Chapter 19: Christmas Eve at the Bakery

Melanie's POV

The baker put the long tables out in the middle of Main Street every Christmas Eve, end to end, under strings of colored lights.

Every family in Port Ansel brought a dish.

There was snow on the ground and a barrel fire at each end, and the smell of fried fish and cinnamon drifted all the way to the lake.

Trudy stood at the head of the first table in her good wool suit with a ladle in her hand.

"She's late," she said.

"She said six."

"It's ten past."

"Maybe she's not coming."

"She's coming." Trudy ladled chowder into a bowl. "That kind never doesn't. She'll want her hat to be straight."

Cameron stood beside me with a plate in each hand.

He had told me about Squirrel Hill the night he came back.

Two days after he told me, I had gone to Trudy in the kitchen and asked her.

"She wants to say it to your face," I said. "In front of the town. It's your decision."

Trudy had snorted.

"If she doesn't say it loud enough," she said, "I'll make her say it again."

At twenty past six the black car came slowly down Main Street.

Odette got out of the back seat by herself.

She wore the black coat and a small hat and carried the cane.

She did not have the thin man or a driver or a folder.

Conversation stopped table by table as she walked down the middle of the street.

There were a hundred and fifty people there, and every one of them knew who she was.

She stopped in front of Trudy.

For a moment nobody said anything.

The barrel fire popped.

"Mrs. Brannigan," said Odette.

"Mrs. Draycott."

"I have come to speak to you."

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