Terry downs the espresso shot in one swallow, shivers, and circles the bar. He removes his apron and folds it as he walks, tucking it in the back pocket of his khakis before he slides into the booth across from Nelle and James.
Her heart pounds as James sticks out his hand. “Hi, I’m James Finch, and this is my, uh, associate, Nelle ... Finch.”
She blushes.What’s the implication there?she wants to ask.That we’re siblings, cousins, or married?
Terry lifts a dust-red brow, his eyes like blue lagoons. “Young for reporters.”
An observation, not a question.
“We’re actually aspiring reporters,” James says. “Wallace was my distant cousin. When I heard about his passing, I took it upon myself to write his obituary, seeing as he has no immediate family.”
“Ah, yes,” Terry kneads his hands on the table. Nelle’s chest seizes ... is he going to buy it?
“I was sad to hear about his passing. It’s been so long since he was in the media. I heard about what happened to his wife and daughter all those years ago, though. Tragic stuff.”
Nelle tenses. She pulls a miniature yellow legal pad and a normal pen from her coat pocket, ready to take notes, to distract herself from thinking about Quill and the lovely family he had before she came around. The daughter he devoted his life to doting over.
“He wrote one hell of a book, though,” Terry says.
James clears his throat. “I want to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right. Whatever you remember about Quill—Wallace.”
Terry blinks at the quick turn of the conversation. Even Nelle is taken aback. Of course they want answers from Terry, but he won’t give them valuable information if he is uncomfortable with them. She places a hand on James’s thigh, smooths it down to his knee, a signal she hopes conveys,Chill out.
Advice she should probably take herself. Her hummingbird heart hasn’t stopped since they left the hotel this morning.
James sweeps in, “Sorry for my curtness. It’s only that, well, the paper printing his obituary wants it done as soon as possible.”
Terry shrugs. “Sure, I get it. Deadlines.”
The waitress returns, and Nelle lifts up her head, hoping to quench the grumble in her stomach.
But Terry waves her away. “No time for food, they’re in a hurry. Three coffees should suffice.”
Nelle’s shoulders sag. Her stomach might start eating itself soon, but at least she will get coffee.
“Ask away,” Terry says.
She poises to take notes.
“How did you know Quill?” James asks.
“We were boys together.” Terry’s voice scratches like sandpaper.
“Where?”
“Scourie,” Terry says in a tone indicating that James should already know that.
Nelle scribbles on the legal pad to disguise her nerves as the drinks arrive in red mugs, the same bright scarlet as her coat.
“Oh right, you’re from Wallace’s dad’s side,” Terry says. “American. Scourie is this little village on the northwest coast. We went to school together as lads. Wallace was my only friend, really.”
“How much time did you two spend together?”
“Every afternoon we’d swim in the pond behind his house, play with the animals, climb trees. Anything to pass the time after school. Quill was always reading, though I didn’t care for books much, or learning at all, to be honest, so he didn’t really read much around me.”
“You went to his house a lot?”
Nelle stiffens.This is it.
