This would be telling.
Mr. Smith didn’t miss a beat. “I’m Wilbur Smith. I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Sewell.”
“Hmm.” Dad eyed him suspiciously. “Call me Beck. Mr. Sewell was a mean fucking drunk.”
Mr. Smith’s mouth lifted in the corner and tipped his chin up. “Wilbur.”
“Wilbur,” Dad repeated.
I let out a relieved breath but sucked it right back inwhen Dad casually stuffed his crayons back into their carton and added, “Tell me, Wilbur…. What demons are haunting you today?”
The silence that followed was, well…
It was somethin’.
7
ADAIR
Icurled my fingers to grip the cuffs of my flannel and stared, the room holding its breath in the wake of such a question.
Beck Sewell wasn’t what I expected—not that I knew what to expect from any of this. But the ruggedly handsome man who looked to be somewhere in his early sixties, with long “hippie” hair, as Pops probably would’ve called it, definitely wasn’t it.
He’d been inattentive during the meeting so far but hadn’t given me the vibe that he was agitated or aggressive, which I had a decent radar for because of my job.
He was more…eccentric, if I had to put a name to it.
There was even the hint of a smirk on his face as he glanced at his daughter, who covered her eyes with her hand as she muttered, “You can’t just ask people that, Dad.”
Pops shifted beside me. “It’s all right, darlin’,” he said. “And Beck, to answer your question, I love sports and I live near Atlanta. Not easy teams to stand by most years. Does kind of feel like demons are at work.” He paused, hisexpression falling just a little. “Or I did, I mean. Live there.”
Silence fell again until the nurse who’d pulled out the chair for me spoke up.
“You’ll, um, find that Mr. Beck has quite a… sense of humor.”
Beck’s daughter turned her head toward the nurse, an annoyed look on her face that smoothed into a careful blankness so fast that I wasn’t sure if I’d just imagined it.
I certainly hadn’t imagined how striking she was.
Director Links cleared her throat. “Now that introductions are out of the way, why don’t we go tour the apartment? Then we can discuss any questions you all might have, and maybe Mr. Sewell and Mr. Smith can get to know each other better.”
I had a feeling that wasn’t her original plan but more of a strategic pivot. Everyone seemed to agree with it, though. Pops stood up beside me and clapped me on the back before heading toward the door.
I was about to follow him, but then Beck’s daughter stood up from her chair and leaned over to help her dad out of his. They shared smiles, and she shook her head at him in exasperation, muttering something to him quietly. He got to his feet quickly, more agile than expected, which meant that she guided him out of his chair as an act of love, not necessity.
The urge to learn her name, to have her look into my eyes and hear her voice as she said it, nearly overwhelmed me.
If only Delly were here. She wouldn’t hesitate to…
Mr. Sewell’s daughter stepped away from the table, and I saw them.
Knees.
Scrapedknees.
I’d finally found her.
Thanks to my very new habit of looking ateveryone’sknees since yesterday’s incident in the street, I’d probably earned myself a reputation in coastal Alabama as a very specific kind of pervert.
