Chapter 13: The Driveway

I stopped at the top of the porch steps.

Every officer behind me stopped too.

Palmer stood in the middle of the walk with my son pressed against his shirt and his ankle monitor blinking green above one sock.

Down the lane, porch lights had come on at three neighbors' houses.

I saw phones rise in the dark.

"Give him to me," I said.

"Tell them to back off."

"They're backing off."

The sergeant lifted one hand, and the officers behind her went still.

"Now the cameras," Palmer said. "Every card, every drive. Hand it all over, and I walk to my car."

"Fine."

I took the memory card out of my pocket, the one that held the dinner, my mother's voice and every word she had said.

I had worn it on a ribbon all evening.

I held it out at arm's length.

"Willa," Finbar said behind me, very low.

"It's only a card."

"It's your whole case."

"It's my son."

I walked down three steps and laid the card on the flagstone, and I stepped back from it.

Palmer stared at the little square of plastic.

Finbar did not say another word.

I felt him look at me, and I did not look back.

Palmer took a step toward the card, and his arm slid, and Theo's head rolled loose against his elbow.

My son woke and screamed.

It was the thin, furious cry he used when he was hungry, and it cut across the whole lane.

Palmer flinched.

"Support his head," I said. "He's three weeks old. You're holding him wrong."

"Shut up."

"His neck can't hold itself up. Put your hand under it."

His hand moved before he decided to move it.

He cupped my son's skull, and for one second his face was the face of a man who had wanted a baby once.

Then the kitchen door banged.

Kylie came down the front steps in her blue dress, past the officers, past me, with both palms open.

"Palmer."

"Stay back!"

"I'm not going to take him." Her voice cracked. "Look at me. Look at my hands."

"You wore a wire," he said. "You sold me."

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