She turned to leave, then stopped. “You don’t believe any of it, do you? The things Sara wrote about in her diary?”
He smiled, folded his hands together. “I think people see what they want to see. Sara’s story is pretty amazing—everything she went through. But think about it: if you’d lost someone you love, wouldn’t you give almost anything to have the chance to see them again?”
The bell on the door jingled as Katherine left the shop and headed for home, her coat done up, her thin scarf pulled so tight it was nearly strangling her.
“I’ve been hoping I’d see you again!”
Katherine jumped.
It was redheaded Lou Lou from the café next door; she had bounded out of its doors and stood blocking Katherine’s path in the sidewalk, her silver-and-turquoise jewelry glinting. “Then I just looked through the window and there you were! I remembered!” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. She’d come out without a coat.
“Remembered?”
“Where I’d seen the woman with the braid before. Like I said, I never forget a face. She’s the egg lady!”
“The … egg lady?” Katherine repeated.
“Yes. I don’t know her name, but she’s at the farmers’ market every week. Sells those blue and green eggs. Easter-egg chickens—that’s what she calls the hens that lay them. She sells other stuff, too, things she knits. Baby booties, socks, hats. I bought a scarf from her once. Tomorrow’s Saturday—you go to the farmers’ market and you’ll see her. You can’t miss her, really. She’s always wearing a sweater or shawl she’s knit in these bright, crazy color combinations. If you don’t see her, just ask—everyone knows the egg lady.”
Lou Lou slipped back into the café, leaving Katherine standing there, dumbstruck.
The egg lady. Gary met the egg lady. Although it wasn’t her true name, it was a way to identify her, and already this woman was taking shape in Katherine’s imagination. She turned and practically ran back down the sidewalk, feet slipping, as she raced home.
A doll. She’d make a doll of the woman, the egg lady in miniature—an older woman with gray hair in a braid, wearing a brightly colored hand-knit sweater. She’d crochet a tiny sweater with fine yarn. She had a box of yarn and crochet hooks somewhere.
The His Final Meal box was all starting to come together, and Katherine’s mind hummed, her fingers twitched. She unlocked the door to her apartment, dumped her purse and the paper bag from the bookstore on the coffee table, peeled off her coat and gloves, headed over to her worktable, and started to cut pieces of wire that would form the armature for the tiny papier-maché doll. When she was finished with the egg lady, she’d make a little Gary doll and put them sitting across from one another at a table in Lou Lou’s.
And maybe, just maybe, if she got down in front of the box, put her ear to the open doorway, and listened, she’d know what they might have said that day—understand what had brought Gary to West Hall.
Ruthie
No one was home at William O’Rourke’s house. Ruthie scribbled a note saying she was looking for Thomas and Bridget and left Buzz’s cell-phone number at the bottom. She stuck it in the mailbox and climbed back into the truck.
None of them spoke as they followed the GPS directions to Candace’s house. They were in a new part of town now, one where the houses were bigger and spread out farther and farther apart. The roads had grander-sounding names: Old Stagecoach Road, Westminster Avenue. There were neighborhood-watch signs, signs reminding you to drive slowly and keep an eye out for children. Tasteful Christmas lights still decorated many of the houses, and there were cheerful snowmen in huge yards.
Candace O’Rourke lived in a large white colonial with black shutters.
“Nice place,” Buzz said as he pulled into the long driveway. Ruthie hopped out of the truck and rang the doorbell. It played a little song. The house was silent. She pushed the doorbell again.
Just as Ruthie was about to give up and go back to the truck, the heavy wooden door was opened by a frazzled-looking woman in pink-and-black exercise clothes. She had blond hair that was stylishly cut but flattened on one side. Ruthie decided she must have woken the woman up from an afternoon nap.
“Yes?” the woman said, blinking sleepily at Ruthie.
The entryway behind her was bright and open, with white walls and a terra-cotta-tiled floor. There was a neat row of silver coat-hooks on the left, with a bench below it.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but are you Candace O’Rourke?”
“Yes,” she said, looking wary.
“Uh, I know it’s probably a long shot, but I’m looking for some other O’Rourkes? Thomas and Bridget? They used to live out on Kendall Lane.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “And you are?” she asked, taking a step back.