Pitch Our Evils: A Smith Investigates Mystery by Beth Byers

Author:Beth Byers [Byers, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

I waited outside of the orphanage long enough to let Lila and Denny get well and truly pulled in. I knew that they would leave the building today with at least one little person, and I loved how Denny had been thinking of the older children. They needed homes too. They needed parents.

I considered our Ginny—Vi and Victor’s ward—and felt a rising need to do more. It wasn’t enough when children didn’t have homes. When they were lucky to even get a position. It hurt deep inside to know how they suffered.

I promised myself I would leave here today and go to Vi and Rita and Kate. Those three women had far more funds than Lila and me, and they would help me with this rising need to do more. I approached the orphanage with my heart in my throat, but also with a prayer in my heart. I wanted to find Calliope’s mother for her, but there was a desperate hope in me that even if I couldn’t save them all, God or some higher power, or even the universe itself would reach into my tiny life and direct me to those that might be meant for me to find.

I scoffed at myself even though my eyes were burning with the painful hope of it. Most of the time I believed in God. Most of the time I liked the idea of seeing those we loved again in heaven or whatever came next. Most of the time, I wanted to meet those we’d tried to help after they died and hope they could tell us that we’d done enough.

Now, however, that hope was something else. It was new, prickly, and fierce. I hadn’t realized that the feeling of hope could be something so very sharp. Something so very rabid. I had thought it was the weaker version of faith, but now—I knew differently.

I tried the handle of the orphanage and when it turned, peace flowed over me. I might be going mad with all these shifts in emotion.

I glanced behind me for a witness to my entering and found my eyes meeting my Uncle Hargreaves’s.

Utter shock must have crossed my face because his lips twitched before he adjusted his vest. He nodded once, and then I slipped inside and shut the door behind me. I wasn’t going to stop my quest simply because my uncle had arrived.

On the other side of the door, I looked around. The front hall of the building was empty, and the office where I had signed the promise to look after Rosalie was standing open and empty. I walked quietly, but I didn’t allow sneakiness to color my movements.

The moment I was across the threshold, I started to close the office door, but my uncle had followed me into the orphanage. My eyes widened in horror as I stared at him. When he flashed me a wicked grin, my horror turned to shock. That was not an expression I had ever seen on his face.

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