Page 34 of Torin

Outside, the sun is high over the clearing. I step onto the porch, hoping it might be cooler out there, but the heat has settled over everything. Even the shade beneath the pines looks hot.

I sit on the top step anyway.

For a while, I watch a squirrel race across the clearing and disappear into the undergrowth. Dragonflies hover above a patch of wildflowers, and somewhere deeper in the trees a woodpecker is hammering away with impressive determination.

The forest doesn’t care that I’m impatient. I’ve spent months sneaking around, collecting evidence whenever I could, always feeling like I was running out of time. Then yesterday everything exploded, and I actually ran.

Now I’ve made it somewhere safe and apparently my next heroic move is to sit on a porch for thirteen days.

I tip my head back against the railing.

There has to be something I can do in the meantime.

Nothing useful comes to mind.

Eventually the heat drives me back inside.

I wander around for a minute before stopping in front of one of Bennett’s bookshelves.

There are hundreds of books.

Of course there are.

History. Politics. Biography. Several shelves devoted to journalism, because apparently the man doesn’t get enough of it at work.

Then I find the novels.

I smile.

Bennett was forever trying to get me to read more fiction.

If all you read is journalism, you’ll end up thinking journalism is the most important thing in the world.

I’d pointed out that he taught journalism.

Exactly. It’s a profession, Hannah. Not a personality.

I can practically hear him saying it now.

I can’t remember the last time I did anything that wasn’t connected to Dad, Cade or the investigation. Even before Dad found out what I was working on, every spare hour went into another records request, another interview, another name I needed to chase down.

Maybe Bennett had a point.

God help me.

I pull a novel from the shelf and carry it to the couch.

The windows are open now, and a warm breeze moves through the room, stirring the curtains. I stretch out, careful of my ribs, and open the book.

For the first few pages, my mind keeps wandering back to the folder on the table.

Then, gradually, I stop thinking about it.

I read another page, then another.

The book slides off my chest and hits the floor.

I jerk awake.