Chapter 23: The One Question

The visiting room at the women's prison had twelve stools bolted to the floor.

Caleb sat on the seventh one, in front of a pane of scratched glass.

He knew this room.

He had spent three years on the other side of one like it, and his hands knew where to rest on the shelf.

A door buzzed, and Chantal came in wearing tan.

Her hair was cut short, and she had a bruise on her cheekbone, yellow at the edges.

She sat and picked up the phone.

"You came," she said.

"Bernard said you wouldn't beg."

"I won't." Her voice was steady.

"I only asked you here to ask one question, and to hear you ask me one."

"What question?"

"The one you didn't ask in the hospital corridor, before the trial." She leaned toward the glass.

"I think it's the only thing I still owe you, and I'd like to pay it."

He said nothing for a moment.

Then he asked it.

"Why me?"

"Because you'd have walked into fire for me," she said.

"I knew it. Desmond knew it. And I was the one who struck the match."

"That's the whole answer?"

"That's the true one. I looked for a better one for three years." She laid her palm flat on the glass.

"There isn't one."

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