Chapter 2 - THE NAME MARGARET REMEMBERED
That night Margaret cornered Emily beside the walk-in refrigerator.
“You need to make him leave.”
“William?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“You said you didn’t know him.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you whispering?”
Margaret glared.
“I always whisper.”
“You absolutely do not.”
That was true.
Margaret had once informed an entire bakery full of customers that Emily’s boyfriend was cheating because “bad news shouldn’t have to wait behind good manners.”
Emily folded her arms.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Margaret glanced through the kitchen window.
William was helping a little boy choose between a sugar cookie and a brownie.
“I knew that name.”
“Harrison?”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
Margaret sighed.
“Your grandmother.”
Emily stopped.
“What about her?”
“When I started here, Rose kept an old newspaper clipping in her desk.”
“What clipping?”
“A man named William Harrison.”
Emily stared.
“What was the article about?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Margaret.”
“I was twenty-two! I had better things to do than memorize your grandmother’s newspaper collection.”
“Was there a photograph?”
“Yes.”
“Was it him?”
Margaret looked again.
“I don’t know.”
That night Emily searched the upstairs office.
Rose’s desk still stood against the wall.
Most drawers contained invoices and recipe cards.
The bottom drawer was locked.
Emily had never found the key.
William appeared in the doorway.
“Looking for something?”
She jumped.
“You walk like a burglar.”
“I’m wearing borrowed socks.”
She stared at him.
“Did you know my grandmother?”
His humor disappeared.
“Yes.”
Finally.
“How?”
William sat.
“In 1978 I was nineteen years old and very stupid.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I’m getting there.”
He looked toward Rose’s photograph.
“I had forty-seven dollars, a broken-down car, and nowhere to sleep.”
Emily felt a chill.
“A snowstorm?”
He smiled faintly.
“Rain.”
“And she let you stay here.”
“Beside that oven.”
Emily stared.
William continued.
“Your grandmother fed me. Gave me dry clothes. Let me sleep upstairs.”
Exactly what Emily had done.
“Nobody pays for kindness here,” he whispered.
Emily sat opposite him.
“What happened?”
“I left.”
“Just left?”
“I promised I would come back.”
“When?”
“When I had something worth bringing.”
Emily waited.
“And?”
“I waited too long.”
Rose Carter had died sixteen years earlier.
William looked down.
“By the time I returned to Bellweather, she was gone.”
“Why come back now?”
He lifted his eyes.
“To finish what I should have finished decades ago.”
Emily’s pulse quickened.
“What?”
Before he could answer, glass shattered downstairs.
They ran.
The front window had been broken.
A brick lay among the tables.
A note was wrapped around it.
Emily unfolded the paper.
TAKE THE MONEY AND LEAVE.
William’s face changed.
The tired stranger disappeared.
In his place stood someone harder.
Someone accustomed to danger.
He pulled out a phone Emily had never seen before.
Made one call.
“Daniel.”
His voice was suddenly authoritative.
“I need you in Bellweather.”
Emily stared.
William hung up.
“Who’s Daniel?”
“My attorney.”
“You have an attorney?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of homeless man has an attorney?”
William looked at her.
“I never told you I was homeless.”
May you like
And Emily realized he was right.
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