Nightingale by Susan May Warren

made sense.
    Rosemary had been Linus’s girl. In truth, Linus had probably never intended more with Esther than his conquest in the backseat of the coupe.
    Are you sure?
    And if she’d said no?
    She blew a kiss to her daughter then picked up her pocketbook and tiptoed down the stairs.
    As she gathered her trench coat near the door, the judge looked up from where he sat under the glow of light in the living room, reading the newspaper. A summer fire flickered in the hearth, the pine popping with the drippings of sap. “Esther, a word?”
    From the moment she met the man, she tried to imagine him as an older version of Linus. But Judge Hahn bore none of Linus’s humor—the way his blue eyes twinkled, the husky, dark tones that made his charm lethal. Yes, at fifty, Judge Hahn still struck her as handsome—dark, Brylcreemed hair, salty at the temples, a build that bespoke his German ancestry—solid and strong. If only his eyes didn’t render her mute, turn her to stone.
    She forced herself into the family room, summoned to the bench of the judge.
    He closed the paper, folded it across his lap. Considered her a long moment before he reached into his pocket. “This came for you today.” He held out a letter. An aerogram.
    She stared at it, her body stiffening. “I—he’s a medic…”
    â€œI understand that it’s part of your nursing duty to correspond with soldiers, but I would ask that you refrain from having these come to our home.” He continued to hold the letter, now raised a brow.
    Why did her hand shake? She had committed no sin in writing to Peter. None. She found her breath as she took the letter. “Sorry. Of course.”
    He picked up his paper. “I know waiting is difficult. And of course, this is hardly the ideal situation. But soon Linus will be home, and everything will be put right.” He sighed as he opened the pages. “You may consider going to church and thanking God he wasn’t lost in battle.”
    She stared at the letter, the neat, crisp handwriting.
    Were you with Linus when he died?
She had formed the sentence in her head, churning it over, letting the question press through her before carving it into the paper.
    And he had written his answer—at least she dared hoped he had—in his precise, detailed, even poetic words. What kind of a man described war or delivered the news of the death of a man he barely knew with such compassion?
    The judge’s dark eyes lingered on her. She looked up and met them, and for a second the saliva left her mouth, her heart becoming granite in her chest.
    â€œBecause, you know, Arlene couldn’t bear to lose both Linus and Sadie.”
    He held her gaze, probably wanting his words to impel her to liquid. Indeed, she had no strength to tear away from him—or better, to leap upon him and claw at his eyes, tear his callous arrogance from his face.
    â€œHave a good shift,” he finally said.
    She willed herself to shuffle away yet stood in the hall, scrabbling for the pieces of herself.
    â€œEsther.” The voice emerged so softly, she barely heard it over the torrent inside.
    Bertha filled the doorway at the end of the hallway, in the gray swath of the unlit kitchen. She met Esther’s eyes then backed into the shadows.
    Esther didn’t hazard a glance at the judge, just tucked her coat over her arm and followed her.
    Bertha closed the swinging door. Dressed in her dark blue housecoat, the one that buttoned to the neck, her black hair down her back and tucked into a scarf, she appeared eerily young, a teenage desperation in her posture, the way she swallowed then wrapped her strong fingers around Esther’s wrist.
    â€œListen to me. Do not think for one moment that the judge won’t put you out on the street, lock you out of Sadie’s life.” Her gaze panned to the letter in Esther’s hand.
    â€œThis is nothing.” The words tasted