The Wife They Burned novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: Thanksgiving

"I haven't told you what I know," I said. "So how do you know it's about Fallon?"

Marshall opened his mouth.

He closed it again.

His lawyer coughed into his fist and started stacking papers.

I walked out and let the door swing shut on both of them.

In the elevator, my lawyer stood beside me with her bag clutched to her chest.

"I've done this for twenty years," she said, watching the floor numbers. "That man just told you something."

"I know."

"Do you want to tell me what?"

"Not yet."

She nodded, as if that were a perfectly good answer.

"Then I'll bill you for the parking," she said.

Thanksgiving came nine days later.

Lantern House had never closed for a holiday, because kids don't stop being sick on Thursdays.

Most years half the families spent it on the cardiac floor with vending machine pie.

This year the hospital sent over a turkey the size of a carry-on bag.

Joy took it as a personal challenge.

She started the stuffing on Wednesday night and wouldn't let anybody into the kitchen.

By Thursday at noon the whole house smelled like butter and sage.

The new night man, the guard from Highmoor, came in on his day off with three pies his wife had made.

"Pumpkin, apple and something she won't explain," he said.

At two o'clock a red pickup parked out front.

Abel came up the walk with Sarge and a foil pan of something.

He was wearing a sweater.

It was a brown sweater, and it was too small, and somebody had clearly told him it was a holiday.

"I brought rolls," he said, at the door. "Store-bought. I want that on the record."

"Noted."

He looked at my face for a second longer than he needed to.

Since the night in the truck, he'd come by every day around six, with the dog, and stayed for dinner.

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