Anvil novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: New Locks

On Sunday Tucker took my daughter to the hardware store and brought home four deadbolts.

"My job was the screws," Birdie announced, dumping a paper bag onto the kitchen table.

"I held them the whole time. I didn't lose one."

"She didn't lose one," Tucker said gravely. "I counted."

He knelt at the front door with a screwdriver and a drill.

Birdie knelt beside him and handed him things before he asked for them.

I stood at the sink and watched through the kitchen doorway, and my chest hurt in the good way again.

"Will Uncle Rhett's key still work?" she asked.

"No, bug."

"Will he be mad?"

Tucker glanced at me down the hall.

"Maybe a little," he said. "But your mom's house is your mom's house. She gets to pick who has a key."

Birdie thought about it.

"I pick you," she said.

His hands stopped.

"Okay," he said, after a second, in a rough voice. "I'd like that."

I turned on the tap so neither of them would see my face.

When the last bolt was in, he put the new keys in a row on the counter.

One for me, one for him, and one on a pink string for Birdie's backpack.

"Rhett's going to notice by Monday," I said.

"I'm counting on it."

"Then he'll know we know something."

"He'll know you got scared of a Dogs bike and changed your locks. That's all he'll know."

Tucker touched my elbow.

"Let him think we're rattled. Rattled people don't look like they're hunting."

I nodded.

I did not tell him how scared I really was.

That night, after Birdie was down, I took him to the hall closet.

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