Love Lies Bleeding by Laini Giles Page A

intelligent, but that said, she could be a terrible spoiled brat at times. She was impetuous, but I loved her all the same. We grew up with each other, and we were good friends. We had planned to go to William Smith’s and study to be nurses together. The war was heating up. Everyone knew we’d be in it before long, despite what President Wilson said.
    “Instead, I ended up going to nursing school alone and becoming a nurse during the war and the influenza. I missed her so much during all that. We’d been pals since primary school. Frankly, she wasn’t as enthusiastic about nursing as I was. I think she thought it would make her parents happy.”
    “Your father was a professor at Cornell, wasn’t he?”
    “Yes, of biology.”
    “And what do you remember of my grandparents?”
    “Oh, they were wonderful people. I adored them like my own mother and father. They treated me like a daughter too.” She thought a moment. “Frank, do you know where your grandparents lived? The old Morgan house was on Seneca Street—the large gray-blue one near the corner of Seneca and Stewart. That was Libbie’s house when she disappeared. I heard that place cost her father a fortune to build, even back then.”
    “I do know it. Wow. Mom never told us that’s where she grew up. That’s an amazing house.”
    “Well, your grandfather was quite a man. He supported Libbie and your mother and grandmother in style. Worked his fingers to the bone at the law firm, or so everyone said. He was so respected around town. And he was intent on her marrying well, like another lawyer or a doctor. But then she disappeared, and everything changed.” She paused for a moment, and he pulled out his notebook to make copious notes. “After Libbie disappeared, your grandmother was inconsolable. She became this shell of herself, and I saw it happen. Broke her heart, it did. After she died, your grandfather went off the deep end, drinking more and more. His law partner had to buy out his half of the practice before it went under altogether. It closed for good when Mr. LaBarr died years later.”
    “And what about my mother?”
    “Your poor mother was a saint. Thrust into the very unfortunate position of having to play babysitter to her father, I’m afraid. And she always looked so sad when I saw her then.”
    Frank nodded. He’d heard this part before.
    “Now, I know it’s got to be a sore subject, and it’s been covered a lot in the last sixty years or so, but humor me here, as the new guy on the case,” he said.
    “You want to know why I lied for her,” Olive said, nodding her head.
    “What happened?”
    “Well, I had done it before. September seventeenth was a Sunday. I remember the date because there was a big church picnic in Newfield that lots of folks were going to. When she told me she needed to make some plans and her parents couldn’t know, I had one thought.”
    “What was that?”
    “She had been seeing a couple of fellows. One was very distinguished and oh-so-handsome, the son of her father’s law partner. They were pushing him at her, but she wasn’t sure what to think, she said. We both found him frightfully boring.”
    Frank continued his frantic scribbling. As he scrawled more notes, Olive continued.
    “But the other was originally from a farm in Newfield. You can imagine how that went over with your grandparents.”
    “Not well, I assume.”
    “You assume right. Your grandmother met him, but Libbie said she was not impressed. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I covered for her several times. When I asked her why, she wouldn’t tell me. Once, she said they wanted to go to the nickelodeon. You younger folks just call it the movies these days. But back then, we only paid a nickel to get in!”
    Frank chuckled for a moment as Olive continued.
    “But why did she need me to lie if that’s all it was? She told me we were best friends and that was what friends did for each other. She said that if anyone asked, I was to say