Chapter 15: The Counter

Ciara's POV

On Monday at ten to five, I walked into the Marlow Falls post office with a folded printout in my pocket.

Tobin had printed it on Sunday morning in his kitchen.

I had sat on the counter in his shirt, eating toast, while he did.

He hadn't said what he thought.

He had looked at the line of numbers and handed it to me, and he had said, "Your call."

Six people stood in the line.

Lena was at the second window, in her green scarf, weighing a package for a man in a feed-store cap.

She saw me, and her whole face lit.

"Ciara! I've been calling you since Saturday. Are you okay?

"Everybody says you walked out of the Sutcliffe house with some man."

"I did."

"Who was he?"

"Tobin. The one who holds my seat."

I stepped up to the window when the man in the cap moved off.

The line shuffled behind me.

"What can I get you?" said Lena brightly, because she was at work.

"Where were you at four fifty-two on the second of May?"

Her hand stopped on the scale.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Someone sent Westmere an email from my address that afternoon, saying I'd changed my mind."

I unfolded the paper and laid it on the counter.

"It went out on this building's guest wireless, Lena. The post office was open until five."

"Lots of people use the guest wireless."

"Lots of people have my old library password?"

She didn't answer.

A woman at the back of the line cleared her throat.

"I never gave anyone that password," I said.

"I saved it on the library laptop.

"You sat next to me that day."

Lena's eyes filled.

She was very good at it.

I had watched her do it for sixty years, at funerals and anniversaries.

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