The yard was loud again, but somehow all I could hear was Evelyn’s voice.
“Are you Nora?”
I stared at her.
“How do you know my name?”
She looked toward the guards.
Then toward the women in the yard.
“Not here.”
I picked up the photograph.
“What do you know about me?”
Her hands began to shake.
“I knew your father.”
My heart stopped.
I hadn’t heard anyone mention my father in eight months.
Not once.
He had been dead for eleven years.
At least, that was what I’d been told.
I looked at Evelyn.
“What was his name?”
She swallowed.
“Thomas.”
I stepped backward.
My father had always been Thomas Vale.
But hardly anyone knew his name.
Everyone who had known him was either gone or far away.
“How did you know him?”
Evelyn looked at the little metal box.
“He asked me to protect something.”
“What?”
She glanced toward Mack.
“Not here.”
Then she walked away.
I wanted to follow her.
But I couldn’t.
The guards were watching.
And Mack was watching too.
For the rest of the day, I couldn’t concentrate.
Who was Evelyn?
Why was she in prison?
How did she know my father?
And why had she looked at me as if she had been waiting for me?
That evening, when everyone returned to the cell block, I saw Evelyn sitting alone at the end of the corridor.
I approached her.
She looked up.
“You shouldn’t have helped me.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know what you stepped into.”
“Then tell me.”
She was silent.
Finally, she said, “Your father wasn’t the man you were told he was.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“He wasn’t a criminal.”
“I know that.”
“No,” she whispered. “You don’t.”
She reached inside her cardigan.
For a moment, I thought she was going to pull out something dangerous.
Instead, she produced a small folded piece of paper.
She held it out.
I opened it.
There was one sentence written in handwriting I recognized immediately.
My father’s handwriting.
I had seen it hundreds of times as a child.
My hands began shaking.
The note said:
Nora, if Evelyn Hart ever finds you, listen to her before you trust anyone.
I stared at the words.
“Where did you get this?”
“Your father gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Three days before he died.”
