Chapter 7: Careful, Lacey

"What we made me is leaving," I told Howard.

He stood aside, because the housekeeper had come around the corner with a tray and was pretending not to see us.

I went out through the kitchen and down the side ramp.

Conroy was already in the van with the lift down.

I stepped on beside him, and this time I held the rail.

"You took a long time," he said.

"Howard said something."

"What?"

"The same thing he has told me for twenty-four years, in a nicer voice."

The lift rose and stopped.

Conroy rolled into the van and turned the chair to face me.

His face did not change, but his hand tightened on the stick.

"He will pay for that," he said.

"You don't have to say things like that."

"I know I don't."

The driver pulled out of the drive without being told.

I leaned back on the bench.

My hands were shaking, so I put them between my knees.

Conroy looked at the hands and then out the window, and let me have the quiet.

The drive back across the river took forty minutes.

When we stopped on Marl Street, the side door slid open, and the lift motor made a harsh grinding noise and quit.

The platform sat there, a foot off the ground, with Conroy on it.

The driver got out and tried the switch.

"Dead," he said. "The relay. I can crank it down, Mr. Weatherford, but it'll take two people."

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