Another footstep. Then another pause.

Should she leave? Go hang with Dr. Barry, the librarian, until this creepy dude left?

And then the other visitor laughed.

Not a weird laugh, a fun laugh.

And he said, “Okay. I’ll call you later.”

A snap of a cell phone folding up. That’s why he’d been pausing, just listening to the person on the other end of the line.

Told you not to worry, girl. People aren’t dangerous when they laugh. They aren’t dangerous when they say friendly things on cell phones. He’d been walking slowly because that’s what people do when they’re talking – even though what kind of rude claimer’d make a phone call in a library? Geneva turned back to the microfiche screen, wondering, You get away, Charles? Man, I hope so.

Yet he regained his footing and, rather than own up to his mischief, as a courageous man would do, continued his cowardly flight.

So much for objective reporting, she thought angrily.

For a time he evaded his pursuers. But escape was merely temporary. A Negro tradesman on a porch saw the freedman and implored him to stop, in the name of justice, asserting that he had heard of Mr. Singleton’s crime and reproaching him for bringing dishonor upon all colored people throughout the nation. The citizen, one Walker Loakes, thereupon flung a brick at Mr. Singleton with the intent of knocking him down. However,

Charles dodges the heavy stone and turns to the man, shouting, “I am innocent. I did not do what the police say!”

Geneva ’s imagination had taken over and, inspired by the text, was writing the story once again.

But Loakes ignores the freedman’s protests and runs into the street, calling to the police that the fugitive is headed for the docks.

His heart torn, his thoughts clinging to the image of Violet and their son, Joshua, the former slave continues his desperate run for freedom.