Chapter 7: The Bath Water

Talbot watched the video to the end for the sixteenth time.

When Cora smiled, he made a sound in his throat.

"I hit you for her," he said.

"You hit me for a lie she told you."

"I should have asked you first."

"Yes," I said. "You should have."

He didn't argue and he didn't ask for forgiveness, which was the first sensible thing he had done in five years.

He left the phone on the table, and my investigator copied the file in front of him and handed it back.

At the door Talbot turned.

"Rowan doesn't know about this," he said. "He thinks he did the right thing."

"Then someone should tell him."

"Someone should," said Talbot, and went.

The rest of the day was quiet, which I hadn't expected.

My investigator took the video and the stamped pages to a lab contact in Cambridge.

I read the council's petition three times and underlined the weak clause.

Torin stayed.

He sat on the carpet with Arlo and helped build a ship out of pillows, and he didn't once look at his phone.

By six, Arlo had decided he wanted his bath with a captain.

"Which captain?" I said.

"Him." Arlo pointed.

Torin looked at me.

I looked at the open door, the hallway and the duck, and I couldn't think of a rule it broke.

"Water's one hundred and one," I said. "Don't let him pour it on the floor."

The bathroom was small and white.

I leaned in the doorway with my arms folded and pretended to supervise.

Torin knelt by the tub with his sleeves rolled to the elbow, and I saw his forearms for the first time since the boathouse.

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