He was staring at a knot in the wood.
He looked five years older than the last time she’d seen him.
“Grace,” he said, but he didn’t look up to meet her eyes.
“You look defeated,” she said. “Don’t you dare give up on me now.”
“Give up onyou?” he said, with the faintest hint of spark. “Never.”
She slapped the newspaper down on the table and sent it across to him.
“Have you seen this?”
“I haven’t received my daily newspaper delivery, no. Nor my room service tray this morning, either. I’ll have to speak to the manager.”
“But your daily attitude quotient has been quite filled, I see,” she said, turning the newspaper to the second page. It revived her a little, to see that the ember of him hadn’t completely gone out.
She pointed to the headline:
BODY DISCOVERED IN THE MISSISSIPPI
“Great. Another death. Are they going to try to pin this one on me, too?”
“Considering that it happened just last night, I doubt it.”
“What does this have to do with me?” he asked.
“The deceased is the man who threatened Harriet at the restaurant the night you went to the hospital with Earnest.” She tapped the accompanying image. “Do you recognize him?”
“No,” Oliver said. His brow crumpled. “I’ve never seen him before. I have no idea what he wanted with Harriet.”
She snuck a look at the guard, who was watching them closely.
“Not that I want to rejoice in the death of a human being, but”—she lowered her voice—“this could be good news for you. It could be over now, right?” she said hopefully. “Maybe they’ll find some evidence that connects him to Harriet’s murder.”
Oliver shook his head. He suddenly seemed far away again. “Sometimes my mind gets to me in here. I find myself wondering, did she ever even love me? Was I nothing but a mark to her?”
“She loved you,” Grace said. “I saw her diary. And there is not a doubt in my mind, she really did love you.”
She reached out for his hand, ignoring the guard, and squeezed it fiercely. And at her touch, Oliver—her carefree, charismatic cousin—broke down and cried.
She sat with him, holding his hand, until his sobs were spent. Neither of them put on a falsely brave face or offered platitudes. They sat with the heaviness together, and that seemed to lessen its power.
She wasn’t certain how much time had passed when the air shifted, and she knew it was safe to speak again.
“I have to go. But there’s another question for you to consider,” Grace said. “I need you to be very honest with me. What do you think of Theodore Parker?”
Oliver opened his palms in surrender. “I admittedly haven’t known him for that long, but I’ve always liked him. Since that first night when he stepped in to help you with that aggressor. He’s guarded and a bit standoffish, but he has a lot of integrity.”
But you didn’t see the other sides of him, Grace thought.The sides that disparaged me so harshly. That lied and went into the Tunnels.
The coin that kept turning to show different faces.
How many sides did Theodore Parker have?
She was still pondering that when she said goodbye to Oliver and stepped out into the evening air.
She wanted to talk to Sam Whitcomb at the publishing office, but it was now too late in the day. She was curious what he thought. If he had heard any outside gossip about the dead man. If his own sources thought it was an accident or murder.
