The Widower's Wife: A Thriller by Cate Holahan

Author:Cate Holahan [Holahan, Cate]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: FIC030000 Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
ISBN: 9781629537788
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Published: 2016-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

22

August 23

A finger pressed to disembodied lips on a large white sign. The words for “quiet” in a dozen languages were scattered around like the spray from a firecracker. The library had at least seven posters urging patrons to keep silent. No one listened. Two women behind the checkout desk discussed their families at a volume intended for the hard of hearing. An elderly man shouted into a cell phone. A vacuum ran in a back room. Two kids played hide-and-seek amid the bookcases while their mom read loudly enough to entertain an entire classroom.

Sophia sat at a long desk of computers, coloring book open to the letter R. The monitor in front of her reflected a serious face.

“R. Ruh. Ruh,” I said, opening up a web page.

“Ruh,” she repeated.

“Color the pictures on the page that begin with the letter R.”

I moved my cursor to the search bar and typed in the address supplied by my mother that morning, after I’d sworn that the info was only for a friend’s nanny: www.RTT.com. An acronym, she’d explained, for Return Trips Travel Inc. Times had changed. The smugglers had become incorporated.

Sophia tugged on my arm. She pointed to a rabbit in her notebook. Her cheeks puffed from the force of her smile. I beamed back at her. “Right. Rabbit starts with R. Can you fill it in with a color beginning with R?”

She scanned the five fat magic markers beside the keyboard. Her fingers rested briefly on the purple before shaking her head vigorously. She grabbed the red. “Red. Ruh. Ruh.”

A picture of the globe loaded. Red lines arched across the image to the United States’ seaboard cities. Bold black text ran across the screen: Come to the Land of the Free. Financing Available. One-Ways Starting at $5,000. Many Trips Available. Employment Opportunities. Aztec Guided Tours, Canadian Wilderness Retreats, Miami Sailing, Caribbean Cruise Passages.

The listed five-thousand-dollar amount had to be the initial required payment. My breath quickened. I’d been unable to get a grand for my parents. How would I possibly scrounge up several thousand dollars?

Sophia’s hand moved back and forth across her coloring page. Red zigzags spilled over the rabbit’s thick outline. I would have to teach her to color inside the lines. One thing at a time. First letter sounds. We would work on marker control later. If there was a later . . .

I pushed the thought from my mind and tousled her dark hair. “Red rabbit is right.”

Sophia moved on to a rhino, trying, in vain, to stay within the thick black borders. The point of her tongue protruded above her lower lip in concentration. My diligent little girl. How could I leave her?

The web page had a phone number. I borrowed a blue marker from Sophia’s pencil case and printed it on the inside of my wrist. As I did, I made a mental tally of all the cash sources I could tap. My last work check would arrive in the mail soon, two weeks’ pay, or two thousand dollars, after taxes.

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