Chapter 10: What Toby Saw

Orin's POV

I did not sleep.

I lay on the cot in the back office and listened to the rain drip off the roof.

Every time I closed my eyes I tasted her.

At five I gave up and went to the control room.

I knew what I was going to watch. I had watched it a dozen times already.

The Yard, Friday night, four minutes after the Hole door sealed.

Darius and Lyla in the middle of the floor, wrapped up in each other.

Toby against the far wall.

I had been looking at the wrong two people.

I dragged the timeline back to the first minute, zoomed on the corner, and let it play at half speed.

Toby watched the monitor on the wall, the one that showed the Hole.

At 1:40 she was on her knees in the dark with her mouth open.

The Yard speakers carried a noise I will not forget.

Toby took his hands out of his pockets.

At 2:10 he stepped toward the keypad. At 2:30 his thumb lifted over the numbers.

At 3:10 Lyla turned from Darius's mouth, saw him, and put her hand flat on his chest.

She shook her head once, small and sweet.

Toby stood there with his hand on the keypad and his face wet.

Then he put his hand back in his pocket.

I stopped the picture and sat looking at it for a long time.

At eight I drove to Keane Hardware on the north side.

It was an old brick store with a hand-painted sign. Toby stood behind the register in an apron, ringing up a man with a bucket of nails.

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