Chapter 24: Egged

I watched it three times on the edge of the bed, with Cormac watching over my shoulder.

"I said that," I said.

"I know."

"I said all of it. Just not in that order."

I knew the day.

The second Saturday in December, a weekend at the house.

I'd been warming Margo's bottle, with the housekeeper at the sink and my phone face up by the fruit bowl, recording.

Valerie had leaned on the island. "Tell me again what your voice says, Clem. I forget."

I found the recording and played it out loud.

My voice. "It says this house burns on April 9. With everybody inside."

The bottle warmer clicking.

"So I'll make sure Margo isn't in it. And I'll make sure your son isn't either. Whatever you think of me, he's her brother."

Cormac's jaw tightened.

"She cut it after 'make sure,'" he said.

"She cut it after 'make sure.'"

My lawyer called at eight.

"Do not post anything," she said. "Send me your file and let me take it to the judge first."

"People think I'm going to burn a house down with my baby inside."

"People think a lot of things. Judges think about evidence." She sighed. "I'm in Vermont until Saturday. Hold on until Saturday."

I held on.

On Friday morning I walked down Bunker Hill Street at four to light the oven.

The front window was covered in egg.

Dozens of them, cracked and running down the glass, yolk frozen in the cold, shells stuck to the PIE SATURDAY sign.

Somebody had pressed a sheet of paper against the door with egg for glue.

ARSONIST.

I stood on the sidewalk in the dark and looked at it.

Then I unlocked the door and went in and lit the oven anyway, because the dough didn't know.

At seven I turned the sign to OPEN.

Nobody came.

At nine the woman who usually bought two croissants for her office crossed the street to the other side.