Taken for English (43 page)

Annie stood up and crossed to Leah’s chair, kneeling in front of the girl and taking her hands. Leah sobbed.

“I was right! I was right! No one believed me, but I was right!” Leah’s chest heaved. “I would never have acted so crazy if someone had believed me.”

Annie’s throat choked up. She had no words but only gripped Leah’s trembling hands.

Jerusha folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope.

“I’ll be back here next Friday,” the counselor said. “I suggest that we meet again then. I wonder if we might have Leah’s parents with us for at least one future session.”

Annie squeezed her eyes shut. Jerusha might as well have asked for the mountains to move.

Annie held Leah’s hand, which still trembled as she stood at the appointment desk in the clinic and arranged to see Jerusha again. They traversed the blocks through town and to Annie’s quiet street with few words. As they made the turn off Main Street, Annie spotted Ruth coming from the other direction. Annie lifted a finger to her lips, and Ruth felt into step with them without a greeting.

Was it only yesterday that Rufus had shown her his vision of their future together? Had it only been a day since they had agreed to marry? Ruth should be the first person to hear the news—and not when the banns were read. Fatigue rolled through Annie as she pushed open the back door and the trio entered a house hushed in the shadows of a fading afternoon.

Leah moved ahead of the other two, walking in her soundless way through the house to her makeshift bedroom in the living room.

“Is she all right?” Ruth whispered.

“It’s a long story.”

Annie was not sure how much she could share with Ruth. The story was Leah’s more than it was hers. Certainly she would not try to recount the afternoon’s events while Leah was in the other room. She turned the switch on a propane lamp that sat on the end of the kitchen counter.

“I could make us something to eat,” Ruth said quietly.

Annie nodded. “I’d like to freshen up.”

“Maybe I’ll change first, too.”

When she passed through the dining room to the stairs, Annie was surprised to see Leah sitting at the table. Annie stopped so suddenly that Ruth nearly bumped her from behind. Their eyes fixed on Leah. She held a lit match between thumb and forefinger, and the oil lamp was positioned in front of her. Leah stared at the flame as the match burned down, only at the last minute touching it to the waiting oil and watching the mantle burst into brightness.

Annie moistened her lips. “Are you hungry, Leah? Ruth has offered to make some supper.”

Leah gazed at the lamp. “I don’t think I can eat. It’s been a long afternoon.”

“We’ll save something for you, then. You can have it later.”

The kitten grazed past Annie and jumped into Leah’s lap.

“I think I’ll go out.” Leah held the kitten against her cheek and stood up. “I promise not to stay out late.”

“All right then.” What else could Annie say? “We’ll leave a plate in the oven.”

Leah left through the back door without speaking again.

Ruth turned to Annie. “Is it my imagination, or was she a little too fascinated with that burning match?”

Annie puffed her cheeks and blew out her breath. “It’s not your imagination. She’s been so sad, so confused. So angry. So hurt. I have wondered more than once whether she was capable of setting a fire as a way of acting out. I honestly don’t know.”

Ruth raised both hands to her temples. “You suspect Leah? Of all the fires?”

“Suspect
is a strong word.” Annalise pulled a chair from the dining room table and sat down. “I have nothing to go on except the fact that the fires happened and my extremely nonprofessional assessment of Leah’s emotional state.”

“I know what you mean.” Ruth sat down now, too.

“You’ve been very patient, Ruth. I appreciate it. I know it’s not easy for you to have Leah here.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Ruth pushed the burning lamp toward the middle of the table. “What you just said about the fact of the fires and a person’s emotional state—I’ve been thinking about that, too.”

Annalise furrowed her brow. “So you think Leah could really be a suspect.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m talking about Alan.”

“Bryan’s friend?”

Ruth gave in to the shiver that ran through her. “He just seems off. His father came to town one day, and the air between them was as frigid as the North Pole. And he knows a lot about fires.”

“There’s a big difference between two things happening coincidentally and one causing the other.”

“I know.” Ruth put her elbows on the table and hung her head in her hands. “We can’t go around accusing everybody with emotional issues of criminal action.”

“But what if it really is one of them?”

“It can’t be both.” Ruth raised her head and met Annalise’s eyes. “They don’t even know each other and have nothing in common.”

“We’re assuming one person started all the fires,” Annalise said. “That may or not be true.”

“Alan thinks it could be Bryan.” Ruth hated to even speak those words aloud.

Annalise’s posture snapped up. “Bryan? Your Bryan?”

“He’s not ‘my’ Bryan. But yes.”

“Aren’t the two of them friends?”

“They say they are. But they’re both pointing fingers at each other.”

“Bryan thinks it’s Alan?” Annalise asked.

Ruth shrugged. “Not exactly. After the fire in Joel’s field, I found something I was sure belonged to Alan. But when Bryan asked him about it, Alan said it wasn’t his. It was just a water bottle strap, but Alan made a point to tell me Bryan had one just like it, too.”

“Which leaves us nowhere.”

“And I don’t even have the strap anymore. I gave it to Bryan.”

“It sounds like you trust Bryan, and you don’t trust Alan.”

Ruth pulled pins from her hair and let it hang loose. “That’s what my gut tells me. I tried to be friendly with Alan and see if he would talk to me, but he just points out that I don’t know Bryan as well as I think I do.”

“And now you have doubts?”

Ruth took a moment to think. “No. You know what? I don’t.”

“So we’re back to Alan or Leah.”

Ruth stared into the burning lamp. “Or someone we haven’t even met.”

June 1892

J
oseph hitched his horse in front of the milliner’s shop, stroked the slope of the animal’s face, and turned to enter the store. Walter was cleaning shelves.

“I’ll be glad when school starts again,” Walter mumbled. “My daddy doesn’t want me to have a moment to myself.”

“Being a hard worker is a fine trait.” Joseph glanced around. “I wonder if Maura is here.”

“You all got back day before yesterday.” Walter shuffled toward Joseph and ran a rag across the shelf unconvincingly. “She still won’t tell me what happened.”

“It is better that way.” Joseph and Maura agreed not to fuel Walter’s fascination with posses and gunfights. The boy did not need to know that Leon had let Maura try to stanch the blood flow before hefting Jimmy onto a horse and tying him to the saddle for the bumpy ride back to Baxter County and reluctantly surrendering him to the care of Dr. Lindsay.

“Maura,” Joseph said. “Is she here?”

Walter gestured with his head. “In the back.”

A pair of dark green cloth panels separated the shop from the back room where Maura’s Uncle Edwin created women’s hats. Joseph tentatively pushed a hand between the curtains.

“Maura?”

She looked up immediately and laid her pen down on the open accounts book. “What happened?”

Joseph leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Dr. Lindsay took the bullets out of Jimmy’s shoulder and leg then patched him up. Deputy Combs made Jimmy promise to leave Baxter County and never show his face here again.”

“It’s about time the deputy found his spine.” Maura puffed her cheek and exhaled. “And did Jimmy agree?”

Joseph nodded.

“What about Leon? And the others?”

“What they did was outside Baxter County,” Joseph said. “The deputy can’t charge them with anything.”

“So it’s over?” Maura stood. “Will Jimmy really leave?”

“He seemed sincere to me. Dr. Lindsay offered to take him back to Missouri in a wagon, and Jimmy is in no condition to resist.”

Maura smoothed her hair back with both hands. “What Leon did was horrible. I’m not sure if I’d like to see him held accountable, or just let it all be over.”

Joseph took two steps toward Maura and tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk. “That decision is not yours to make. You can’t take that burden on yourself.”

“Shouldn’t someone?”

“Gottes wille.”

“God’s will?”

“Yes,” he said. “Can you leave it to God now?”

The muscles twitched in her face as her eyes held steady with his. They had shared an easy way with each other riding to Missouri and back. She was close enough now that he could reach out and take her hand and feel it quiver in his own. He wanted to.

He moistened his lips. “Zeke and Stephen will be nearly home by now.”

“Will you be going, then?”

He searched for some sign in her face of the answer she wanted to hear. “Would you go with me?”

She was silent.

“I miss my people,” Joseph said, “but the thought of leaving you weighs heavy.”

She opened her mouth then closed it without speaking.

“We don’t have to stay,” Joseph said. “We can find another settlement. We can help to plant a settlement. You can find the life of peace you have been seeking.”

Maura dropped back into the wooden chair at the desk. She had wondered if this moment might come. Even hoped it would.

Walter stuck his head through the curtains. “Are you two going to stay back here all afternoon?”

“Walter, you have work to do,” Maura said.

“So do you. Daddy wants the books done today. I heard him tell you.”

“I’m working on them. Please excuse us for a few more minutes.”

“I’m not sure why you can’t tell me what’s going on.”

Maura clamped her mouth closed and glared at her cousin.

“Don’t tell me it’s none of my business,” Walter said. “I’ll find out eventually. Leon Mooney will make sure.”

“Then you’ll just have to wait for Leon’s version.” The shop door jangled, and Maura heard the familiar thump of her uncle’s footsteps. “There’s your daddy now, Walter. Joseph and I are going to take a short walk.”

With a glance toward Joseph, Maura brushed past Walter and his open mouth.

Outside, she said, “I’m sorry about Walter.”

“He reminds me of Little Jake,” Joseph said. “Always full of questions. You’ll like him, I think.”

“I’m sure I would enjoy meeting your brother,” Maura said, “but the matter of leaving with you is a serious one.”

“I know. I do not suggest it lightly.”

Joseph straightened his hat, and Maura knew he was as nervous as she was dancing around this question. He was proposing marriage. He knew it, and she knew it.

“There is the matter of my father.” Maura paced a little faster down the sidewalk. “It has been hard for him since my mother died. He depends on me.”