The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

Author:Kate Morton [Kate Morton]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781611735499
Google: QXXrz1ygW2kC
Amazon: 1439152802
Barnesnoble: 1439152802
Goodreads: 13508607
Publisher: Atria
Published: 2012-10-21T13:00:00+00:00

17

University of Cambridge, 2011

THE RAIN HAD CLEARED AND a ripe moon broke silver through streaky clouds. Having already paid a visit to the Cambridge University Library, Laurel was now sitting outside Clare College Chapel, waiting to be knocked over by someone on a bicycle. Not just any someone; she had a particular cyclist in mind. Evensong was almost over; she’d been listening from the bench beneath the cherry tree for the past half hour, letting the great organ and the voices of the choir transport her. Any minute, though, it would all stop and a cluster of people would burst from the doors, claim their bikes from the thirty-odd jumble stacked in metal racks by the door, and whizz past her in different directions. One of them, Laurel hoped, would be Gerry; it was something they’d always shared, the two of them, their love of music—the sort of music that made one glimpse answers to questions they hadn’t known they were asking—and as soon as she’d arrived in Cambridge and seen signs outside the college advertising Evensong, she’d known it was her best chance of finding her brother.

Sure enough, a few minutes after Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb came to its breathtaking conclusion, as people started to emerge in pairs and small groups through the chapel doors, one of them walked out alone. A tall lanky figure whose appearance at the top of the stairs made Laurel smile, because it was surely one of life’s most simple blessings to know someone so well you could pick them immediately from the other side of a dark courtyard. The figure climbed onto a bicycle and pushed off with one foot, wobbling a bit until he picked up pace.

Laurel stepped out onto the road as he came close, waving and calling his name. He almost knocked her over, before stopping and blinking at her through the moonlit dark. The most disarming smile broke across his face and Laurel wondered why she didn’t come to visit more often.

‘Lol,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to see you. I tried to call; I left messages.’

Gerry was shaking his head. ‘The machine kept beeping, that little red light on the front wouldn’t stop bloody blinking at me. It was defective, I think—I had to pull it out of the wall.’

The explanation made such perfect Gerry sense that no matter how infuriating it had been not being able to contact him, no matter that she’d worried he was annoyed with her, Laurel couldn’t help but smile. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it gave me an excuse to come and visit anyway. Have you eaten?’

‘Eaten?’

‘Food. Annoying habit, I know, but I try to do it a few times a day.’

He mussed his tangle of dark hair as if trying to remember.

‘Come on,’ said Laurel. ‘My shout.’

Gerry walked his bicycle beside her and they talked about music as they made their way to a small pizza restaurant built into a hole in the wall overlooking the Arts Theatre. The

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