Lenore wasn't going to be able to climb the stairs for quite a while. No one but themselves would know that she was sleeping on the single bed in Chandra's old room.
Not even if she cried herself to sleep at night, feeling . . . a little bit lonely, at times.
After all, she could scarcely stay in the master bedroom. It had been wonderful to sleep in Wesley's arms when his favor had been resting upon her. But she could scarcely perturb him with her presence when it was not.
When Wes came up that evening, he stopped at the door of the bedroom, a little startled. Whatever he might have expected to happen as the next stage in this disagreement with Clara—it wasn't this.
He hadn't really expected anything specific. He had never had a fight with Clara before. Some minor arguments about this and that, but no fights.
He had never had a fight with his wife before, for that matter. Lena had been compliant. Sometimes to the point that it tried his patience, but most certainly compliant. Lena had not been one to stand her ground.
On the other hand, if Lenore had picked up Weshelle and walked out, that night back in February, as Clara had advised her to, it would not have come to this.
Sometimes Lenore was so much like her mother that it was uncanny.
He stood there. Bitte, geh doch nicht weg. Bleib bei mir. It had been so . . . forlorn. But now, she had gone away. There had to be something that he wasn't understanding. Some piece of this puzzle was missing.
He looked down the hallway. All the other doors were closed. He wondered which room Clara had chosen.
Chapter 59
Grantville
"I hate to say that I'm relieved," Preston Richards said. "But I am."
Ed Piazza nodded.
According to the latest reports, Bryant Holloway had left town in a pickup truck stolen from the Grantville VFD lot.
"Wes Jenkins might have killed him if he had caught him here in town. He isn't likely to go chasing him down, however. Not with Clara's pregnancy so far advanced." Richards sighed. "I suppose part of it's the stress. Cumulative. That's what the Reverend Al says, at least. There's been more violence in Grantville in the four years since the Ring of Fire than we'd have expected in twenty or thirty years, up-time."
"Considering that we've got more than five times the population we did before . . ." Ed started to say.
"Do you have any idea where he might be headed?" Nasi asked.
Arnold Bellamy answered. "Steve Matheny—that's our fire department chief, if you haven't met him, Don Francisco—says maybe towards Frankfurt. He was over there some time back. Stayed with Chandra's husband, Nathan Prickett."
Don Francisco frowned slightly.
"Surely," Ed Piazza said, "Nathan isn't going to take him in after what he's done to Chandra's sister."
"How's Nathan going to know?" Richards asked. "Unless we radio to him. Which wouldn't be the most prudent thing, right at the moment. Without a SoTF consulate, the USE radio setup in Frankfurt isn't exactly confidential. Or reliable, for that matter."
"Additionally," Don Francisco said, "according to information I have obtained, it would appear that the man is carrying potentially important evidence with him. He was observed, on the way out of town, loading packets of papers into the truck."
"Dare I ask observed where, and by whom?" Arnold asked.
"Preferably not. But it would be desirable to get the papers back. Based on information received, some of them may well be pertinent to the trial of the various hooligans the police rounded up after the demonstration at Leahy Medical Center."
"What can he be planning to do with them?" Ed Piazza asked.
"At present, of course, we don't know. He might be trying to return them to Dumais. It is possible that he intends to try to use the material to make a plea bargain of some kind. Or, or course, he simply may not be thinking clearly."
Those who were sitting in on the meeting purely in the capacity of providers of miscellaneous factual information tried not to wiggle and twist on their chairs.
"How long do you think they're going to be looking at it from all the angles?" Missy asked at coffee break.
"For a long, long time, the way things are going. I must say that when Mike Stearns is around, things get decided faster than when he isn't." Ron grinned.
"It seems to me," Missy said, "that when you narrow down what they're saying, they'd be willing to do without Bryant, since he was sort of peripheral, but they really would like the papers that Pam saw him picking up behind Veda Mae's house."
Ron nodded. That seemed to be the essence of it. "Is there any reason that we can't chase him down and get them? Don Francisco is probably pretty much right that he's heading for Frankfurt. Even if he isn't, pickup trucks are still noticeable in rural Thuringia."