Chapter 14: Nothing to Pay

Sadie's POV

Garner's headlights swung across the kitchen wall a little before midnight.

Elliot was already on his feet.

"Stay here," he said.

"No."

I went to the door with him, and we stood on the porch together.

My husband got out of a car I had paid the lease on.

He looked terrible.

His good jacket was creased, and he was holding his phone out in front of him with both hands.

"I know you hate me," Garner said. "I need five minutes before you say it."

"Why are you carrying that like it's a bomb?"

"Because I think it's listening."

Elliot took one step down.

"Put it on the porch rail," he said. "Face down. Then come in."

Garner did, and he came in.

He sat at my mother's table with his hands flat in front of him.

He did not look at Elliot or at me.

He told it straight.

The profile, the lake, the two hundred files.

Then he played the March call, and the three of us heard his voice say: What would I do with a five-year-old?

When it ended nobody said a word.

"That's the thing she's holding over me," Garner said. "I said it. I'm not going to tell you I didn't."

"You said it to her," I said.

"Yes."

"And you sued me anyway."

"She told me you wanted to go back to the channel," Garner said.

"She told me the custody request was a bargaining chip that would never reach a judge." He swallowed. "It reached a judge."

I waited for the anger.

It came, but it was smaller than I expected, and it was pointed somewhere else.

"I'm not forgiving you," I said.

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