第3章 第5節 サムの選択
Sam's Choice
Nora found Sam at the , mending a he did not need to .
"You have been watching me since the day I arrived," she said.
He did not look up, and his hands went still on the ropes.
"You met the man from the ," she went on. "I saw you both."
"You have been reporting where I go and what I carry."
Sam's shoulders dropped, and the slid from his knees to the boards.
"Edwin pays me," he said at last. "He has paid me for months."
"My family owes him everything, and he never lets us forget it."
"So you sold me," Nora said, "the way this town sold my mother."
"It must have seemed like an easy thing, watching a stranger."
"It wasn't easy," Sam said. "You must believe that, even if you hate me."
Nora laughed, short and , and turned to leave the .
"Wait," he called. "There is something I have not given him."
She stopped, though every part of her wanted to keep walking.
"The tape from the ," Sam said quietly. "I haven't told him about it."
"He knows you were on the water. He does not know what you found."
Nora studied his face, searching for the next lie inside the last one.
"Why keep that back?" she asked. "Why keep anything back for me?"
"Because a man who died in that fire was my mother's cousin," Sam said.
"I have spied for Edwin, but I never agreed to help him win."
The hung between them like smoke that would not clear.
She could him with a word, and he had just handed her the word.
"Then help me now," Nora said, "or the next fire may be yours."
Sam picked up the again, but this time his hands were shaking.