Part 3
“Maybe for a little while,” Nell said. “Tasha is going to decide where you’ll be safest.”
Maisie’s face closed in the way Nell had come to fear—not tears, but the disappearance of expectation. Gus nudged the child’s elbow, and the cracker hidden in her pocket crumbled between them.
“I’m not going to tell you something I don’t know,” Nell added. “But I’ll tell you when I do know.”
Tasha watched her carefully. “That’s what she needs.”
The words were not praise. They sounded more like terms.
Cal Doran was released shortly before five that evening. Nell saw him through the courthouse glass as a deputy returned his belt, wallet, and work boots in a clear property bag. He was thinner than he had been six weeks earlier. His beard had grown in unevenly, and the old scrape across his right knuckle was gone—the scrape the first detective had photographed as if skin healed in only one direction.
Jonah spoke to him first. Cal stood motionless while his attorney explained that the charges were suspended, not yet dismissed, and that the investigation had changed. Then he looked through the glass and saw Nell. He came into the lobby tying his belt.
“Where’s Maisie?” he asked.
“With Tasha and the dog.”
“Did she say it wasn’t me?” Nell nodded.
Cal’s eyes went to the security officer ten feet away, then back to her. Even now, anger made him check who was watching. “And you?”
“I corrected what I told police about Wade.”
“Corrected.” He rolled the word once and set it down between them. “You told them I scared Laurel.”
“You did scare her sometimes.” His jaw moved. “I threw a mug into the sink. I shouted. I left because I was about to say worse. None of that put her on the floor.”
“No.” Nell wanted to apologize, but he was not finished.
“I kept telling them Wade was taking money from her. I told Leah about the calls. She said I was shifting blame.”
Across the lobby, Leah stood with Detective Sloan, watching without intruding. Nell saw the statement land on her too.
“I’m sorry,” Nell said.
Cal shook his head. “Don’t ask me to make that useful for you yet.”
He picked up the property bag and walked out with Jonah. The courthouse doors shut behind him, leaving his anger inside the glass for a second longer.
By nightfall, Tasha had arranged a temporary placement with Jo Delaney, a licensed foster parent who had worked with Maisie during Laurel’s first week in intensive care. Jo was sixty-two, wore bright reading glasses, and knew that toast cut into four plain squares was unacceptable but toast cut into one roof and two walls might be eaten.
Nell packed Maisie’s clothes into the small ladybug suitcase. She put in the green pajamas, the cup with two handles, and the night-light that cast stars on the ceiling. She did not pack Button until Maisie handed him over herself.
“You come too,” the child said.
Nell folded a cardigan that did not need folding. “Not tonight.”
“Because trouble?”
“Because Tasha has to make sure I can take good care of you.”
Maisie considered this. “You make eggs too hard.”
“I do.”
“Jo makes them soft.”
Nell smiled despite the ache under her breastbone. “Then breakfast is covered.”
Maisie did not smile back. She climbed into Jo’s car and watched through the window until it turned at the end of the block.
Nell returned to a house still carrying the arrangements of a three-year-old. The bathroom stool Wade had built stood at the sink. Three plastic bowls dried upside down near the stove. A row of cereal loops had been pushed beneath the radiator by small, selective fingers.
At 9:20, Wade called. Nell let the phone ring until the last second. “Where are you?”
“At the shop. Marcus Sloan was here asking questions.” His voice was steady, almost offended. “What did you tell him?”
“The truth about when you came over.”
Silence followed. She heard a compressor kick on in the background, then stop.
“You were out of your mind that night,” he said. “We all were. You don’t remember the time.”
“I remember the clock.”
“Because somebody put ten-oh-four in your head.”
“Maisie named you.”
His breath changed, a small catch he tried to turn into a laugh. “A three-year-old? Nell, come on. She loves me. She calls half the men she knows Uncle.”
“She said you came up the laundry stairs with red chalk on your hands.”
This time the silence lasted longer.
“I work with chalk.”
“I know.”
“So does she. I let her snap a line on that birdhouse last summer. You were there.”
He was right. Wade had made Maisie a cedar birdhouse, steadying her wrist while red powder jumped across the wood. Laurel had taken a photograph of the child’s astonished face. One remembered detail was not a verdict. Nell sat at her kitchen table. “Did you go to Laurel’s?”
“No.”
“Did she call you about Dad’s account?”
“She called everybody about that account. She wanted credit for cleaning up the last four years after I did the part that smelled.”
There it was: the grievance he could polish until it shone. Wade had changed their father’s sheets, argued with insurance, and slept in that recliner. He had also written checks to his company from an account meant to keep the old man housed and cared for.
“You should have told us you needed money,” Nell said.
“I did. You sent casseroles. Laurel sent a spreadsheet.”
The accuracy of it hurt. Nell had fed the problem because feeding was what she knew. Laurel had organized it from a distance. Wade had stayed, and then used staying as permission for everything that followed.
“Tell Sloan you were confused,” he said. “Tell him grief wrecked the whole week in your head. They’ll put Maisie back with you, and we can get Laurel home without strangers tearing us apart.”
“You asked me to lie before I knew she’d been attacked.”
“I asked you to keep Cal out of my business.”
“Why did you have a cut on your hand?”
“I roof houses for a living.” His voice rose. “My hands are cut every day.”
Nell moved the phone away from her ear, and Wade stopped. For most of his life, lowering her voice had been enough to lower his.
“I’m not changing my statement,” she said.
“Then you’re choosing him.”
“No. I’m done choosing a person before the facts.”
Wade ended the call. Ten minutes later, headlights crossed Nell’s front curtains. A truck door closed. She knew the weight of Wade’s steps on the porch before he knocked.
He stood on the other side of the glass holding no coat, though the April night had turned cold. The porch light caught the gray at his temples and the pale line where he had removed his watch. He looked tired enough to be their father.
“Open the door,” he said. “We can fix this.” Nell put her hand on the deadbolt. For an instant she pictured turning it, setting out coffee, and letting him talk until the family had a version they could live inside. Then Wade raised his hand to the glass. Red chalk remained in the half-moons of his nails. Nell slid the second lock into place and called Detective Sloan while her brother watched her do it…
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