone."
"May I come in?"
"Yes, of course."
She stood aside to let him pass.
"I'm so sorry, I seem to have arrived at a bad time,” he said, observing her disheveled appearance from cleaning to keep her mind off things. “I just left Holly's office, and I wanted to give you this."
He took something out of his breast pocket and dropped it on the table. It was the envelope with her original check. She looked at it without touching it.
"Why are you giving me this?"
"I thought you might prefer to regain possession of it, considering what you found out this weekend. I also think it's better that we should not be under any obligation to each other."
"What do you mean by that?"
He didn't answer. His mobile rang, but he ignored it.
She felt suddenly tired and needed to sit down, gesturing toward the table.
"Why don't we sit down?"
They sat on opposite sides of the table.
"So you knew about the quarries?"
"Yes, I did."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I'm afraid it didn't occur to me. I assumed you were aware of the problem."
Frigidity was contagious. She was getting colder and colder.
"How much is it going to cost?"
"I can't tell you that exactly. Ten or fifteen thousand dollars, maybe?"
"I see."
Oddly, she felt relief. It wasn’t as bad as she had thought it might be. Still, she had been misled, cheated.
"I think you'd better go now, Mr. Turner. I need to think about what you've told me."
He flinched a bit at that but stood his ground.
"We should talk about this," he said. "I might be willing to participate in the cost of the work."
She looked at him blankly. "Why would you do that?"
He looked down at his hands. She had the odd feeling that he didn't know what to say. The mobile rang. Again, he let it ring.
"Because I … feel … responsible. Having let things get this far. I should have warned you."
She frowned in perplexity. What was going on now?
"It wasn't your responsibility to warn me."
"No, maybe, but…"
"Then why are you lining up builders and fallback buyers?"
He said carefully, "I had nothing to do with any of that. I didn't know it was happening. It certainly wasn't my idea."
"Then whose idea was it?"
The mobile rang. This time, he answered it.
"Yes. No. Yes. I'm on my way. Yes, right now. Ten minutes."
His voice was glacial. Taking her cue, Jo stood up.
"I gather you have to leave. Thank you so much for stopping by."
He got up too. "I'll call you tomorrow."
"Why is that necessary?"
"Jo, I'm not trying to cheat you. I would like you to believe that."
"I'd like to believe it too. But the evidence isn't in your favor."
"For God's sake, is it so hard to understand?"
"Frankly, yes, it is."
"It's too complicated to explain now. I'll call you tomorrow, and maybe we-"
"No, please don't! Don't come back here again! I don't want to see you anymore. I’ll deal with the cards I’ve been dealt and that will be the end of this."
For a moment, he was silent. "What will you do about the quarries?"
"I'll figure something out. Don't worry about it."
"Jo."
She glared at him and he dropped his head.
"I'll call you anyway," he said, quickly retreating out the front door.CHAPTER EIGHTEENBut, of course, he didn't. The rest of the week went by with no news from him. It didn’t matter. It was all a done deal. He had his cash. She was now in possession of his shit property.
Meanwhile, Trey and Alice were giving a party. Every June, they invited their friends and their sons' friends, and their colleagues and neighbors and family, in an alarmingly heterogeneous mix that only the very socially confident could pull off.
When Jo got there, people were spilling out of the house onto the lawn, music was pounding away in the background, and the empty wine bottles were stacking up in a corner of the kitchen. Alice, dressed in layers of violet and lavender, was organizing the food, the boys were handing out finger foods, and Trey was circulating around the room with a bottle in each hand, mingling with his guests and refilling their glass.
Jo made a few polite rounds and then made her excuses, opting for the quiet of her new money pit. Nothing had been cleared from the completed portion of the house and knowing that the liquor in the cabinet there most likely belonged to Paul Turner, who she now believed had consorted with Holly to defraud her, she decided to help herself to it.
Changing into a pair of heavy velour house pants and a t-shirt, she got the gas fire going and sat down with a glass and a bottle of pricey Bordeaux. She was completely lost in thought when her phone rang.
