He Let Them Think She Was His novel · Chapter 15 of 32
Chapter 15: The Stove and the Dead Bolt
The deputy's cruiser came down my drive on Tuesday at seven in the morning, and a county car followed it.
I was on the porch with my coffee and I watched them come.
I knew whose idea this was before the cruiser stopped.
Jesse came out of the barn wiping his hands.
Kit came out of the bunk house in her stocking feet, with Lottie asleep against her shoulder.
"Mrs. Renner?" the deputy said.
He was a young man with a clean haircut and a folder, and he had the look of someone who had been told something different on the drive.
"Yes."
"I have an emergency order for the welfare of a minor child on this property. Lottie Sorrell." He opened the folder. "Judge signed it at six last night on a petition from a family member."
"Which family member?"
"I'm not able to say."
"I'll say it for you," Jesse said. "It's Ward Renner."
The deputy didn't answer.
The woman from the county car stepped forward.
She was holding a clipboard in both arms.
"Ms. Sorrell, we've had a report of neglect," she said, gently. "No heat license on the building. A toddler living in an unfinished outbuilding with an unemployed mother."
"I have a job," Kit said.
"We'd just like to take her for the day, ma'am, and do an evaluation."
"For the day."
"Probably a few days."
Kit turned her back on them, with her whole body, around the baby.
"No," she said.
Her voice was thin.
I had never heard her say a word so hard.
"Ma'am, if you refuse, the deputy has to..." the woman started.
"Deputy," I said. "Read me the order."
He read it.
He read it twice, because I asked him to.
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