Page 79 of The Number of Love
Coughing into his glove, Das Gespenst emerged slowly from his cover, not trusting them not to turn back into the park at any moment. His chest still ached a bit from the cold that had kept him inside the last few days.
Blasted English damp.
But no one else came into the park, leaving him free to approach the Go board. Would she really teach him to play? Onhisboard?
His fingers curled into his palm in protest. No. That wouldn’t do. Then they’d both be hovering around here, and he’d have to find a new place to blend into the shadows. Blighted man would no doubt spot him otherwise.
Well then. A slight change of plans, that was all. He pulled out the small velvet bags that held the stones and swept the white and black pieces into their respective pouches. His game with Margot De Wilde would just have to be paused for a while.
But that was all right. He’d already learned all he needed to know from her play anyway. The next step would have to be a little more ... involved.
24
What if they were right?
Margot sat at the table in her empty flat, staring at the stack of newspapers but unable to make herself pick up another one. Never in her life had she let other people’s doubts stop her from doing what she knew was right.
But she didn’tknowthis time. There had been no whisper of beautiful proofs in her head. No nudging of the Pythagorean theorem telling her to follow, to walk, to do. To search newspapers for answers. To find an assassin.
She’d been clinging to her belief that it couldn’t be coincidence. But then yesterday Drake had responded to one of his sister’s jokes with,“You’reasking the wrong question, Dot.”
And the words had stuck fast in her mind. He hadn’t said those exact words to her, but it was what he’d been getting at that evening at her birthday dinner, wasn’t it? That she shouldn’t have been asking why God hadn’t sent her to help—that perhaps she couldn’t have. Perhaps there was a different way she ought to be looking at it.
You’re asking the wrong question. She tapped her pen against the table and let her eyes drift to the letter that had been waiting for her when she got home, as usual. Quite a stack of them had grown on her desk in the last few weeks, as November had marched into December. Each one somehow made her feel as though she knewDrake a little better. Understood the workings of his mind a bit more. He never wrote questions in them—those he seemed to save for their thrice-weekly meals together. They were filled instead with his insights. What he’d learned from each thing he asked her.
She pulled forward the stack and flipped through a few. Frowned. They were out of order. Why were they out of order?
She certainly had no one to blame for it other than herself—she must have been careless last night after she’d reread them. Not her usual state ... but then, he muddled her. Made her think of a future she hadn’t before. Entertain ideas she’d always dismissed.
He knew how to ask the right questions. And with each day that went by, she admired that more. It wasn’t an easy thing, wasn’t really anaturalthing.
It wasn’t a thing she was so sure she was good at. A few months ago, she would have claimed the opposite. Because a few months ago, God still spoke to her whenever she asked Him for direction.
With a huff, she pushed up from her chair. After dousing the gaslights, she strode to the window and pulled back the blackout curtains. Winter darkness, virtually untouched by the few dim streetlights here and there, stared back. She rested her forehead against the cold glass pane.
Itseemedlike the cold radiated into her flesh. But was it that, or was it the heat transferringoutof her skin?
Was it Margot’s predisposition to see numbers in the chaos that had led to Maman’s death? Or Maman’s death that had made Margot see an order where there was none?
What if it was random? A heart attack?
But what if it wasn’t, and she gave up the search, and the killer struck again?
Groaning, she pushed her forehead off the window and rubbed at the cold spot on her head. She didn’t know what questions were right, what answers were worth pursuing. She just knew that the evening stretched out long and endless before her, and she didn’t want to spend it alone with her newspapers.
The duchess had sent round another journal. She could read that.Once upon a time, a free evening plus a new scientific journal equaled guaranteed happiness.
But that was when Maman would be there on the couch, knitting. Somehow having that company, even when silent, made a difference.
She glanced at the clock. It was only six. Early yet. She could go and spend the evening with Lukas and Willa and Zurie.
No. It was Tuesday. They were in Poplar, eating with Willa’s family at Pauly’s Pub.
She could take the tube to join them, but by the time she got there, it would be seven. They’d be finishing up, preparing for the hour’s ride home to get Zurie into bed.
Her gaze found the letter. Forcing her to admit that she didn’t really want to visit her brother tonight anyway. She wanted to see Dot.
All right, she wanted to see Drake. Maybe he knew what questions to ask.
