Chapter 2: The Man in Room 14
Ruthie grabbed my sleeve and pulled me behind the Whitcomb family mausoleum.
We crouched against the cold granite. The truck crawled along the cemetery loop, high beams sweeping across the rows.
It stopped near my mother’s oak.
The driver’s door opened.
“Grady!” Trent’s voice bounced off the stones. “Mom just wants to make sure you’re not doing anything stupid!”
I didn’t move. Ruthie’s fingers dug into my arm.
He walked to my mother’s grave and stood there, flashlight on the uncut grass beside it. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything.
Then he spat on the ground and climbed back into the truck.
The taillights disappeared through the gates.
Ruthie let out a breath that shook.
“My car’s on the service road,” she said. “Come on.”
Her old Buick smelled like peppermints and dog hair. She cranked the heater and handed me a pack of tissues for my hand.
“Start from the beginning,” I said.
“Your dad had his stroke on March twenty-second of last year. Lorraine called the ambulance after midnight. By the time they got him to Saint Brendan’s, the damage was done.”
“After midnight,” I said. “When did it happen?”
“That’s the question I’ve been asking for fourteen months.” She stared through the windshield. “Two days later, she fired me. Changed the locks at the store. Told the whole town Walt was in long-term rehab and couldn’t have visitors.”
“The whole town thinks he’s alive?”
“Everyone except you.” Ruthie looked at me. “You’re the only person she told he d!ed.”
The words sat between us.
