Chapter Thirty-Three

I RODE TO MOM’S and found Martha sitting in her wheelchair at the desk in the corner of her room. She was hunkered over a sheet of newspaper with all the parts to the cassette laid out on it.

“Hey, hey! How’s it going?” I asked spreading myself across her doorframe.

She raised her hand. “Shhh. Mom’s upstairs asleep.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“What are you so excited about?”

“I just had lunch with Sydney Deagan.”

“A date?”

“Sort of.” I browsed the bookcase in the hall, removed the oldest photo album, and carried it into Martha’s room where I sat on her bed.

“Tell me everything,” she said without looking up.

I opened the dark leather cover on the album. It crinkled as it folded back. “Not much to tell. I picked up a couple of wraps and met her at the gazebo on the back of Greenfield Lake.”

“M