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CHAPTER ELEVEN

MATT DIDN’T KNOW WHAT time it was The sky was bruised, but pink touched the eastern clouds so he figured it was close enough to day to get to work

He rose froht in and pulled on the clean clothes that Margot laundered for him at the end of each day He barely felt the deni of his blistered palms He was dimly aware of an ache in his sto down so well these days

He filled his thermos ater in the bathroom and stepped outside into the hot liquid kiss of a Louisiana su

All of it, the burn of his tired and sore muscles, the heat of the day, the buzz of insects, seemed somehow removed, disconnected from him

Instead, his ears roared with the screa splinter of wood

“Matt?”

Everything went silent at the sound of Savannah’s voice He turned looking for her in the shadoondering if this was another figination

Another ghost coet a piece of him

He glanced down and realized he was standing right next to her Savannah sat on the steps, her bare legs, honey-colored and long as the horizon, curled up to her chest

Her eyes, wide and liquid in the dark, looked up at hih him

She knows The thought was like a gong in his empty chest It made sense, of course—she was a researcher and his crimes were hardly hidden

“I brought coffee,” she said, holding out a

It sood, bitter and dark His body practically screamed for the caffeine

“No thanks,” he said, stepping past her toward the courtyard She brought the coffee because she wanted to talk And he wanted to start digging trenches for the box hedge maze

“Matt,” she said, that Southern accent winding through the courtyard to curl around in and around him, like smoke from some internal fire “I know about the accident”

He didn’t answer, just opened the shed and started taking out his tools Daas approaching and the dark night was turning gray

“Did you know?” she asked from a few feet away “About the floors?”

Did I know? Strange that everyone thought that knowledge e meant innocence As if it were that easy