Chapter 13: The Officers

I pulled on yesterday's jeans and Emmett's gray sweater, which was the first thing my hand found.

He was already at the bottom of the outside stairs, buttoning his shirt.

At the top, Milo's door stayed shut.

The yard was white with a thin skin of snow, and the officers' boots had left dark prints to the door.

"Ma'am," the older officer said. "Are you Joanna MacIntosh?"

"I am."

"This lady says you took her grandson out of his bed last night."

"I did not take anyone out of anywhere."

"She stole my family," Dorothea said, to the officers, to the yard, to the gulls on the shed roof.

Her hair was set, her pearls were on, and she had been crying in a way that left her makeup perfect.

"Mrs. MacIntosh," the younger officer said. "Are you his legal guardian?"

"I'm his stepmother."

"Then you're not."

Dorothea's mouth moved in a very small, satisfied way.

"Who brought him here?" I said.

Nobody answered.

Bryce stood behind his mother with his coat open and his hands hanging.

"Ask her son," I said. "Ask the man who signed him out of the car."

The older officer turned his head.

"Sir?"

"Don't," Dorothea said, without looking back. "Bryce is exhausted. He doesn't know what he's saying."

My phone buzzed in my back pocket.

I took it out and saw Zoey's name and a video thirty seconds long, sent at five that morning.

"May I show you something?" I said.

The officers leaned in, one on each side of me.

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