Chapter 16: The Line

Leona's POV

The man who did Ruth's taxes drove like a man who did taxes.

He kept to the limit through every yellow light, and Ruth told him twice that the church would be finished before we reached it.

"I'm not risking a ticket on today of all days," he said.

"Then pull over at the line," I said. "I'll count the last block on foot."

Ruth had introduced him that morning as "my accountant, who is also an attorney," and then changed the subject.

He turned out to be a good lawyer.

In the back seat I put on my navy dress from the brownstone, which Ruth had folded into a tote bag at five in the morning, after the police left.

She had also packed my mother's second pair of earrings, the small gold ones Hugh had never bothered to take.

I put them on with shaking hands and looked into the dark window.

A woman looked back, pale, in an old coat, with her hair a wreck.

She looked like someone the family chat would have enjoyed.

"Fix your collar," Ruth said.

I fixed it.

On the map on my phone the blue dot crept toward the circle I had drawn around the church.

Four blocks.

Two.

"Stop here," I said.

The lawyer pulled up to the curb on Beacon Street.

The dot sat exactly on the edge of the circle.

I zoomed in until I was sure we were a car length short of it.

"You could have gone another car length," Ruth said.

"I'm not crossing it."

"I know, dear. I'm teasing."

I took the photo and sent it to Ansel.

Then I got out and stood on the pavement with my hands in my pockets, and the autumn wind pushed my hair across my face.

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