The Littlest Prosecutor novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Not Sorry

Aunt Jo set her phone on the tablecloth, in the middle, between the bread basket and the butter dish.

She touched the screen once.

The first thing out of it was a car engine, and a radio playing, and somebody humming along.

It was Faye's voice, singing.

She was so happy.

Faye's mother lifted her head at the sound.

She smiled a small, relieved smile.

Then the song stopped, and the humming stopped, and a door shut.

A second voice came out of the phone, flat and quiet, a whisper that went right through the walls.

I knew that whisper, and I knew the hallway it came from.

My own tiny voice answered it, and Daddy's hands closed on nothing.

Then the whisper kept going, past the part I had ever told anyone.

"Nobody comes looking for a girl in a place like that."

"You will sit in a room with strangers, and you'll be so quiet they forget your name."

Faye's mother's lips parted.

"And your father will sign whatever I put in front of him."

"He is tired, and he is a fool, and he wants me to be nice."

On the table, somebody's fork rattled against a plate.

"Who's going to believe you?" said the whisper. "A little freak who can't talk. Say thank you."

"Thank you," said my small voice, on the recording.

Jo touched the screen.

The room went silent.

Faye's mother did not move at all.

Her face had gone the color of paper, and the cane lay across her lap, under both hands.

"Mama," Faye said. "Mama, it's cut up. They cut it. That's not how it was. I was playing."

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