The Mole in His Bed novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Landing

Cora's POV

Neil moved before the hinges stopped groaning.

He pulled me up off the cot by my good arm, put me behind the mudroom door, and shut it to an inch.

"Don't come out," he whispered.

"I'm not hiding in a closet from her."

"Then don't come out yet."

Through the gap I saw him pick his gun off the counter and set it in the bread box.

I saw his face go warm and tired, the face he had worn on the boat.

"Neil?" Paula called from the hall. "Why is every light on?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"The studio let us out early. They wanted another take of me crying, and I gave them one."

I heard her coat slide onto a hook, and her limp on the floorboards, one step heavy and one light.

She didn't come into the kitchen.

She went up the stairs, and stopped on the landing, where the window looks out over the back steps.

"Somebody moved the brick," she said.

Neil said nothing.

"The loose one by the door. I put a dab of paint on it Tuesday. It's gone."

I had been afraid of many people in five years, and never of one standing on my own stairs.

"Cora," Paula said, pleasantly, from the landing. "Come out. I can smell the rain on your coat from here."

I looked at Neil.

He looked at the mudroom door, and then he did something I had not seen him do in five years.

He took his wedding ring off, the one Paula had given him, and laid it on the kitchen table.

"Paula Crowe," he said.

It was the first time he had said the name flat, with nothing soft in it.

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