Chapter 8: The Window

Bram was out the door before the second flash faded.

The bell clanged behind him.

I yanked my strap up and ran after him in my socks.

Thames Street was empty and wet.

Down at the corner of Broadway, a small figure in a hooded jacket was running for a white car with its engine already going.

The car pulled out before Bram got halfway there.

No plate light.

He stood in the middle of the street, breathing hard, his shirt still pulled crooked from my hands.

Then he walked back to me.

"Go inside," he said. "You're bleeding through your shoulder."

I was.

He taped a bandage over my father's boat without a word, his hands perfectly gentle and his jaw tight.

"It'll be online by morning," I said.

"Probably."

"Tilly will see it."

"She's eight. She'll see it if someone shows it to her." He pressed the last corner of tape down. "So we make sure nobody does."

I didn't sleep.

At 6:40 my mate texted me a link and nothing else.

It was a public account I didn't know, with forty followers and one post.

Me on the counter, my legs around his waist, my strap down, his mouth on my neck.

Sharp. Clear. Lit perfectly by his own shop lights.

The caption said: "Foster mom of the year. Ask her who's watching the kid."

By eight it had been shared two thousand times.

By nine someone had matched the photo to Ellis's post and put them side by side.

By ten, a girl from my old high school had commented, "Sadie R. took this?? she's in my cousin's class at law school."

She'd forgotten to make the account private before she went to bed.

The username had her birthday in it.

At eleven my company's office manager called.

"Frankie, honey. We've had nine calls this morning. Two from customers. One from a reporter." She lowered her voice. "Is that you on the counter?"

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