Chapter 16: The Kitchen

The locks on the lake house changed at noon on Friday, and by dinner everything we owned was in Dot's cottage.

On Saturday morning I stood in the lane behind Marsh Lane with my coat on.

My old pink phone was in the right pocket, with the recorder running.

Anson's number was open on the screen, muted, so that he could hear and could not speak.

"If she touches you, I'm coming in," he said through the car window.

"She won't."

"If you say my name..."

"I know."

I walked up the back path to the kitchen door.

It was not locked.

Of course it wasn't.

My mother stood at the stove in her apron, with the kettle starting to rattle.

She had set two china cups on the table.

Beside them sat a plate of the shortbread I used to love when I was nine.

"There she is," Mom said. "Sit, baby. You look thin."

"I'll stand."

"Suit yourself."

She poured the tea into both cups and pushed one toward me.

"No, thank you," I said. "I don't drink what I haven't watched being made."

Her smile did not move.

"Josephine. It's tea."

"Then you won't mind drinking mine."

She picked up my cup, looked me in the eye, and drank half of it.

Then she set it down in front of me.

It was just tea.

I left it where it was.

"I'm going to be reasonable," Mom said.

"Davis will take Tilda to Brightwater Hospital tonight. He's her husband, and he can sign for her."

"Unless I ask him not to."

"She's an adult."

"She's a girl who ran out in the night and left a note, and the sheriff won't touch her."

My stomach turned over.

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