Chapter 13: Orin

I held the phone out to Cade in the dark, and he read the slip by its light.

The pharmacy printed the date at the bottom, and it was Tuesday of this week.

"She took it at Theron's," I said. "Then she went to the Marlowe in the gray cardigan."

"Yes."

"And on Thursday she told my brother."

I knew that part already, because my mother had texted me a row of happy faces on Thursday night and nothing else.

Cade put his hand flat on my back and said nothing, and for once I wanted that.

At seven the next morning we parked outside the lumberyard where Orin had worked for eleven years.

He was loading a customer's pickup with two-by-fours, in a flannel shirt with the sleeves pushed up.

"I'll wait here," Cade said.

"You'll make him angry."

"That's why I'll wait here."

I got out with my phone in my fist.

Orin saw me coming and set the board down.

"I told you I'd forget it," he said. "I'm trying, Ciara."

"I know. I'm not here about the cardigan."

I held the phone up and showed him the photo.

A positive test lay on a bathroom tile, and beside it sat a white pharmacy slip with a name printed on it.

He read the name once.

He read it again, and his big round face went the color of the sawdust on his boots.

"Where did you get this?"

"Brynn found it in the bin at Theron's apartment last night. The woman from the videos. She isn't who we thought she was, Orin. She was the decoy."

"A decoy for what?"

"For Shelley."

He turned and walked three steps away and put both hands on the tailgate of the pickup.

I let him stand there.

A forklift beeped in the yard, and somebody laughed by the office.

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