I went around the table to cradle his head against my breast. Poor guy, witnessing his own father commit murder. No wonder he was hiding. No wonder William wanted to find him.

I jumped as a voice spoke behind me. “Oh, it’s you, Victoria. I might have guessed from all the racket that you’d shown up.” Mary Ann McFarlane was standing in the doorway.

44

The Recording Angel…or Devil?

With her bald head atop her scarlet tartan dressing gown, Mary Ann made a startling sight, but all three of us responded at once to her authority. Billy’s ingrained good manners brought him to his feet; he drank the water that Josie had been holding out to him, and apologized to Mary Ann for waking her up. After we’d gone through the bustle of greetings, and how I’d happened on the fugitives, Billy finished the tale, by explaining how they’d ended up at Mary Ann’s.

They’d spent the remainder of Monday night huddled under the worktable, too shocked and frightened to try to leave. They thought they’d heard more voices than just William’s and Grobian’s, but they weren’t sure, and they didn’t know if someone was watching the plant. But by morning, they were cold as well as hungry. They risked getting up to use the bathroom, which was in the intact part of the plant. When no one attacked them, they decided to leave but didn’t know where to go.

“I wanted to call you, Coach Warshawski,” Josie said, “but Billy was afraid you might still be working for Mr. William. So we came here, because Coach McFarlane was the person who helped Julia when she got pregnant.”

I shadow-punched Mary Ann. “What was that you said to me this afternoon—about not knowing the Dorrado girls very well?”

She gave her grim smile. “I wanted them to go to you, Victoria, but I’d promised I’d keep their secret safe until they were ready to tell it. Trouble is, I thought Billy was hiding while he sorted out the ethics of his family’s business—I didn’t know ’til I heard him just now that they’d witnessed Bron’s death. If I’d known that, please believe I’d have called you quam primum famam audieram.”

Mary Ann breaks into Latin when she’s agitated—it calms her down, but makes it hard for people like doctors and nurses to know what she’s saying. I don’t follow her easily myself, and, right now, I was too overwhelmed by Billy’s narrative to make the effort.

“You said Marcena read from a transcript, that she didn’t play the recording,” I said to Billy. “But did you see her recorder at Fly the Flag?”

“We didn’t see anything,” Josie said.

“And Billy’s dad didn’t see you?”

“No one saw us.”