Chapter 13: The Postcard

"Because I've lived it already," I said.

Jocelyn did not move.

The candle was out, and in the gray light from the window she looked about fifteen.

"Kitchen," Ethan said. He was already pulling on his shirt. "All of us. I'll make the tea."

Nobody argued with him, which was how I knew how frightened we were.

The grandmother's kitchen smelled of coffee grounds and old wood.

Jocelyn sat at the table with her clutch bag in her lap and both hands flat on top of it.

I told her what I had told Ethan, in half the words, and I did not stop for her face.

When I finished, the kettle was whistling and nobody had touched it.

"That is a very elaborate way to know about a cellist," Jocelyn said.

Her voice was steady, and her hands were not.

"I knew about the cellist before Romy ever heard you on the phone," I said. "And I knew about a postcard."

"What postcard?"

"Six weeks after the fire, one came to me with no name on it. A drawing of a peach tree."

She stared at me.

"On the back it said, 'If he finds me he'll never let me go. Please.'"

Ethan took the kettle off the stove and set it down very quietly.

Jocelyn opened the clutch.

She took out a postcard, faceup, and turned it over on the table between us.

It was a peach tree in black ink, with every branch bent the way she always bent them.

On the back, in her handwriting, was every word I had just said.

"I wrote it last Tuesday," Jocelyn said. "I haven't shown it to a soul. I wasn't even sure I'd mail it."

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