The Mole in His Bed novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Dawn at the Wall

The Pier Nine wall is a long strip of black granite with a hundred and twelve names cut into it.

At dawn it was wet with fog, and the white folding chairs for the families stood in rows with no one in them.

I walked down the center aisle alone with the gray envelope in one hand and Crane's drive in the other.

Neil had left me at the gate ten minutes earlier, and I did not know where he was now.

I had not asked.

Paula stood under the flagpole in a tan raincoat, with her hands in her pockets.

Beside her, in a folding chair, my mother sat with her cardigan buttoned wrong and her feet together.

A rope was looped loosely around her wrists.

"Cora," Winnie said. "You're late."

"I'm sorry, Mom."

"Don't talk to her," said Paula. "Put the pages on the ground and step back."

I knelt, and set the envelope on the wet gravel.

The drive went on top of it.

"Now the rest of you," Paula said, to the empty air behind me. "Whoever's standing with her. I'd like to see your hands."

Nothing moved.

"No? That's all right."

She lifted her chin at the roof of a container stack at the end of the pier.

A rifle barrel was resting on the edge of it, black against the fog, aimed at my chest.

"That's the man from the fire escape," she said. "He missed your mother's window, but he's a very good shot at three hundred yards."

"You have the pages."

"I'd like them in my hand."

I started to rise.

"Cora," Winnie said sharply. "Don't you give her anything until she cuts this rope."

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