Someone took hold of Elena’s face, looking into her eyes.

—Elena! Are you hurt?

The woman was speaking Russian.

***

Checking her daughter, Raisa couldn’t see blood on Elena’s shirt or see any sign of injury. She pulled off the red coat she was wearing, a coat Raisa had never seen before. There was something heavy in the pocket. She reached in, taking hold of a cold metal handle. It was a gun.

She knew immediately, and without any doubt, that this was the gun that had shot Jesse Austin.

Manhattan

Bellevue Hospital Center - 462 1st Avenue

Same Day

Clutching the sides of the sink, Anna was certain that if she let go she’d fall to the floor. Each breath was snatched, not a natural rhythm, but ripped from the air, as she repeated the six words, unable to recone that they were true.

Jesse is dead.

I am alive.

Tentatively lifting her right hand from the sink, she reached out and turned the tap, running cold water. She cupped her palm under the water – filling it and raising it to her face, water leaking through her fingers. By the time it reached her face her palm was empty save for a few cold drops that she pressed against her forehead. They ran down her face, collecting in her eyes, like tears, had she been able to cry.

She tried speaking the words aloud, wondering if that would make them real to her.

—Jesse is dead. I am alive.

It was impossible to imagine her life without him, impossible to imagine waking up tomorrow without him beside her, going to work and coming home to their empty apartment. They had survived adversities together and enjoyed success together. They’d travelled the entire country together and shared a cramped space in Harlem. No matter what they’d done, they’d done it together.

It had taken the authorities nearly fifty years but finally they’d got him. There might not have been a length of rope tied around his neck, they might not have killed in him on the edge of a forest, and though the killers couldn’t show their faces and proudly pat each other on the back, make no mistake, it was a lynching just the same, complete with photographs and audience. She would not cry, not yet. She would not mourn his death as a widow weeping by his graveside. Jesse had taught her better than that. Jesse deserved better than that.

Feeling her body come under some semblance of control, she straightened up, shutting off the cold water. She walked to the door of the restroom, opened it. In the corridor, in the distance, she saw the police officers waiting to interview her. She turned in the opposite direction, knowing exactly what she had to do.

Manhattan

17th Police Precinct - 167 East 51st Street

Same Day