Read Online No One You Know by Michelle Richmond - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michelle Richmond
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wandered in there on accident. Lila thrust a folder into his hand. It was a paper on numerical evaluation of special functions. She wanted to submit it.
“Bruce looked at her like she was out of her mind. You have to understand, the journal published the work of highly respected mathematicians. And here was this disheveled, great-looking girl, very young, waltzing into the office as if she had a right to be there and asking us to publish her paper. It was unheard of. I fell for her instantly. I took the paper home with me, and I was blown away. I called Lila that night and asked her to meet me the next day for lunch.”
We had reached another intersection. With no cue from me, McConnell took the lane to the right, in the direction of my pensión. I asked myself what I would do if he led me straight to my hotel. Would that be the thing that brought me to my senses?
A minute later we were standing in front of the small yellow building, which was flanked by large trees with knotted, twisting trunks. Blinking white Christmas lights hung from the branches, connected to the hotel by a thick orange extension cord. “Here we are,” he said.
Again, I took a step back. “How did you—”
“It’s a small town.”
I still wasn’t ready for the conversation to end. There was so much more I wanted to know. I remembered something that I had confided to Thorpe and which he had quoted in his book. “I hope it wasn’t someone she knew and trusted,” I said to him more than once. What McConnell seemed to be offering me, all these years later, was an alternative version of the story, one in which Lila’s murderer wasn’t also her lover. Whatever the truth was, I needed to know.
I felt a warm drop of water on my hand, and another. McConnell looked up at the sky.
“Can we talk again tomorrow?” I asked.
He toed the dirt with his shoe. “You won’t see me again. I just wanted to meet you and have my say. It’s been a long time. I’m not sure what you think happened, I’m not sure what you think about me, or that awful book. I’m not even sure if you think about it at all. But it’s important to me to tell you this, Ellie—I didn’t do it, I never could have done it. I loved your sister. I loved her more than you, or she, will ever know. It all happened so long ago, it hardly matters to me now what people think. But your opinion does matter, because Lila talked about you all the time, you’re the person she was closest to in the world.”
He was wrong about that. I loved her, but we weren’t as close as I would like to have been. She hadn’t told me about him. She hadn’t been willing to tell me, that morning, why she was crying. I suspected that Peter McConnell, not me, was the one person with whom she hadn’t held back.
The rain began in earnest now, slapping the leaves of the trees, pitting the dirt road. Impulsively, I said, “Don’t go yet.” I stepped under the awning of the hotel and McConnell followed.
“Are you inviting me inside?”
“Yes.”
José, the owner of the pensión, always locked the door at midnight. Accustomed to my late-night walks, he had given me a key. I made some unnecessary racket as I opened the door, just to let him know I was there. We passed through the empty lobby. In an alcove behind the desk was a shrine to the Virgin Mary. The candles had burned out. McConnell walked behind me, his long shadow preceding me up the single flight of stairs. As we passed José’s room I talked loudly. If anything happened to me, I wanted someone to know I wasn’t alone that night. I heard bedsprings creaking in José’s apartment, feet shuffling toward the door, the cover of the peephole sliding open.
At the end of the hall I slid my key into the lock, opened the door of my room, and waited for McConnell to follow me inside. There was no overhead light, just a single lamp with an ancient shade that gave off a dingy yellow glow.
Nine
M Y ROOM WAS SIMPLY FURNISHED: A BED, a hardback
“Bruce looked at her like she was out of her mind. You have to understand, the journal published the work of highly respected mathematicians. And here was this disheveled, great-looking girl, very young, waltzing into the office as if she had a right to be there and asking us to publish her paper. It was unheard of. I fell for her instantly. I took the paper home with me, and I was blown away. I called Lila that night and asked her to meet me the next day for lunch.”
We had reached another intersection. With no cue from me, McConnell took the lane to the right, in the direction of my pensión. I asked myself what I would do if he led me straight to my hotel. Would that be the thing that brought me to my senses?
A minute later we were standing in front of the small yellow building, which was flanked by large trees with knotted, twisting trunks. Blinking white Christmas lights hung from the branches, connected to the hotel by a thick orange extension cord. “Here we are,” he said.
Again, I took a step back. “How did you—”
“It’s a small town.”
I still wasn’t ready for the conversation to end. There was so much more I wanted to know. I remembered something that I had confided to Thorpe and which he had quoted in his book. “I hope it wasn’t someone she knew and trusted,” I said to him more than once. What McConnell seemed to be offering me, all these years later, was an alternative version of the story, one in which Lila’s murderer wasn’t also her lover. Whatever the truth was, I needed to know.
I felt a warm drop of water on my hand, and another. McConnell looked up at the sky.
“Can we talk again tomorrow?” I asked.
He toed the dirt with his shoe. “You won’t see me again. I just wanted to meet you and have my say. It’s been a long time. I’m not sure what you think happened, I’m not sure what you think about me, or that awful book. I’m not even sure if you think about it at all. But it’s important to me to tell you this, Ellie—I didn’t do it, I never could have done it. I loved your sister. I loved her more than you, or she, will ever know. It all happened so long ago, it hardly matters to me now what people think. But your opinion does matter, because Lila talked about you all the time, you’re the person she was closest to in the world.”
He was wrong about that. I loved her, but we weren’t as close as I would like to have been. She hadn’t told me about him. She hadn’t been willing to tell me, that morning, why she was crying. I suspected that Peter McConnell, not me, was the one person with whom she hadn’t held back.
The rain began in earnest now, slapping the leaves of the trees, pitting the dirt road. Impulsively, I said, “Don’t go yet.” I stepped under the awning of the hotel and McConnell followed.
“Are you inviting me inside?”
“Yes.”
José, the owner of the pensión, always locked the door at midnight. Accustomed to my late-night walks, he had given me a key. I made some unnecessary racket as I opened the door, just to let him know I was there. We passed through the empty lobby. In an alcove behind the desk was a shrine to the Virgin Mary. The candles had burned out. McConnell walked behind me, his long shadow preceding me up the single flight of stairs. As we passed José’s room I talked loudly. If anything happened to me, I wanted someone to know I wasn’t alone that night. I heard bedsprings creaking in José’s apartment, feet shuffling toward the door, the cover of the peephole sliding open.
At the end of the hall I slid my key into the lock, opened the door of my room, and waited for McConnell to follow me inside. There was no overhead light, just a single lamp with an ancient shade that gave off a dingy yellow glow.
Nine
M Y ROOM WAS SIMPLY FURNISHED: A BED, a hardback
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