Chapter 18: Brendan's Question

I didn't answer him.

I'd waited five weeks for somebody in my family to ask me that.

Now that he had, I couldn't make my mouth do it.

If I said yes, he'd want proof.

All I had was a wall in a two-flat that the cops had already torn down, and my word.

My word hadn't been worth much in that house so far.

"Annabelle," Brendan said. "Did she?"

Dez had his phone against his leg and was watching us both.

I went back into the playroom.

Nessa didn't look up.

I tore a sheet off the bottom of one of the new drawing pads and borrowed her brown marker.

She let me, which was a big deal.

I wrote in block letters, the way I'd learned to write from cereal boxes.

LAKESIDE MERCY OUTREACH.

$15,000.

FIRST BUSINESS DAY OF EVERY MONTH.

DECEMBER 2022 TO NOW.

Then the bank in Cicero, the account number and the routing number.

I went back out and handed it to him.

He read it.

His face didn't change, but his thumb went white where it held the paper.

"What is this?"

"The dates," I said. "You're the one with the clearance. Check."

He looked at the page for a long time.

Then he folded it in half and put it in his shirt pocket, under his tie.

He didn't say anything else.

He walked out into the snow without his coat.

Dez came and stood next to me.

"Well," he said. "That's either the smartest thing you've done or the dumbest."

"Which one do you think?"

"I think he went home to her," Dez said. "And she makes him breakfast every Sunday."

I'd thought about that.

I'd thought about it all night.

Brendan called me at four o'clock the next afternoon.

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