Chapter 21: The Truck Under the Tarp

Emmett's POV

From fourteen floors up I watched Jessamine cross the plaza in my jacket, with her hair down.

Sienna stood under the lamp at the edge of the light with a cardboard box in her arms.

I couldn't hear them.

Jessamine stopped an arm's length away and said something short.

Sienna nodded, set the box on the pavement, and walked to the corner without once looking back.

My whole body wanted to go down and ask what had been said.

I stayed at the window.

When Jessamine came back up with the box on her hip, she set it on the desk.

"Desk things," she said. "I'll open it tomorrow."

I didn't ask.

She looked at me, and I saw that she had noticed that I hadn't.

"Good," she said, and went to wash her face.

On Thursday I drove to Findlay by myself.

I had told Jessamine where I was going, and when, and that I'd call from the lot before I touched anything.

A For Lease sign hung in the window of the hardware store.

Behind it, between a dumpster and a chain-link fence, stood a long shape under a green tarp.

I called her from the gravel.

"I'm here," I said. "There's a truck."

I heard her breathe in.

"Can you lift the corner?" she said.

"May I?"

"Yes."

I pulled the tarp back off the cab, and a cloud of dust came up and settled.

It was an old green Ford pickup with a dent in the tailgate and a bumper sticker for a feed store that had closed.