Chapter 19: His Own Voice

The recording ran on, and no one in the quarry moved.

Bronco's voice came down off the white stone walls from every side.

"My forearm across her throat," it said. "It took longer than I meant."

A man in the front row took off his cap.

Another put his hand over his mouth.

On the rock, Bronco stood frozen in the firelight, listening to himself.

Then he lunged at the sound board.

Two Red Hound men caught him by the arms and held him back.

"That's not me!" he screamed. "That's a fake, they've cut it up, they put words in my mouth!"

The recording went on without him.

"I've got the shovel in the shed," said Bronco's voice. "I never could throw it away."

Someone in the dark began to cry.

It was the old woman with the cane.

The file ended on the sound of a chair scraping and a door.

Then the speakers hissed, and only the fire was left.

Ronan walked out into the circle of light.

He passed the bonfire and the line of candles and the flat stone with my father's urn on it.

He stopped in front of Cyrus.

He took the thin brown wallet out of his vest and pulled out the little photograph.

He held it out in the flat of his hand.

"This is my sister," he said.

His voice was low, but the quarry carried it to the farthest bike.

"Her name was Dina Broadbent. She was twenty-one years old. She sang in the car, and she's the reason I came to your door."

Cyrus took the photo.

His fingers shook.

"Two years ago I came to you and said she was missing," Ronan said. "You told me she'd run off. You said girls do."

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