Chapter 18: The Man from Tulsa

Lily slept in Maddie's room that night, on a trundle bed, with the shoebox under her pillow.

A police officer came at nine and wrote down everything Ben told her.

She looked at the sleeping girl and at the cards.

"I'll note that she was found safe and left in good hands," she said.

Colleen did not answer her phone until midnight.

Then she sent me forty messages in an hour.

The first twenty said I had kidnapped her daughter.

The next fifteen said she was coming for her.

The last five said she was sorry, and could Lily please come back to the motel.

I wrote back: Lily is safe and asleep. Come to the house at nine in the morning, and don't come alone.

The truck got there first.

It had been parked at my curb for twenty minutes before she came.

It was a dusty white pickup with Oklahoma plates and a toolbox in the bed.

The man who got out of it was tall and stooped, in a canvas work jacket.

He had gray in his beard and red around his eyes, and he had not slept.

He stood at the bottom of my porch steps with his cap in both hands.

He did not come up until I waved him.

"Mrs. Marsden?" he said.

"Yes."

"I'm her father."

"I know. She looks like you around the eyes."

He tried to smile, and could not.

"Where is she?"

"Upstairs, brushing her teeth. Maddie's helping."

"May I wait here?"

"You can sit," I said. "You can sit on the porch as long as you want."

He sat on the top step.

He kept the cap in his lap and turned it, slowly, around and around.

Ben came out and handed him a coffee without being asked.

The man looked at it, and at him.

"Thank you," he said. "I'm sorry for the trouble."

"It's not trouble," Ben said. "I'm Ben. I'm Hannah's lawyer. I'm not yours, but I'll tell you what I know."

"I'd take that."

The front door opened behind us.

Lily stood in the hall in Maddie's pajamas, with her hair damp and tucked behind her left ear.

Nobody breathed.

"Hi," the man said, and his voice broke in the middle.

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