Chapter 6: Come Home
The drive back to Paradise Valley felt nothing like the drive away from it.
Delia followed in her truck, two cars back.
They had agreed: Nora would go in alone.
Delia would park on the street and wait.
If Nora wasn't out in forty-five minutes, Delia would call the agency liaison, who had already been briefed.
Conrad had wanted to come.
Nora had told him no.
"He'll use you," she said.
"He'll make it about your father and he'll make me feel like I brought an enemy into his house.
I need him calm and confident.
That's the only version of Bradley I can manage."
Conrad hadn't argued.
But he had stood at the end of the driveway until the agency car turned the corner.
Bradley opened the door before she reached it.
He was dressed well.
He had shaved.
He was holding a glass of water, not wine, which meant he wanted to appear reasonable.
"There she is," he said.
Nora walked past him into the house.
The entry hall smelled the same.
Lemon polish and something faintly floral from the arrangement on the side table that she had always maintained and apparently someone had replaced.
The flowers were wrong — too formal, too stiff.
He'd had someone else do it.
"I'm glad you came to your senses," Bradley said, closing the door.
"I came to get a few things from the office."
His expression shifted just slightly.
"The office."
"My accounting certificates are in the filing cabinet.
I need them." She kept her voice even.
"I've been thinking about going back to work after the placement ends.
I'll need my credentials."
"You don't need to work, Nora."
"I want to."
He studied her.
The glass of water turned slowly in his hand.
"We should talk first," he said.
"Sit down.
I'll make coffee."
"I don't need coffee.
I just need ten minutes in the office and then we can talk as long as you want."
A pause.
Long enough that she felt it in her chest.
Then he stepped back and gestured down the hall.
"Fine.
Ten minutes."
She walked to the office.
She heard him follow her to the hallway and stop.
Watching.
The room was exactly as she had left it.
She went to the filing cabinet first, found her certificates in the second drawer — they were genuinely there, she had genuinely needed them, that part had not been a lie — and set them on the desk.
Then she turned to the locked drawer.
The key was on a hook inside the cabinet, behind the hanging files.
She had noticed it the day she reorganized the cabinet and said nothing.
She had simply replaced everything and left the key where she found it.
She reached for it now.
"What are you doing?"
Bradley was in the doorway.
"Looking for my notarized copy of the prenuptial agreement," she said, without turning around.
"I want to have it reviewed."
Silence.
"That drawer is locked."
"I know.
I found the key." She turned to face him, key in hand.
"Is there a reason I shouldn't open it?"
Bradley's expression was very still.
The glass of water was no longer in his hand.
She didn't know when he had set it down.
"Put the key back," he said.
"Bradley —"
"Put it back, Nora." His voice had dropped.
"You don't know what you're doing."
"Then tell me what I'm doing."
He crossed the room in four steps.
His hand closed around her wrist — not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to stop her.
"You've been talking to Delia Vance," he said.
"Let go of my wrist."
He didn't.
"How much has she told you?
How much of her version of events has she fed you in that little house in Flagstaff?" His grip tightened slightly.
"She's been trying to destroy this family for two years.
She's using you, Nora.
That's all this is."
"Let go of my wrist," she said again.
Quietly.
Clearly.
He released her.
She set the key on the desk between them.
"I'm not staying," she said.
"I came for my certificates.
I have them." She picked up the folder.
"Your attorney can contact the agency about the abandonment filing.
That's between you and them."
She walked to the door.
"If you leave this house right now," Bradley said behind her, "I will make sure the agency investigation goes in a direction you won't like.
I have connections there.
I've already made one call."
She stopped.
Turned.
"You made a call to the agency," she said slowly.
"I did."
"To do what, exactly?"
"To flag certain concerns about your mental stability.
Stress of the placement.
Erratic behavior.
The kind of thing that voids a contract." He picked up the key from the desk.
"Come home, Nora.
This ends here, quietly, and nobody gets hurt."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"You just told me you called the agency to report false concerns about my mental health," she said.
"In your own home.
With your own security system recording."
May you like
Bradley went very still.
She walked out.
