Chapter 18: Finals

On Saturday night the lobby of the Rialto was so crowded that people stood on the stairs.

They were the same faces, the same coats, the same smell of popcorn and wet wool.

They parted for me as I came through the doors.

Nobody said anything.

A woman near the ticket table touched my sleeve.

It was the woman who had said Linus and Imogen could pass for aunt and nephew.

"Mrs. Winslow," she whispered. "I laughed that night. I've thought about it every day since."

"I know," I said. "Sit near the front tonight. I want you to see all of it."

Her eyes filled, and she nodded.

Hattie had dressed me herself, in a green silk dress from the costume trunk in the carriage house.

It was cut low at the left side, because she had said the scars should have their own seat.

Abel walked me down the aisle to the front row and stopped at the end of it.

"I'll be in the back," he said. "Same chair as last time."

"Because it worked."

"Because it's near the door, and I'm a creature of habit."

He touched my hand, once, and went.

In the booth above the balcony, Hattie sat beside the lighting man in her silver braid, with a thumb drive in her handbag.

She had buried that man's mother in March, and she had brought him a casserole.

He had said he'd rather not know what was on the drive.

She had said that was a sound instinct, and that he'd know when to press the button.

I sat down in Row A, Seat 1.

On my left, in Seat 2, sat the chief of police, in a pressed uniform with his hat on his knee.

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