Nora did not wonder.

“Uncle Elliot would never,” she said, instantly, shaking her head, and I envied her the clarity of her open heart, which had held onto a truth about a good man that my careful, suspicious vault had let Roland’s lies corrode.

It turned out she was right, and I was wrong, and the wrongness taught me something about what years of a liar’s whispering can do even to a mind that prides itself on evidence.

Chapter 14 — Uncle Elliot