Rosalie immediately wrote a summary for him.
Whitcomb noticed.
Something sympathetic passed through his expression.
He returned to the fragment.
“This isn’t alive.”
Rosalie blinked.
“It moved.”
“I believe what you saw was tissue attached to it contracting after removal.”
Relief washed through her so suddenly that she had to sit down.
Not alive.
Thank heaven.
“But what is it?”
Whitcomb hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
He scraped away some of the residue.
Metal appeared beneath.
Rosalie leaned forward.
“A piece of metal?”
“Possibly.”
Gideon read her lips imperfectly.
He wrote quickly.
Metal?
Rosalie nodded.
Whitcomb examined Gideon’s ear again.
“There is considerable scar tissue. Old scar tissue.”
“How old?”
“Years. Possibly decades.”
Rosalie’s stomach tightened.
“And his deafness?”
Whitcomb removed his spectacles.
“I cannot say without better instruments. But I can tell you something.”
