You would have found it, she said. Maybe, he said, but you found it first and I don't know how to. He stopped again. I don't have the right words for what I'm trying to say. Thomas, Clare said.
He looked at her. "When this is over," she said. "You can have all the time you need to find the words." He held her gaze. Something moved between them in the cold and the dark.
Something that had been building for months and was very close now to the surface, and they both knew it. And they both by unspoken agreement held it at exactly the distance they had decided on when this was over. "Good night," he said. "Good night," she said. He went inside.
She stayed on the porch for a little while longer, looking at the mountain, feeling the cold, thinking about tomorrow and about all the tomorrows after it. That she was, she now understood with complete clarity, planning to be here for. Whitmore's inspector arrived at 10:00 in the morning. His name was Hol. He was in his 40s, efficient with the manner of someone performing a procedure rather than making an assessment.
He had a clipboard. He had a list of criteria. He worked through them with the mechanical precision of a man who knows what his report will say before he writes it. Thomas walked with him. Clare stayed in the house.
She stayed in the house because that was where the household evidence was and because she wanted to be there if he came inside and because she had understood without being told that her role today was different than Thomas's. Thomas was the landowner. She was the household. Two different cases, two different witnesses, two different bodies of evidence. Hol came inside at 11:00.
He looked at the kitchen. He looked at the state of the house. He opened the cupboards. She did not object and looked at the stores. He looked at the children's rooms.
He looked at everything with his clipboard. He found Clare in the kitchen when he was done. "The children are in school," he said. "They are," Clare said. "I can provide the school attendance records if you'd like to see them.
He looked at her. "You're the housekeeper." "I manage the household," Clare said. "And your relationship with Mr. Walker is professional," Clare said calmly, without heat. "I was hired to manage this household.