43
Maybe Violet should be crying like Belinda, whose weeping overflowed from the dining room. Chuck had shepherded her in there when she looked ready to fold over. But instead of sorrow, a numbness spread from the center of Violet, stretching toward her toes and fingers. They killed him. She angled a glance at Lee, who still stood framed by the bay window. Fingers laced behind her back. Poised like a sculpture.
“Lee?” If anyone should be crying …
Lee pivoted toward her, stiff but dry-eyed. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I know you … I mean, obviously, he was your friend.” At the very least.
“Thank you.”
“Is Belinda … Will she be …?” Okay was a stupid word to use in this situation.
“He made her dining-room set.”
The sturdy table, the carved chair backs. Violet tried to picture the time and care required for a project like that.
He was really gone? None of them would see him again?
“Lee, maybe she’s right. Maybe Marcus got away.”
“I can’t logically account for his silence in that case.”
“Well, what if he got hurt somehow and he’s in the hospital right now?”
“The Constabulary thought of this. According to my contact, only one patient admitted in the last day has matched his description. It was not him.”
“Okay, so maybe he—”
Khloe skidded into the room and froze. “What in the world? What’s wrong with Belinda? Did somebody die or something?”
“Yeah,” Violet said. “Marcus.”
“Wh-what? How did … What—just now?”
“Today, yeah. They arrested him and then they killed him.”
The words sank in at last, through layers of denial. Images burned in front of her eyes even when she shut them, the different ways they might have killed him, his eyes open and glazed. Her stomach churned.
“But …” Khloe plopped down on the kitchen rug. “He’s dead? He’s actually dead?”
Lee swept past her and headed for the front door.
Violet trailed her down the hallway and ignored Khloe’s quavering “Violet?”
Lee stood before the open front door. Rain poured now, pelted, the kind of drops that punched ricochet marks in the dirt. It poured down one side of the porch awning with a waterfall sound that mingled with the storm of Belinda’s crying.
“Um, Lee.”
No movement, no response.
Violet stooped and picked up the Bible, fallen to the floor next to her mostly empty duffel bag. She stepped around the mound of clothes, stayed to one side of Lee and held out the book.
“Here. This isn’t mine. He—he would want you to have it.”
Lee spoke to the rain. “He gave it to you.”
“But he didn’t know this would—”
She blinked once, slowly.
Nothing Violet said was helping. Good grief, nothing anybody said would help right now. From the dining room, Belinda quieted. Violet held the Bible out to Lee again, and not only because it belonged to Marcus.
“I think you should read it.”
The mask rippled. Lee half turned. “You have experienced a conversion.”
“I … well, I’ve been reading. I started in Matthew. I got to Acts.”
“You are a Christian.”
“What? No, I … I mean, I’m …” Her breath caught on a searing in her chest. It wasn’t a government label. It was what the true followers labeled themselves. So, if she was following the true Jesus, then … “Okay, yeah. I guess I’m a Christian.”
Past the porch, tires ground on gravel. Violet ducked from the doorway, but Lee stood still. Violet reached for her hand and tugged her out of the way. Lee jerked her hand back, eyes sparking with some emotion that she quenched before Violet could name it.
“What if it’s con-cops, Lee, what do we do?”
“It isn’t.”
Violet peered around the doorway. A red Jeep came to a halt halfway up the drive. Clay stepped out and traipsed through the rain, up to the house. He didn’t look as tall as he had a week ago. His eyes landed on her, and he broke into that rolling lope, up the steps, right into the house. He lifted her off the floor in a strong hug that smelled like soap and tasted like tears. Her tears.