Page 45 - TruthAboutLyingFinal

Nicholas Boothman
Chapter 3 The First Device
The soup kitchen on George Street, east of downtown Toronto, looked like it had survived several winters and lost all of them.
Peeling paint. Cracked windows. A rusted sign above the door.
St. Michael’s Community Centre.
Henry arrived at 5:45, fifteen minutes early. Old habits. In his previous life, being early meant controlling the room.
Now it meant standing in the cold, watching people line up for soup.
Claire was inside, ladling broth into bowls. She saw him through the window and nodded once, but she didn’t stop working.
A woman opened the side door.
She was small, maybe twenty-four, with dark eyes, purple streaks in her hair, and a smile that made him feel like she already knew his passwords.
“Henry Talbot?”
“Jinji Arata?”
She held out her hand. Her grip was firm. “Come on,” she said. “Vincent’s waiting.”
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