Samuel agrees, but that doesn’t change anything. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’d like to help, but there ain’t one Negro in this town who doesn’t have a story every bit as sad as yours.”
Gilbert knows when he’s lost, and he prides himself on taking his licks like a man. But there’s something about walking out of that barn, no closer to getting Cecily out of harm’s way. He just can’t do it.
He feels for the pouch in his pocket, tells himself that Mrs. Johnston’splan to buy Sara’s freedom will work, and that all he’s doing—by parting with this money—is putting off his own eventual purchase. “I’ll pay for it,” he tells Samuel. “But all I got is seventy-three dollars, and she has to be moved tonight.”
Samuel eyes the money. “Why the rush?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Got anything to do with those flyers I’m seeing all over town?”
“Elliott Price is convinced she’s alive.”
Samuel smiles. “Sounds like he ain’t wrong.”
JACK
Jack has spent the betterpart of two hours looking for Mr. Green, when he finally discovers him in the taproom of The Swan.
He sits at the bar, in the same clothes he wore to the performance, but everything else about him—from the slump of his shoulders to the vacant expression on his face—looks so unfamiliar that Jack could easily have walked right past him.
Jack taps him on the shoulder, and Green nearly jumps off his stool. “Oh, it’s you,” he says before turning back to the tankard of ale in front of him.
“Sorry, yes.”
Green lifts the tankard to his lips and takes a swig before setting it down on the bar with an unsteady thunk.
“May I join you?” Jack asks, and Green gestures to the empty stool beside him.
“We’ve been looking for you.”
“I’m not hard to find. You’ve just got to look for the man with the hole in his heart.”
The thing with these actors, Jack has learned, is that they can’t turn it off. Even in his grief, Green is still grasping for a good line.
Jack doesn’t think he can bring up Ritchie or the inquest right away. He’s got to ease into it, or run the risk of losing Green altogether. “Is there any news about Nancy?” he asks.
Green shakes his head no.
“And Mrs. Green?”
“She’s been back and forth between the capitol and the green a hundred times. Won’t eat, won’t sleep. Won’t stop, she says, until she can identify Nancy’s remains.”
“Is that likely?” asks Jack, remembering what Anderson said about the Jews.
“Have you been over there?”
“To the site?” Jack’s too embarrassed to tell him he hasn’t been back since the first night, that he can’t bring himself to stop and really take in what it is they’ve done.
“There’s nothing to identify.”
Jack closes his eyes.
“I told Frances we can hold a memorial service in Charleston. It won’t be a proper burial, but it’ll be better than whatever they’re doing here.”
“What does she say to that?”
Green gives a disbelieving laugh. “She says that if I think she’s going back to Charleston with the man who killed her daughter, I’m a bigger fool than she thought.”
