Room 14's Secret novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Yellow Raincoat

A court clerk brought Posy out into the corridor ten minutes later.

She still wore the yellow raincoat, buttoned to the chin.

She stopped three steps from me and looked at my navy dress, my hair, my face.

"You're not pretending anymore," she said.

"No, baby. Not anymore."

She ran, and I went down on my knees on the marble and caught her.

She was heavy and warm, and her braids smelled of the wrong shampoo.

Her hand found mine and squeezed three times.

I squeezed back three times, as hard as I wanted to.

Behind me, Zachary was helping Leanne into a county van that would take her to a hospital he had picked himself.

He came over and crouched beside us.

"I'll call tonight," he said. "Lock your doors."

Posy looked at him with great suspicion.

"Who is that?" she asked.

"A friend," I said.

"He has a scar."

"I do," Zachary said gravely. "You can ask me about it when you're ready."

She considered this and decided it was acceptable.

The baby was asleep in the clerk's children's room with a deputy standing guard over her stroller.

I lifted her out, and she woke against my neck and said it.

"Mama."

It had three As and a wobble, and this time I let myself make a sound.

The court visitor drove us home, a tired woman with a lanyard and a clipboard who said almost nothing.

The house stood at the end of a maple street in West Hartford, white clapboard with black shutters, exactly as I had left it.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Room 14's Secret from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.