Chapter 23: For the Record

Posy cleared her throat and began the last scene of the book.

"Tilda," she said, in a gentle, rehearsed voice. "You have lost everything tonight. Your family, your name, even him."

"Not yet," I said.

"You were never loved. You only wanted to be." Her eyes shone.

"So you're going to walk to the end of the pier, and look at the water, and take one step back."

Behind her, the first rocket went up from the barge with a long thin whistle.

Two hundred people turned to look at the sky.

Nobody was looking at us except the ones who had come closest, along the rail.

Quincy was twenty feet away, standing very still beside my grandmother's folding chair.

"Before I do that," I said, "I need to ask you a few things for the file."

Posy blinked. "The file?"

"It won't take long. It's a short form."

I turned to the microphone.

I did not pick it up. I leaned toward it.

I spoke in the flat voice I had used for eight years on the telephone with people who wanted to be paid.

"Please state your name for the record."

"Posy Linden." She said it without hesitation, because it was a question, and she liked to answer. "Twenty-four."

The red light on the stand glowed.

Her voice came out of the speakers along both rails, clear and warm.

Every head on the pier began to turn.

"Ms. Linden, did any of this autumn's accidents happen by themselves?"

"No. Not one." Posy glanced at me apologetically. "I did say I was sorry."

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