Elaine Elizabeth Young
September 25, 1943 — December 10, 1968
—followed by the single word that Saul had requested we place there:
Beloved
I touched the scar on my face, still tender, and then touched the ground before me. I knew the despair she’d felt, the hopelessness, and again it angered me that she hadn’t even tried to overcome it. I couldn’t imagine how Saul felt. Guilty, alone, lost.
He had loved her, and while she recognized it, she hadn’t been willing to fight for it. Not really. She had lacked the courage for the everyday struggle, been unwilling to face the stares, the hatred, the fear, for something she believed in.
I lacked it, too. The everyday courage. What had Sinkovich called me? A holier-than-thou son of a bitch. A man who could handle the big crusades when whipped into righteous anger, but who could not seem to face the small ones.
Beloved.
Saul had that courage, returning to his work even though he was shattered. Jimmy had it, too, willing to go on, even though he had lost everything.
So did Laura.
She would need it now so she could remember her goals, remember her mission, in the face of all the little business details that would flood her day after day.
Laura.
She would never make the choices Elaine had. She would never give up, no matter what she faced.
Laura would never let the bastards win.
But I nearly had.
For years, I had let the world step between me and the things I wanted, the things I believed in. There would always be men like Hucke, people like Sinkovich’s neighbors, or boys like the ones who had attacked Saul and Elaine. It was easier to lash out, to destroy, than it was to fight back.
Just like it was easier to remain invisible than challenge other people’s preconceptions.
I traced the word one last time, feeling the cold stone sharp against my fingers.
Beloved.
Oddly enough, it meant something to me, too.
* * *
I arrived at Laura’s apartment early. The elderly elevator attendant smiled at me as I got on, and watched me as if he saw something glorious in my face. I nodded to him when we reached Laura’s floor, the penthouse. I waited until the elevator doors closed before walking the handful of steps toward Laura’s door.
The silence up here was amazing. I noticed it every time I came. The walls were thick, insulated, protected from the world. The way Laura had been when I first met her. The way she was not now.
I rapped on the door with the back of my hand. It took a moment before I heard the locks snap open and the chain rattle. Laura pulled the door open, looking nothing like the woman I had seen at Sturdy Investments.
Her blond hair was down around her shoulders. She wore a baggy sweater and a tight pair of blue jeans. Her feet were bare.
“Smokey,” she said, and this time, she did touch my scar, her fingers feather-light against my skin. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
I caught her hand in my own. “Yes,” I said, and the word was freeing. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” she whispered.
Her hallway was still decorated for Christmas. Pine boughs had been draped over the picture frames, and a tiny tree stood in a pot by the door. Just inside the door, some mistletoe swayed in the breeze caused by a nearby heating duct.
With my free hand, I brushed the mistletoe. It was plastic. Then I stepped inside, beneath it, and pulled her close like I’d always wanted to do but never thought I dared. I cupped her face, slipping my hands beneath her warm, fragrant hair, and kissed her.
It felt like coming home.
After a moment, I rested my forehead against hers, black against white, skin against skin, feeling no difference between us at all. Her hands were wrapped around my back.
“Think it would be churlish of us to ask McMillan not to come to the victory party?” I asked.
“Who cares?” she said as she reached behind me and closed the apartment door.
ABOUT KRIS NELSCOTT
Kris Nelscott is an open pen name used by USA Today bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road, won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms, was a PNBA Book Award finalist; and the third, Thin Walls, was one of the Chicago Tribune’s best mysteries of the year. Kirkus chose Days of Rage as one of the top ten mysteries of the year and it was also nominated for a Shamus award for The Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year.
Entertainment Weekly says her equals are Walter Mosley and Raymond Chandler. Booklist calls the Smokey Dalton books “a high-class crime series” and Salon says “Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author.”
For more information about Kris Nelscott, or author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s other works, please go to KrisNelscott.com or KristineKathrynRusch.com.
THE SMOKEY DALTON SERIES
in order:
Novels
A Dangerous Road
Smoke-Filled Rooms
Thin Walls
Stone Cribs
War At Home
Days of Rage
Street Justice (March 2014)
Short Stories
Guarding Lacey
Family Affair
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
THIN WALLS
Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2013 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © 2013 by Konstantin32/Dreamstime
First published in 2002 by St. Martins Press
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Smokey Dalton Series
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
About Kris Nelscott
The Smokey Dalton Series
Copyright Information
Thin Walls: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 39
