THIEF: Part 1 (6 page)

              “Can I have one?”

              Jane raises a penciled eyebrow, but doesn’t hesitate to light another and stick it in my mouth.  Her hand pinches my cheek while I take a drag.  “You know, I always told Annie, ‘Maybe it’s not such a bad thing I never had a daughter,’ because with you, I got all the fun parts.  But none of the sass.  And my Lord, child—you’ve got that in spades.”

              “Learned from the best,” I counter, and Jane laughs so loudly, I have to laugh too.

              At the cemetery, I sit in one of the five folding chairs set up for family.  Silas is a pallbearer, along with Mom’s cousins and their sons.  They look like stone statues, or soldiers.

              The pastor gives another speech.  Says a prayer.  Ashes to ashes.  I put my rose on top of my mother’s casket and move out of the way, preparing to shake hands once again and hear the same condolences as before.

              When I turn, though, facing the crowd, I can see someone up by the cars.  It’s a man in a dark blue suit with big sunglasses, the wraparound kind.  When he sees me, he turns to leave.

              “Wait!” I shout.  “Are you the lawyer?”  I kick off my heels as I run towards him.  “We aren't supposed to meet up until—”

              He’s shaking his head, opening a car parked crookedly beside our processional, halfway on the grass.  By the time I reach where he stood, his car’s at the entrance.

              Silas comes running up behind me.  “Who was that?” he asks.

              I follow the car with my eyes, all the way out to the street.  It cuts off a minivan to merge.

              “I don’t know,” I answer.  I have an idea, actually.  But as always, I keep his name where it belongs: bitten back into the bile of my throat, crushed inside the clench of my fist.

              “Looks like he dropped something.”  Silas crouches down and hands me a folded square of paper, worn at its creases.  I open it up carefully.

              ANNA ST. JAMES, it says.  WILL READING, 3 O’CLOCK. 

              And then, near the bottom, circled twice: ERIN?

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