“Huh? No.”
“I heard you didn’t make it to harvest this morning. I almost sent someone in your place to fetch the lunches.”
“I guess you can’t keep a secret around here,” Violet said, savoring the irony. “I had a headache, but it’s better now.”
“It looks bad for me when you skip out on your part of things. I can’t seem to treat my own daughter differently than I expect everyone else to treat theirs. People are sensitive right now. Especially after Miles and Leeda.”
Violet bit back a sharp retort and said instead, “Well, that’s what I’m here about. I’d like to take on more of a role again. I’ve been talking to Doc about it, and he agrees I’m doing better. I’ve put on some weight.”
“I noticed,” June said.
Violet cleared her throat. “Anyway, whatever it is you’re planning with the Zoners, I want to be a part of that. I want to help.”
June stopped rocking. “Why?”
“Because I’ve always helped.”
“Close to always,” June said. “If I’m going to be honest, you haven’t been quite yourself lately.”
“I came through for you getting the hostages here, didn’t I?”
June’s gaze sharpened. “I guess that’s true.”
“And I let you use me as a prop to tell your story. Your ‘saving Violet’s life’ story.”
Now June dropped her eyes. “That, too.”
“I’m telling you I want to help now. So let me. What’s the plan?”
“All right,” June said as Roz came back in with a tray and handed out plates and glasses. On Violet’s were two thick slices of Errol’s sourdough bread, buttered, and two big oatmeal cookies. This was one of those times when Violet wished she could smile. She loved Roz a lot. She wasn’t sure Roz knew it, or that she’d done a good enough job of letting Roz know it.
“Andy got back last night, finally. The thing I’d thought might happen—it happened. For better or worse.” June bit into her sandwich and chewed.
“We saw the footage,” Roz offered while June swallowed and sipped some Salt tea.
“I had asked him to stay and monitor the feeds for information. So I knew not to expect him back right away. But I’ve been climbing the walls.”
“No pun intended?” said Roz.
June gave her a sour look.
Violet peeled the crust off a bread slice and tucked it into her mouth, processing all of this. “What now, then?” she said finally.
“That’s what I spent the night mulling over. All of this hinges on something we can’t know, and that’s what they did with the bodies once they had them inside. If they followed procedure, they dumped them into the incinerator and filed a report, and it’ll take weeks before that info should trickle down to Perrone. If it ever does. And even then, it shouldn’t mean anything to him. There’s no reason for him to expect that four people from the excursion would break off and end up shot at the Wall.
“But there will be video surveillance. And maybe one of them would have been recognized. That singer. Andy says he’s on a popular webshow. I never once thought about that.”
“And Andy didn’t think to mention it to you until it was too late to do anything about it,” Roz said irritably.
“If someone saw him, knew his face . . .” June shrugged. “Well, the situation might be real different. Andy didn’t see a big news story, and that’s good, so they’ll have kept it hush-hush. But that doesn’t mean anything when David Perrone’s involved. Anyway, there’s an argument—a good one—for leaving it like this and seeing what happens. We follow through with Feingold like we talked about and have Andy take them back to Quarantine on schedule.”
Roz was shaking her head, lips pressed together.
“I know,” June said. “My father was a wait-and-see type of man, and it cost him. Besides, we have Marta Perrone. Do you realize how extraordinary that is? All along I thought Feingold was the ticket, and then Marta Perrone is dropped in our laps. And I wouldn’t have even known it if she hadn’t told me.”
“Why do you think she told you?” Violet asked.
“Because she’s no fool. She bought herself some time.”
“How much time?
“I don’t know,” June said. “Still, I think I’d be inclined to wait if not for the stolen seeds. That’s what keeps me up at night. More than the Pocketz deal. Even more than what he did to that other village. We’ve been so goddamn careful, and he got to us anyway.” She leaned forward and scooted her chair toward Violet. Took her hands. “Your beautiful hands.” She ran her fingertips along the tendons, knuckles. “I’ve always loved them. You have elegant hands. If you’d have been born in a different time you could have been a surgeon or a musician . . .”
This was another thing Violet had heard many times over.
June stopped, frowned. Turned Violet’s hand over. “What is this?” She touched one of Violet’s most recent Stamp scars, a grayish-red weal on the inside of her wrist that had slipped into view out from under her sleeve. “Violet?” Her eyes were wide and frightened. “Is this a Stamp?”
Violet jerked back her hand. “No. I did it when I was helping Errol with the baking a few weeks ago.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“No, goddammit!” Violet shouted. “Why are you like this with me? For God’s sake, I’m thirty-seven years old! You make me fucking hate myself!”
She wasn’t even sure why she said this last thing. It burst out of her. And it wasn’t precisely true, though it circled some truth, some even darker thing Violet couldn’t dare to name, even to herself.
June pulled back. Stood. Very deliberately, she tucked her cloud of frizzy hair behind each ear.
“June,” Roz said warningly, and June held up a stopping hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but her voice was cold. “So you want to help. That’s why you’re here.”
Violet, not meeting her eye, nodded.
“I think I’m decided. We’ll take Marta Perrone to the Lenoir house tomorrow morning. We’ll have her contact her husband and see what that buys us. If we tell him we’re ready to take his deal, let him have the credit and the money for Salt, maybe he’ll leave us alone. We hold on to Feingold as collateral. If he won’t work with us, he’s not going to be able to fall back on the microsuit deal.” She paused. “But I don’t see why he won’t do it. We’re not asking for much.”
“You’re not asking for anything at all,” Violet said. “Except not to be killed.”
“And you think that’s nothing?” June asked sharply, her pale gray eyes flashing.
Violet snapped her head Roz’s way—a gesture she paid for when the scarred skin around her neck pulled painfully. “Do you agree with her? Roll over and play dead?”
“Yes, I do,” Roz said. “I trust your mother. I always have. We have four hundred sixty-six lives to protect, and the most valuable thing we’ve got is this town. So yes, if we get our lives out of the bargain and nothing else, I’m fine with that. Thrilled with it, in fact.”
June peered at Violet. “Do you have something to say?”
Violet thought. After a few beats, she shook her head.
“You sure?”