Chapter 6: Eli's Porch

Eli's POV

Cassidy's lawyer had asked for her purse four times, and Gail Dunning had said she would give it back only to Cassidy herself.

Cassidy couldn't drive two hours with a doctor telling her to stay off her feet.

So on Sunday I drove.

I wasn't supposed to be the one. I told myself that all the way down the interstate.

Gail's house was a two-story brick colonial with a porch swing and a wreath of dried corn on the door.

She opened it before I knocked.

"Mr. Brandvold," she said. "Come in out of the cold. I've got tea."

She had said my name correctly. I hadn't given it to her.

"I'm fine here," I said. "I'm just here for the purse."

"Of course. Of course you are."

She went inside and came back with a thermos cup of ginger tea and held it out.

I took it, because refusing seemed pointless.

It was good tea. That bothered me more than anything else.

Through the front window I could see the living room.

Ron stood there in a quilted vest with a little girl on his hip.

She was about six, in a pink flannel nightgown, with a half-eaten sugar cookie in her left hand.

She saw me and waved the cookie.

Then she wriggled down and ran to the door in her socks.

"Are you the ambulance man?" she said.

"I am."

"Grandpa Ron said ambulance men are heroes."

"Grandpa Ron's being nice."

"He's always nice," she said. "He bought me boots."

"Sweetheart," Gail said, in the voice she used when she wanted a child to leave, "go find your milk."

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