Less guarded, somehow.
“So … Maggie’s tomorrow? Or did you give up on me and go there already?”
I hold my breath.
I really hope he didn’t.
The mystery of the portrait is a once-in-a-lifetime mystery. I want to investigate it with him.
“I haven’t been to the historical society. But we don’t have to go tomorrow. It can wait until you’re feeling better.”
“I think I’ll be fine. I’m already feeling loads better than I did a few hours ago.” I can hold my phone up without sweating, anyway. “But if, you know, something changes, I have your number now, which was brave of you. I can bug you whenever I want.”
“And I have yours. So I guess … same.”
The smile I’ve been biting back can no longerbe repressed. Was Jude just flirting? He certainly doesn’t sound like he’s eager to get off the phone.
I climb out of bed, taking a blanket and a pillow with me, and make myself comfortable in the window seat. I look at his bedroom window and imagine him in there, talking on the phone. With me. I want to tell him about the research I’ve done—about the train crash and the bank robbery—but that would require a confession. I took a picture of his family tree without permission. I’m trying to figure out how to get out of this corner I’ve painted myself in when he speaks.
“I found the identity of the scorch mark.”
I sit up straighter. “Who?”
“Elijah Vandenberg. I found a record of his birth in 1844, and his marriage in 1867. But there’s nothing in our archives about his death. So I took a visit to the family graveyard.”
He pauses.
It’s a charged beat.
Perhaps he’s thinking of me in the graveyard. And Rafe, trying to kiss me in the graveyard.
“He doesn’t have a headstone,” Jude says. “His wife does. All three of his children do. But not him.”
“You think he was buried elsewhere?”
“I don’t know. But I did some research. And I kept coming back to a particular scenario that would make sense.”
“Which is?”
“Back then, there was a big stigma around acertain kind of death. So much so, anyone who died that way was often left out of family records.”
“Suicide,” I whisper.
“He would have been denied a proper burial.”
And most likely erased from a family tree.
There’s another pause. This one isn’t charged or awkward. But thoughtful. Almost intimate. I imagine Jude stretched long on his bed, staring up at his ceiling, messing with his hair.
“I have a confession,” I blurt.
He’s quiet on the other end.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I took a picture of your family tree.”
“Oh.” It’s not a madoh. It’s not even a surprisedoh. If anything, he sounds a bit relieved, like he was worried my confession was going to be something worse.
So, I dive in.
