Page 88 of Fate, Interrupted

“I know you loved her,” I say.

It is the truest thing I can say that is also safe.

I go through the door and pull it shut behind me.

The stairs rattle under my boots on the way down, the warehouse floor opening up around me. I walk through it without stopping, out the side door, and across the gravel lot to my truck.

I get in and close the door.

The lot is still at this hour, the day’s last deliveries done, the crew filtering toward the parking area. Someone calls something across the yard. A van engine turns over somewhere behind the building. The ordinary sounds of an operation winding toward close.

Elias’s order sits on my chest. It weighs on me precisely because Elias has spent my entire life expecting obedience.

I heard you.

Not: I’ll do it. Or: you’re right.

Just: I heard you. The minimum. The thing that gets me out of the room without a lie and without confrontation, and without saying the thing about Grace.

The lot empties around me slowly.

Somewhere in the building behind me, my father is still in his office, looking out over the yard that he built around the loss of a woman he loved completely and never fully knew. Norah is miles away in a rowhouse above a city that is becoming less safe for wolves by the week.

My mother’s life sits beside my father’s order in my head. He said she was everything to him as if loving her meant he understood everything about her.

Sorry, Dad. It doesn’t come anywhere close.

The lot is empty now. I’m staring at an order I already know how I’m handling.

Chapter twenty-three

Norah

The bell chimes as my last customer steps out, and I stay at the door a moment longer than I need to, one hand resting against the door jamb while he lingers outside on the step.

There’s always a second like this with Mr. Faber.

He pauses, as if measuring the space between staying and going. He’s been coming in on Thursdays for two years, always for something obscure, always ready to talk longer than necessary. I’ve never minded. He asks intelligent questions and actually listens to the answers. It’s rarer than it should be.

“I’ll ask around,” I tell him. “A first edition of Gulliver’s Travels doesn’t turn up often, but I know a few people who keep lists of books they’re pretending not to collect.”

He smiles at that. “You make it sound like a secret society.”

“More like a coffee klatch,” I laugh. “But it works.”

“I appreciate it.” He doesn’t move. His gaze slips past me into the shop, taking in the shelves, the soft lamplight settling into the corners now that the day is done. “You closing up now?”

“Just about.”

“Are you parked close?”

I let a small smile touch my mouth. “Around the corner.”

“Good,” he says. He gives a small nod, turns, and walks off down the sidewalk, and I watch him go for a moment before I step back inside.

The shop morphs immediately when the lock turns.

I stand with my hand against the glass for a second, then start the closing routine.