One day, Roslyn walked north and then west to a pleasant, tree-lined neighborhood. She wandered its streets up and down in a slow zigzag. It wasn’t like the neighborhood where the Heydales lived. This one was more modest—a place where any normal person could have a very fine life. She lingered into the evening and when she got hungry, she found a restaurant both casual enough for eating alone and nice enough that a woman by herself would not be harassed. She sat at a table near the back of the room, ate the evening’s special—a hearty stew with fresh bread—and found it excellent.
It wasn’t until the end of her meal that she became aware of a certain pull on her attention. There was something flitting at the edges of Roslyn’s consciousness as she finished her last bites of food. It was as though she were having a vision. Though this vision was not of the future. It was of the present, right there in that very room with her.
It was a person. A man. He was somewhere behind her in the room. She could see his face without turning to look, and it was unfamiliar to her. They hadn’t met before, but she knew him. His relevance to her, and to her current situation there in Portland, was clear. The more her mind was drawn to him, the more certain she felt of this. It seemed absurd for them to be in the same place at the same time. Absurd, or fated. He was not someone she ever would have thought to seek out. But now that he was here, she was excited.
She looked and found the man who had appeared in her mind, just where she knew he would be. He was tall, young, and serious in both his clothing and demeanor. He, like Roslyn, was dining alone, though his meal was more elaborate than the stew, his plate piled with meat and potatoes, along with a bottle of wine. She wondered if he was celebrating something.
Roslyn paid her bill and continued to watch him. She was certain he hadn’t noticed her, or if he had, he’d taken no interest (and why would he?). For the first time since arriving in Portland, she felt emboldened, even powerful in a way. She rose and walked to his table.
“I know a man who wants to kill you,” she said, hoping to startle him.
He looked up at her and smiled, calm and pleasant as if she were the waitress coming around to ask if he’d like another drink.
“Well,” he said, “that’s a lot of men. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Mr. Barton Heydale.”
Hearing the name, the man gave a reaction, but not the one Roslyn had expected. He smiled and slapped his hand against the table.
“Heydale! Heydale’s alive? And seeking vengeance? Sit,” he said, kicking out the chair opposite him with a long leg. “Sit and tell me everything.”
So she did. She sat down at the table with the con man Quake Auchenbaucher.
She’d been wrong about him not recognizing her. Though they’d never met, he knew her right away.
“You’re Heydale’s girl, from the hotel, right?” he asked, as soon as she took her seat.
Of course he would know, she realized. Anyone who’d spent time with Barton after she left would have heard about her. Though God knew what the man had said. Regardless, this Quake Auchenbaucher knew her name. He knew where she’d lived. He knew what she’d done for a living. There was a certain relief to this. It meant Roslyn did not have to explain things about her life in Spokane Falls.
“The police thought he started the fire because of you,” he said.
Roslyn shook her head. “He didn’t start the fire. Everyone knows that now. They let him go after they figured out who you really were.”
“After everyone figured out who I really wasn’t,” Quake corrected.
“His house was burned in retaliation.”
“A steep price to pay for not starting a fire.”
“Indeed. Which is why he has vowed revenge,” Roslyn said, leaving out the part about Barton also seeking revenge on his father and then seeming to forget Quake entirely.
“I’m certain he did. But the Barton Heydale I saw last could barely vow to buckle his own belt. I’m not worried.”
“Maybe you should be. He’s here in Portland.”
A glint of uncertainty crossed the con man’s face. “Is he, now?” he asked.
This pleased Roslyn. It was the response she’d hoped for in the first place, though she lacked the guile to keep up the ruse.
“Yes,” she said. “But he’s not really after you. He’s convalescing with his mother. He’s quite unwell.”
“And you know this because you’ve been in touch with him?”
“I helped him get here,” Roslyn said. “I traveled with him from Spokane Falls.”
“Well, isn’t that something.” A statement, not a question. Wasn’t it something indeed, what she had done? Even this man she’d only just met could see as much. They were both silent for a moment.
“Would you like a drink?” Quake asked, gesturing to the bottle on the table.
There was, suddenly and absolutely, nothing Roslyn wanted more in the world than to share a drink with an interesting stranger. She could already feel the warmth of it in her throat, washing away all her loneliness, her insecurity, her guilt.
“No, thank you,” she said. “Maybe just some water.”
Quake signaled to a waiter for a tumbler. He poured water from his own carafe. She thanked him again and took a sip, eyeing his wine.
“As I understand it, you stole a lot of money from the bank in Spokane Falls,” she said.
“As I understand it, so did you,” he replied. “Cheers to that.” He raised his glass and knocked it against hers.
“But really it was Barton who stole the money from the bank,” she said. “I stole it from him. That’s much easier.”
“Well, I suppose I did the same,” Quake said. “But in reverse. So, cheers to Heydale—the bank robber’s best helper!”
Another tapping of glasses.
“Isn’t it bad luck to cheers with water?” Roslyn asked.
“Only if you’re someone who’s inherently thinking of bad luck.” Roslyn felt he’d hit the nail on the head, though they’d known each other only a few moments. “Isn’t a cheers by its very nature good luck? Let’s just enjoy the good.”
“What do you mean when you say ‘in reverse’?”
“Heydale stole by giving out counterfeit notes of sorts, then pocketing the real money. So I stole by claiming that what was left in the bank after he’d been caught was counterfeit as well, and saying I needed to confiscate it for evidence of his crime.”
Roslyn hadn’t known this—about how Barton had been getting the money out of the bank. Only that the money from the bank hidden in the walls of his house represented an opportunity, which she had taken.
“Trusting of you to admit,” she said. “What makes you think I’m not an undercover agent of the Spokane Falls police, come to extract a confession from you?”
“Because I’ve spent time with the Spokane Falls police and I happen to know you are far too smart to be one of them. And too good-looking.”
It had been a long time since anyone besides Barton told Roslyn she was good-looking. She doubted Quake meant it, but she felt herself blush nonetheless.
“In fact, I think you’re the first decent person from Spokane Falls I’ve ever met,” he added. This, to Roslyn, felt more sincere. Though how would he know her to be decent? Perhaps he only wished it to be the case. Perhaps he was lonely, like she was, and wanting to trust.
He was still talking. Spokane Falls remained the topic.
“It really is an awful city,” he said. “I’ve traveled quite a bit and I can’t think of any place I’ve found more unpleasant.”
“Well, it was just on fire,” Roslyn said.
“Yes, but even before that.”
The people he disdained, he said. But also the way the city was situated, with its downtown all scrunched up between the river and a hill. It gave the whole place a claustrophobic feel. Then there was the heat and the dust. The way the air sat stale in the valley. How he couldn’t tell the liars from the honest men, and was therefore forced to assume everyone was always lying.
“I liked it,” Roslyn said after a while. “I thought it was a fine place to live.”
“To each their own.” Quake gestured for another cheers, but his glass was empty. He called for another bottle of wine.
“Well, you surely love Portland indeed, to risk coming back here,” Roslyn said.
“What risk?”
“Everyone in Spokane Falls knows you’re here. Quake Auchenbaucher from Portland, Oregon.”
“Right. So it’s the one place they’re certain I won’t be.”
“How’s that?”
“Because I told them I lived and worked in Portland. And since I lied to them about everything else, I must have lied to them about that too.”
Though she knew who he was and what he’d done, this was the first thing he’d said that really made her think him a criminal.
“There. You know all my secrets,” Quake said with a wink. “So now I get to ask you a personal question. Why on earth would you go back to Heydale after you stole from him? Do you love him?”
Roslyn laughed. The fun of talking to Quake, and his bravado in the face of all things Barton, made her feel far removed from the man himself. As if her life with him had belonged to someone else entirely. No, she said. She didn’t love him. She didn’t even like him.
“I wanted to do something good,” she said.
“Why?” Quake asked.
“I think I’ve always wanted to do something good. This seemed like it might be the thing, helping Barton.”
“But it wasn’t,” Quake said.
No, Roslyn agreed. It wasn’t.