Chapter 16 #4
“I’m not sure that Jonah took Waller,” Hallie told Donall and Rhodda, voice flat. Without giving them time to respond, she went on, “Girard and I found the body.”
“What body?” Donall demanded.
Rhodda flinched and shook her head. “Had nothing to do with that.”
“Liar,” Hallie said, still in that hard tone. She pulled out her phone and opened one of the photographs of the dead man’s face, showing it to Rhodda. “This is Waller, isn’t it? Dead and buried in a shallow grave.”
“It’s him,” Rhodda whispered after one glance at the screen, edging away from Hallie. The fear that had been held at bay when she’d confronted Nicholas was back, and Hallie felt her stomach turn. She’d caused an injured woman to shrink back from her and brought the terror back to her face.
Trying to push aside her own unease, she turned the phone screen so that Donall could see it as well.
His face lost what little colour it had had, deep purple shadows under his eyes standing out.
More guilt washed through Hallie. Not only had she frightened Rhodda again, she’d also upset Donall, who was at the end of his strength.
“What is this?” Donall asked, voice a low, harsh whisper. Hallie ignored him for a moment, keeping her focus on Rhodda.
“You knew he was dead,” Hallie went on, still in that hard voice, pushing down her guilt. She wanted answers. “What happened? Did you kill him?”
“Kill him? Me? No.” And there was a bit of truth, enough to ease some of the tension that had spread across Hallie’s shoulders.
“But you know who did.” Hallie made it a statement. She was quite sure of it.
Rhodda lifted her chin and glared at Hallie, anger and fear mixed in her face. “I don’t have to talk to you.”
“That’s right. You don’t. But even if you didn’t kill him - and I believe you when you say you didn’t - then you know something about what happened to him. The Conclave are going to want to know what happened to him.” Responding to the fear Rhodda had shown, Hallie gentled her voice a little.
“I can’t tell you.” It was a harsh whisper, and it was honest.
“Alright,” Hallie said. There was a small bit of temptation to push, to force an answer, but Hallie wasn’t sure she’d be able to live with herself if she did that.
“Waller is dead.” Donall was gripping the edge of the table as if frightened he might fall off his seat. “And buried near Reunion?”
“That’s right,” Girard said. “Someone killed him, and buried him.”
“That’s impossible,” Donall whispered.
“Well, it happened,” Hallie said, and looked around the room at the tired faces.
She couldn’t be absolutely sure without questioning all of them in turn, but she didn’t see any obvious signs of guilt.
If one of the Reunion settlers had killed Waller, they were excellent actors. Always assuming the killer was here.
Before she could ask more questions about Waller and his death, her conscience rose up and this time she listened.
Everyone in this room looked to be at the end of their strength.
She turned back to Donall and made her voice gentle again.
“It looks like Nicholas hasn’t been taking very good care of you? ”
“He’s decided that if we won’t work for him, he’d not going to feed us,” the man replied, settling at the end of the bench. He looked to be at the end of his strength. “We should have barred the gate against them like you suggested, Sylvie,” he said.
“I’m not sure it would have helped in the long run,” the woman who’d spoken earlier answered. Sylvie. She looked between Hallie and Girard. “And what use are the two of you?”
Hallie thought that was a fair question, as she and Girard were in exactly the same situation as the Reunion settlers - under armed guard.
“Gathering information just now,” Girard said, in the calm tone Hallie was familiar with. “And then we’ll decide what to do.” Hallie was sure he had a list of his own in mind as to what questions he wanted to ask, and what they needed to accomplish. Not least, escaping from the gunners outside.
Sylvie didn’t look impressed with Girard’s answer, settling back, frowning. Hallie didn’t blame her for that, either.
“My wife, Sylvie,” Donall said, surprising Hallie. They hadn’t been sitting together, but now he’d claimed their relationship, Hallie saw a quiet look between them that held a lot of history. She and Girard both murmured a greeting to the woman.
“So, you’ve been kept in this room for five or six days just with water?” Hallie asked. No wonder they all looked so defeated and tired.
Donall wouldn’t meet her eyes. Ashamed, she thought.
“You didn’t try to leave?” Girard asked, voice gentle. There were just two guards at the front, after all, and ten people in the room. Hallie frowned, remembering the long room with the bunk beds. There had been more than ten beds, she was quite sure. And there were no children here.
“Is this everyone from Reunion?” she asked, voice a little sharper than she’d intended.
There was a subtle shift in the tension around the room that drew her attention and a frown to Girard’s face.
She turned back to Donall, Rhodda and Sylvie and caught the sideways looks that Donall and Sylvie gave Rhodda.
Something there. Something Hallie couldn’t understand from that look.
But she could see the fear and grief in Sylvie’s face and read the answer to her question.
The settlement had had more people. Apprehension slid over her, wondering what had happened to the ones missing.
“Nicholas took the children,” Sylvie said in a harsh whisper.
Hallie stared, wondering if she’d heard that right, the odd looks to Rhodda forgotten as she turned Sylvie’s words over and over, trying to make them somehow less awful. Sylvie wiped tears from her face.
“Children,” Girard repeated, and Hallie could hear the shock in his voice. “Your children were taken from you?”
“To be looked after, Nicholas said,” Sylvie added, her tears drying up.
From the edge to her voice, Hallie could tell that Sylvie hadn’t believed Nicholas.
Hallie didn’t blame her. With the well-being of their children in the balance, it was no wonder that the Reunion settlers had stayed in New Hope.
But they hadn’t completely given in, Hallie thought.
They hadn’t gone to work for Nicholas like he’d wanted.
She exchanged glances with Donall and Hallie saw the shared worry on their faces.
Donall had mentioned a daughter as well as a wife.
“He said that they’d get the same treatment as us until we started working. ”
Hallie’s breath stopped. It was bad enough that Nicholas would hold a group of adults in one place, and give them nothing but water for days on end. Quite another thing to give the same treatment to children.
“We’ve had a few visitors. Old friends who are still in New Hope.
Too frightened to follow us to Reunion. They’ve come now and then.
Always after dark. Quiet, like,” Donall said, keeping his voice low, as if afraid the gunners outside would hear him.
“Slipped us some food. Let us know that the children are being fed, at least.”
Hallie felt another bit of warmth blooming in her chest at that story.
It seemed that Nicholas didn’t have quite the rigid control over the people of New Hope as he thought he did.
If he had, no one would have dared keep the Reunion settlers fed in defiance of his orders.
And it gave her a little bit of hope, too.
There was kindness among the people outside this room.
And a little bit of courage. Enough to sneak some supplies past the guards to keep the Reunion settlers fed and resolute in their opposition to Nicholas.
“Knowing the children are alright gave us the courage to keep saying no,” Sylvie added. “If we give in to him now, he’ll win and we’ll never be free.”
The determination on her face was reflected around the room as all the Reunion settlers murmured their agreement.
They’d been working on their separate settlement and homes for over a year, Hallie remembered, and it seemed that, however hard it had been, they still found it preferable to being under Nicholas’ rule.
And she had a feeling that, even without the food that their former neighbours had been bringing to them, the Reunion settlers would still have been defying Nicholas.
“We’re hoping he’ll just let us go at some point,” Donall said, although he didn’t sound too confident in that.
“We would have left before now, if it was just us.” Sylvie lifted her chin and despite the shadows on her face and the drying trail of tears, Hallie could see steely determination in the woman.
There was no doubt in Hallie’s mind that Sylvie on her own - never mind with the others - could have found a way out and back to Reunion, if it wasn’t for the children.
“Are they still in New Hope?” Girard asked, voice gentle.
“Where else would they be?” Sylvie asked, bitterness in her voice.
“Although we don’t know where.” Her head lifted and she turned to Girard and Hallie, a little bit of something bright blooming in her face.
It took Hallie a moment to recognise the new emotion as hope.
“I know you’re a very important person, a Conclave Investigator and all, but could you, I mean, would you …
” Her voice trailed off and Hallie saw another tear roll down her face.
“We will find the children,” Girard promised, “and bring them back to you.” He asked for details of the children - names and ages - and received replies from around the room.
Hallie kept a mental tally going. Five children.
Three girls, two boys. Aged between seven and thirteen.
When he’d got as much information as possible, Girard got up from the bench and Hallie followed.
He hadn’t consulted her, but he didn’t need to.
Kidnapping children was not something either of them would ignore.
“Is there another way out of this building?” Hallie asked.
She didn’t have any hesitation about disabling the guards at the front door, other than it would cause noise and draw attention.
It would be better to leave quietly. Such a large building should have at least one other exit, and if some of the residents of New Hope had been sneaking food in, she doubted they had come to the front door.
“Couple of ways, yes,” Donall answered, tilting his head as he looked between her and Girard. “You’re really going to look for our children?”
“We really are,” Hallie confirmed.
“Alright, then,” Donall said, and his shoulders straightened for the first time since Hallie had seen him.
He gave Girard and Hallie directions to get out of the building, keeping his voice low as if he was worried about being overheard.
As Donall talked, Hallie could understand his caution.
The builders who’d crafted the town hall had added a secret exit that only they knew about, and had managed to keep it hidden from Nicholas.
“But how can you find the children?” Sylvie wanted to know as Hallie and Girard were preparing to leave. “I mean, you don’t know the town?”
“It’s alright. Girard can find anything,” Hallie promised her and saw that dangerous bit of hope light up on Sylvie’s face again before she followed Girard out of one of the secret exits of the building, wondering just what more awful things they would learn before the day was done.