Chapter 9 - THE TRUTH IN THE LEATHER
Wade sat alone in the booth with Emma.
He slowly pulled the folded letter out of his vest pocket and laid it flat on the table between them. He didn't re-read the words—he didn't need to. Every line Sarah had penned with her dying hand was already burned into his memory.
He looked down at Emma.
She was sitting quietly, her small hands resting in her lap over her yellow floral dress. The oversized leather vest hung off her like a mountain, but she didn't try to take it off. She wore it as if it were the only thing connecting her to her mother.
Wade reached out with a thick finger and gently lifted the interior lapel of the oversized vest, exposing the hand-sewn red rose patch stitched over the lining.
“She kept it,” Wade whispered, his voice trembling slightly. “All these years... she kept the cut.”
Emma looked up at him, her dark eyes clear and honest.
“She said it belonged to the bravest man she ever met,” Emma said softly. “She told me that no matter what happened, if I brought it back to you, you’d protect me.”
Wade felt a knot tighten in his throat—a painful, aching lump that no amount of pride could swallow. He reached out and wrapped his large, scarred hand over Emma’s small, pale fingers resting on the table. His hand was almost big enough to cover her entire arm, but his touch was impossibly light.
“She was wrong about me being brave, Emma,” Wade said softly, looking her dead in the eye. “I let her leave. I let her walk away thirty years ago because I thought I was keeping her safe from this life. I was a fool.”
“She didn't leave because of you,” Emma said quietly.
Wade paused, his gray eyes narrowing slightly. “What do you mean?”
Emma reached out with her free hand and touched the small gray voice recorder sitting on the formica table.
“Mom said the man by the window came to our house three weeks ago,” Emma whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the diner. “Before she got real sick. He came in the middle of the night. I heard him talking to her in the kitchen.”
Wade’s entire frame went still. “What did he say to her, Emma?”
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Emma looked toward the front entrance of the diner, her small face pale in the sunlight.
“He told her that you were dead,” Emma whispered. “He told her you died ten years ago... and that if she ever came back to Pennsylvania, he’d make sure nobody ever found me.”
