Page 85 of Not a Word

Her, Alicia thought.

“Oh my god,” Ben said.

“I could see her, she was face down and she wasn’t moving.”

Face down, Alicia thought. Like she’d been shot in the back.

One of the other men in the group had a question. “Is this, like, still unsolved? Was anybody ever arrested for what happened?”

Holden shook his head.

Unsolved, Alicia thought.

There were more questions, but Holden held up his palms, said he couldn’t really say much more, except to add, “You figure, there are some people who will love you no matter what. You could kill the president, and they’d say, yeah, you probably shouldn’t have done that, but hey, we still love you. When you find out they really could stop loving you, that’s not something you forget.”

The group took a break.

When they came back, Ben went back to Alicia.

“I feel we cut you off back there, when you were telling us about your aunt, and we kind of veered off to hear what Holden had to say. But I want to get back to you. Tell us about your aunt. What happened to her?”

During the break, Alicia kept thinking, Is it possible?

The few details Holden had provided matched up. The murder he’d witnessed had been of a woman. Most likely shot in the back. It had happened the same year. It had never been solved.

How many unsolved murders did Yorkton Hill have from that year? Assuming, of course, the incident Holden had talked about was local. He hadn’t been very clear on that.

Alicia needed to know more. And she didn’t want to tip her hand.

So when Ben asked whether she wanted to continue her story, she said, “I’m good.”

“You sure?” he asked.

“Maybe next time,” she said.

After the session, she sidled up to Holden at the coffee stand.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he said.

“What you were saying, that sounded pretty heavy.”

“Yeah, well, right back atcha,” he said. “Losing your aunt, that’s awful.”

“I couldn’t say anything else. It hurts to talk about.”

“No shit.”

“You wanna sit down?”

He said sure. There was a common area at Sharnwood where residents and staff could hang. Alicia and Holden found two cushy chairs across from each other and sat down with their paper cups of coffee.

“I shoulda gotten a cookie,” Holden said.

“Hold this,” she said, handing him her coffee as she ran back to the table. She returned with two chocolate chip cookies for him and two for her.

“You a first-timer?” she asked.