Chapter 7 — Even If No One Believes Me

When she finished, she was shaking, and she would not look at me, and finally she asked the question that the whole rest of our life together would turn on.

“Do you believe me, Callahan?” she whispered.

“Even if no one else in this town ever does — do you believe me?”

And I understood, holding her hand in that dim room, that this was the only question that mattered, and that everything depended on how I answered it, and that I must not hesitate for even an instant, because she had been alone in the dark for three days precisely because she feared no one would.

“I believe you,” I said.