Chương 4
"Probably."
"Why didn't she call me?"
Martinez looked through the glass at Emily.
"She may have believed contacting you would escalate Jason."
I laughed bitterly.
"She trusted the neighbor more."
"I'm not sure that's what it means."
"It means exactly that."
"You want to be angry at somebody you can still reach."
I looked at him.
He didn't flinch.
That was the second time that day he had said something useful enough to make me dislike him.
The doctor came out before I could answer.
She told me Emily was medically stable, dehydrated but not dangerously so, with bruising around one wrist and several superficial scrapes.
Nothing in her tone suggested relief should be mistaken for good news.
A child advocate was being contacted.
Child protective services had also been notified because custody arrangements could not simply be ignored, even with Sarah missing.
I almost laughed again.
"She is not going back to that house."
"No one is suggesting she return there tonight," the doctor said.
"Tonight?"
"Mr. Carter, I'm explaining the process."
"I don't care about the process."
Emily opened the door behind her.
"You always say that."
Every adult in the hallway went quiet.
She stood there in hospital socks with purple stains around her mouth.
I straightened.
"What?"
"When stuff takes too long."
She looked at Martinez.
"Dad gets mad at instructions."
Martinez coughed into his fist.
The doctor almost smiled.
I didn't.
Because Emily was right, and because the habit had stopped being funny sometime around the moment I climbed over Sarah's fence.
"Okay," I said.
Emily narrowed her eyes.
"Okay what?"
She nodded as if I had finally agreed to something obvious.
The doctor explained that because I already had joint legal custody, there was no immediate barrier to Emily leaving with me once cleared, but a temporary custody modification would likely be addressed quickly given the circumstances.
Sarah's absence complicated everything.
Jason's status complicated it more.
"Has anyone found him?" I asked.
Martinez shook his head.
"What about his phone?"
"Off."
"Location history?"
"We're pursuing available options."
"Credit cards?"
"We're pursuing available options."
"Traffic cameras?"
His expression hardened.
"We are not sitting around."
I looked away.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
The words were quiet.
That made them worse.
"You found your daughter today, and your ex-wife is missing, and you're terrified."
He slipped his notebook into his pocket.
"But if you start trying to investigate this yourself, you may interfere with things you don't understand."
"I understand Jason."
"Do you?"
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
I had met Jason eighteen times, maybe twenty.
Birthday parties.
School functions.
Two custody exchanges during rain.
One miserable dinner Sarah insisted on because she wanted the adults in Emily's life to behave like adults.
Jason had talked about football, complained about property taxes, and once helped me push my truck when the battery died.
I had disliked how hard he shook hands.
That was not understanding someone.
Martinez saw the answer on my face.
"Stay with your daughter."
He walked away before I could resent the order.
Emily was discharged just after seven.
A hospital employee brought a wheelchair because of policy, and Emily complained that she could walk.
"You can," the employee said.
"But if you walk, I get yelled at."
Emily sat down immediately.
She had always respected arguments involving someone else getting in trouble.
In the parking garage, she refused to sit in the front seat.
"Mom says kids aren't supposed to."
"She's right."
"I know."
"You want the left or right side?"
"Behind you."
That was where she usually sat.
The normality of choosing a seat nearly undid me.
I buckled her in because she let me.
When I leaned away, she caught my sleeve.
"Can we go home?"
"My place?"
She nodded.
"Yeah."
I started the truck.
She looked out the window.
"Don't call it your place."
"What should I call it?"
"Home."
I gripped the steering wheel.
"Okay."
The drive took thirty-two minutes.
Emily slept for twenty of them.
At a red light, I glanced at her in the mirror and saw that she had curled one hand around the shoulder belt.
Sarah used to do that on long drives.
The resemblance felt almost cruel.
My house looked smaller when we pulled in.
It was a two-bedroom ranch I had bought after the divorce because it was twelve minutes from Emily's school and cheap enough that I could still pay child support without living on canned soup.
The porch light had burned out two weeks earlier.
I had bought a replacement bulb and left it on the kitchen counter.
It was still there.
Emily noticed.
"Your light's broken."
"I know."
"You always know."
"Apparently."
She looked at me for a second.
"That was kind of mean."
"A little."
"Sorry."
"Don't be."
Inside, she stopped just past the doorway.
Her backpack from the previous weekend was still beside the coat rack.
A pink sweatshirt hung over the back of the couch.
Her cereal bowl from Saturday morning sat upside down in the drying rack because I had washed it and then somehow never put it away.
She touched the sweatshirt.
"Mom said I couldn't come last weekend."
"I know."
"She lied."
I set my keys down.
"Maybe."
Emily looked at me.
"She said you were working."
"I wasn't."
"I know now."
The room seemed to contract.
"Did she tell you that often?"
Emily shrugged.
"Sometimes."
"How many times?"
Another shrug.
I stopped myself.
The doctor had warned me.
The advocate had warned me.
Martinez had warned me.
Do not turn every conversation into an interview.
"Are you hungry?"
"No."
"Want toast?"
"No."
"Ice cream?"
She looked offended.
"That's not dinner."
"Your mother has poisoned you with standards."
Her mouth moved slightly.
Not quite a smile.
"Mac and cheese?"
She nodded.
I made the boxed kind because it was what I had.
May you like
While the water boiled, Emily sat at the table and lined up three forks by size.
I didn't ask why.
