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CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

February 10, 2019

Thor Senior holds firm. He will not tell them more. He is finished. Nora packs up her equipment and makes her way to the front door, but Agnes remains sitting, just as Thor does.

“Give me a minute,” she tells Nora, without looking away from the man in front of her.

She expects Thor to tell her to leave, but perhaps he’s curious. Perhaps he has more to say to her. She hears the door close, and she takes a breath. It feels like the first one in a long time.

“I have said everything,” Thor insists, “that I wish to.”

“I’m not wearing a microphone,” she tells him. “I’m not recording this. Whatever we say, it’s just us.”

The yellowing skin around his eyes. The pitiless gaze. The long nose. She can see every detail, every line and pore of his face, and she feels nothing. She will feel more, she knows there’s a mountain of more, somewhere inside her, but for now, she is a pipe. Open on both ends, things sliding through.

“You had an affair with Marie,” she says, and there’s the rage, roiling through the black. “You slept with her, and my grandfather found out.”

“I will not—”

“Please.” She’s got her hand on something sharp, and she realizes it’s his knee. When had she gotten closer to him?

“You should be careful,” he tells her. “Asking these questions. There is danger.”

“Are you threatening me?”

He’s a big man. Those bones aren’t frail beneath her grip. Neither are the muscles surrounding them. She realizes, distantly, that she should be afraid of him. But she would welcome the opportunity to hit him, even though she’s never hit anyone in her life. She’d like to try. She’d like for him to try, too.

“Go,” he tells her. He leans back, away from her. There’s something pathetic in the swipe of his hand. “You’re hurting me. Go. ”