“Is this good-bye, John?” she’ asked after a minute. “You can tell me.”
He studied the soft curve of her shoulders against the robe. “I’m not sure.”
She nodded, saying nothing. She ran a hand through her tousled hair and continued to stare out the window.
He groped for something more to say, but it was too late for explanations. He had violated his own rules last night by letting himself get close to her. Involvement with anyone was forbidden for a Knight of the Word. It was one thing to risk his own life; it was something else again to risk the life of another.
“I’ll be leaving Hopewell soon, maybe even sometime today. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” His eyes met hers as she turned to look at him. “I wish it could be different.”
She studied him a moment. “I’d like to believe that. Can I write you?”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t have an address.”
Her smile was wan and fragile. “All right. Will you write me sometimes?”
He told her he would try. He could tell she wanted to say more, to ask him why he was being so difficult, so secretive. But she did not. She just kept looking at him, as if knowing somewhere deep inside that it was useless, that she would never see him again.
She drove him back to the hotel so that he could change his clothes, then drove him out to the Freemarks’ and dropped him off at the entrance to the park. She barely spoke the entire time. But when he started to get out of the car, she reached over and put her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth.
“Don’t forget me,” she whispered, and gave him a hint of the smile that had drawn him to her that first day.
Then she straightened herself behind the steering wheel while he closed the car door and drove away without looking back.
He had made up his mind in that instant to tell Nest Free-mark about her father.
Now, as he stood looking at Nest’s shattered face, he wondered if he had made the right decision. The mix of shock and horror that flooded her eyes was staggering. She blinked rapidly, and he could tell that she wanted to look away from him, to hide from his terrible revelation, but she could not. She tried to speak, but no words would come. Old Bob was stunned as well, but his exposure to the truth wasn’t as complete. He didn’t know what Nest did. He didn’t know that her father was a demon.
“My father?” she whispered finally. “Are you sure?”
The words hung between them in the ensuing silence, a poisonous and forbidding accusation.
“Nest,” her grandfather began, reaching for her.
“No, don’t say anything,” she said quickly, silencing him, stepping back. She tore her gaze from Ross and looked out into the park. “I need to … I just have to…”
She broke off in despair, tears streaming down her face, and bolted from the yard through the hedgerow and into the park. She ran past the ball diamond behind the house, down the service road toward the park entrance, and off toward the cemetery. John Ross and her grandfather stood looking after her helplessly, watching her angular figure diminish and disappear into the trees.
Old Bob looked at Ross then, a flat, expressionless gaze. “Are you certain about this?”
Ross nodded, feeling the grayness of the day descend over him like a pall. “Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know that you should have told her like that.”
“I don’t know that I should have waited this long.”
“You’ve tracked him here, her father, to Hopewell?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he’s come for Nest?”
Ross sighed. “Yes, sir, he has. He means to take her with him.”
Old Bob shook his head in disbelief. “To kidnap her? Can’t you arrest him?”
Ross shook his head. “I haven’t the authority. Besides, I can’t even find him. If I do, I can’t prove any of what I’ve told you. All I can do is try to stop him.”
Old Bob slipped his big hands into his pockets. “How did you find all this out?”