Chapter 20: The Receipt

I was still holding the order with both hands when Rhett's silver sedan came down the lane.

It turned onto the gravel too fast, and stopped crooked beside the shop.

The process server's car was barely out of sight.

Silvan stepped in front of me on the step.

"That's far enough," he said.

Rhett got out.

He was in the same dark suit as the night before, with the collar open and the tie gone, and he hadn't slept.

He didn't come closer.

"I know about the order," he said. "That's why I'm here. Look in the back seat."

Silvan didn't move.

I stepped around him, and I stopped on the gravel, because the page in my hand said five hundred feet.

Through the rear window I could see a small shape under a camel coat, with a rabbit's ears sticking out of the collar.

Poppy was asleep, with her mouth open and her cheek on the seat.

I put my free hand over my mouth.

"I took her out of the house at five," Rhett said. "The back stairs, past the kitchen."

"Did anyone see you?"

"The housekeeper. She looked at the ceiling."

"Rhett, do you know what you've done?" Silvan said.

"She's my daughter. My mother holds the trust. She doesn't hold the child." His voice cracked. "I never read that paper closely, and now I have."

"She'll call the police," I said.

"In about an hour. She's already called me half a dozen times."

His phone lay face up on the hood of the car, and it was lighting up.

"I have an order of protection that says I can't be near her," I said. "That's why I'm standing in the gravel."

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