Chapter 21: The Yard

Jonas's POV

I was in Piper's bedroom with my pants half on when the knocking started.

Piper sat up in the gray light with the sheet held to her chest.

"It's her," she said.

"Stay here."

"Jonas."

"It's your house, and you can open the door whenever you want. But let me go first."

She looked at me for a second.

Then she nodded and pulled the quilt up around her shoulders.

I put on my shirt, took my badge from the pocket of last night's suit, and clipped it to my belt where it didn't belong.

I went down the stairs and opened the green door.

Marjorie Tolliver stood on the porch.

Her hair had come down on one side, and her pearl pin hung by its clasp.

She was wearing the navy dress from the hall, with a camel coat over it and no scarf.

She looked at my shirt buttoned wrong, and she understood everything in one second.

"You," she said. "You've been in her bed since the day my grandchild was born."

"No, ma'am. Since last night."

She laughed, one high ugly sound.

Then her face folded.

I have watched people break in a lot of parking lots.

I'd never seen one do it in a church coat.

"Please," she said.

She came down the porch steps backward, onto the frosted lawn, and her knees went.

She knelt in the wet grass in front of my truck.

Across the street, a door opened. The neighbor in the slippers stepped out with a mug and did not pretend she was doing anything else.