All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 124

124

They left Jimmy sleeping on the couch. Saint wore her old fur-lined hiking boots.

They walked past a cluster of revival Colonials, and in the window of each Saint saw Christmas scenes straight from the front of a greeting card.

Big trees and candelabras and the soft hue of fairy lights as they headed up a frozen Main Street.

Only one store carried no decoration at all because it was not needed, and Saint smiled as she saw his new painting in the window.

Saint spent a long time just as lost as the girl in the painting, unable to move away.

Sammy came to the door. He wore a tux, his bow tie loose. “Special

Agent Saint Brown.”

“How are you, Sam?”

“Warm and wealthy.”

Norma walked on slowly.

The two stood in silence awhile, staring at the colors.

“Can you just leave him be?” Sammy said, for a moment clear eyed,

like he knew the weight of the ask.

“Do you know where he is, Sammy?”

Sammy said nothing.

“Maybe I’ll have someone take a look at your taxes, see if that jogs your memory.”

He shook his head disappointed. “You’re bringing shit to a pissing

contest?”

“Do you know where he is?”

Sammy nodded at the girl in the heavy gold frame. “Her name is Eloise Strike, and most nights when I lie down to sleep I see her face as soon as I close my eyes. Do you know where she is, Saint?”

Saint kept her eyes on the girl.

Sammy spoke quiet and without challenge. “Anna May. Summer Reynolds. Ellen Hernandez. You know where any of them are?”

“No, Sammy. I don’t know where any of them are.”

“So maybe you and the rest, you look for them first. And then after you find the girls, you look for those soulless ghouls that took them. And if there’s anything of you left, then you go after the boy. But I hope I’m long

dead before that happens.”

“Do you know where he is, Sammy?”

Sammy looked at the canvas. He had turned down thirty thousand dollars from a Deerbank collector who traveled halfway across the country just to view it. “I don’t.”

She too kept her eyes on the painting. “But if you did…if you did…then I’d be the last person you should tell.”

He nodded and might have told her he understood her pain, but she did not need his compassion. So she followed her grandmother to St. Raphael’s, and in the cemetery she stopped beside Ivy Macauley’s grave for a moment before heading into the cold church, where she lit a candle then sat beside Norma on the front bench.

“Last time you prayed here,” Norma said.

“I felt just as desperate as I do now.”

“You don’t ever need to feel that way.”

Saint closed her eyes. “But I sit here, and I don’t feel anything but fear. I don’t hear anything but silence.”

“The bad are the few, but often they shout louder than the many. Don’t mistake silence for weakness.”

And so, beside her grandmother, she gave herself over.

Saint closed her eyes and prayed to God that she would not catch Joseph Macauley.

And when she opened them she turned to her grandmother.

“I’m pregnant.”

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