Chapter 20: Eve

On Wednesday night, October 21, a week to the day after we sat at that kitchen table, there was nothing left to build.

Oz had a stagehand's vest folded on a chair with his name misspelled on it.

The stranger inside Meridian had sent two more messages, and both of them checked out.

Yvette lay on the couch in the front room with her back to us and her eyes open.

I could tell, because I walked past three times.

At ten o'clock I went into the narrow back room.

Jonas sat on the edge of the quilt with a legal pad on his knees.

He had written on it in pencil, line after line, and crossed most of it out.

"What is that?" I said.

"What I'll say tomorrow. I keep getting it wrong."

"Read me one line."

He looked at the paper.

"I'll stand in front of the families and say that I wrote it."

"Then I'll go to the detective and give him the whole archive. I won't ask for a lawyer."

"You will have a lawyer."

"Melinda."

"You're not making that decision for me," I said.

"If you walk in there with your hands out and no lawyer, I'm the one who has to watch."

He put the pencil down.

"Then you decide."

"I haven't."

"I know."

"I mean I haven't decided anything about you, and I don't know when I will. But I don't want you walking in there already sentenced."

He closed his eyes.

"That's more than I deserve."

"We've covered what you deserve."

I shut the door behind me, and the latch clicked.

I took the legal pad out of his hands and put it on the floor.

He watched me do it.

His eyes were darker than gray in that room, soft and wary and hungry.

"I'm not here because of what I have to do," I said. "I'm choosing something else."

I stood in front of him and took off my sweater.

My hands weren't shaking this time.

"Don't move," he said, very quietly.

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