Chapter 21: Whose Cells

Marla came back from the bus station at ten the next morning with her phone held out in front of her.

"Don't say anything," she said. "Sit down. Both of you."

Eamon was at the sink washing a mug he had already washed twice.

I had not slept.

Every time I closed my eyes I felt a door at my back and his thigh between mine.

"What is it?" I said.

"I called my friend at the Reese pack infirmary. The nurse who stitched your thumb at your wedding?"

"I remember her."

"I asked her to listen for anything about Lydia. Anything at all. She called back at six this morning."

Marla set the phone on the table.

"One of the Reese border scouts wrote it up last winter and nobody read it."

She took a breath.

"He was on the northern checkpoint. He saw a woman cross into Canada without a stop or an escort."

"Lydia," Eamon said.

He did not turn around.

"The scout didn't know her. He wrote down her face because she laughed at the guards."

"She wore a fur coat that cost more than his truck."

"Then the nurse saw the TV last night, and she pulled his notes."

I picked up the phone.

The photograph was dark and grainy, taken through a windshield.

A woman in a long cream fur coat stood on the steps of a stone lodge.

Snow fell on her golden-brown hair.

Her wide blue eyes were turned up to the man beside her, who held her arm in his.

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