Chapter 4: The Woman in the Doorway
Footsteps moved through the front room.
Not hurried.
Not quiet either — the footsteps of someone who had no reason to expect a police officer in her house.
Radley's hand closed around Brenna's wrist.
I stepped into the hallway first.
The woman standing in the kitchen doorway was younger than I expected — mid-thirties, dark circles under her eyes, a grocery bag hanging from one hand.
She looked at my uniform and the bag dropped.
Cans rolled across the linoleum.
"What is this?" she said.
"What are you doing in my house?"
"Ma'am, I'm Officer Lionel.
I patrol the area around Evergreen Elementary.
Your daughter Brenna asked me to walk home with her today."
Her eyes moved past me to where Brenna stood in the hallway.
Something crossed her face — not guilt, not quite.
Closer to fury.
"Brenna." Her voice was flat.
"Go to your room."
"She stays with me for now," I said.
The woman's attention snapped back to me.
"Excuse me?"
"I'd like to talk with you.
Can we sit down?"
She didn't move.
"I want to know why a police officer is standing in my kitchen."
"Your children were alone overnight.
Brenna came to me because she was concerned about her brother."
"They weren't alone.
They had food, they had the house—"
"They were alone, ma'am."
Her chin came up.
"I was gone a few hours.
I had a family emergency."
"Since yesterday morning," I said.
The color shifted in her face.
"Brenna is seven," I said.
"Radley is ten.
A few hours is not the same as overnight into the following afternoon."
She set her jaw.
"I want you to leave.
You came in here without permission—"
"Your daughter let me in with her key.
The key she carries because she is responsible for getting herself and her brother home from school."
"That is not—" She stopped.
Started again.
"I am their mother.
You have no right to come in here and tell me how I run my household."
"I'm not here to tell you anything," I said.
"I'm here because a seven-year-old girl was frightened enough to ask a stranger for help.
That's what I need to understand."
Something in her shifted then.
Not softened — shifted.
Like a door that had been held shut by pressure suddenly finding no pressure to push against.
She sat down at the kitchen table.
Hard, like her legs went out from under her.
"I can't do this," she said.
Not to me.
Not to anyone in particular.
I sat down across from her.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Carla."
"Carla.
Where is Dale?"
Her head came up sharply.
"How do you know that name?"
"Radley told me.
He also showed me Dale's wallet.
Still here.
Still under his mattress."
Carla stared at the table.
Her hands were flat on the surface, fingers spread, the way people press down when they need something solid.
"He didn't leave us," she said finally.
"I told the kids he did because I didn't know what else to say." She looked up.
"He went to talk to someone.
About a debt.
He said it would be fine.
He said don't call anyone, don't make noise, just wait." Her voice cracked on the last word.
"That was forty-three days ago."
Forty-three.
I thought of the marks on Radley's wall.
May you like
Radley hadn't been counting days since his father left.
He had been counting days since his father disappeared.
