Chapter 8: What He Knew

I did not go inside.

I stopped on the front porch, under the yellow light, and turned around.

"Say it," I said.

Wade took his hands out of his pockets.

"I saw your video on a Saturday night."

"The man at the door had his back to the camera."

"I thought he looked familiar, and I told myself it was a bad angle."

"And on Monday?"

"On Monday you said his name in the hall."

"Eight days ago," I said. "You've had eight days."

"Yes."

I crossed my arms.

"Eight days. I sat at your grandmother's table and told her about the brooch."

"I stood in your lobby and played your brother's voice while you watched from a balcony."

"Yes."

"You let me stand there."

"Yes."

"You let me walk right up to the man in your family and swear I'd never met anybody who knew him."

"I did that, too."

He did not look away from me.

That was the worst part. I had wanted him to squirm.

"Why?" I said.

He put one hand to the back of his neck.

"Because my brother lies for sport, and I didn't know what you were."

"For two days I thought maybe he had sent you."

"He did something like it once, years ago, when he wanted something from Gran."

"I took a transfer the night he left me on a staircase."

"I know. By Wednesday I knew."

He rubbed the scar on his eyebrow.

"By Wednesday I also knew you were alone in a city where you knew no one, with a zero in your account."

"If I told you I was Grant's brother, I thought you'd quit."

"And?"

"And you'd be alone again," Wade said. "I wanted you to have a job and a bed and a person who'd say good morning, before I told you."

It sounded like kindness, and the worst of it was that some of it probably was.

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