Chương 2
“No.”
Lily flinched at the word.
Rebecca saw it.
“That’s not what I said.”
Lily whispered, “You said he wasn’t coming home.”
“Lily, sweetheart, you misunderstood.”
Ranger moved between Rebecca and Nathan.
A low growl rolled from him.
“Call the dog off,” Rebecca said.
Nathan did not.
Bennett stood and brought her radio up.
“Units to the backyard. Now.”
Rebecca backed toward the kitchen door.
Nathan’s voice stayed almost quiet.
“Don’t let her leave.”
Bennett shifted sideways, cutting off the path to the house.
“Mrs. Cole, stay where you are.”
“I need my phone.”
“You can tell me where it is.”
“It’s inside.”
“We’ll get it.”
“You have no right to keep me in my own yard.”
Bennett answered, “At the moment, I’m trying to determine whether a child was unlawfully confined. Do not go inside.”
Rebecca looked at Nathan as if he were supposed to intervene.
For thirteen years of marriage, he probably would have.
Then every light in the kitchen went out.
Not one bulb.
All of them.
The kitchen. The dining room beyond it. The light above the stove.
Darkness swallowed the back of the house.
Rebecca turned.
So did Bennett.
Nathan’s arms closed harder around Lily.
The house seemed to change shape with the lights gone.
Ranger barked twice and lunged one step forward before Nathan caught his collar.
“What happened?” Bennett said.
Rebecca stared at the dark windows.
“I don’t know.”
Bennett’s hand moved toward the holster at her hip.
“Anyone else in the house?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Nathan looked at Lily.
Her face had disappeared against his shoulder.
“Lily, was someone else inside?”
She did not answer.
“Baby.”
“No.”
Bennett spoke into the radio.
“Approach from the east side. Possible occupied residence. Child recovered. One adult female outside. Unknown cause of power loss.”
Nathan could hear tires on the street.
Rebecca hugged herself.
Her voice, when she spoke again, had lost its sharpness.
“The breaker trips.”
Nathan looked at her.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It did last month.”
“One circuit did.”
“Well, maybe—”
“The whole house doesn’t go black.”
Rebecca stopped talking.
Bennett glanced at Nathan.
“Colonel Cole, I need you to get your daughter away from the structure.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“I’m not asking you to leave the property. I’m asking you to move her somewhere safer.”
An ambulance turned into the cul-de-sac with its lights pulsing but no siren.
Nathan stood.
Lily would not release him.
“That’s okay,” he murmured. “You don’t have to.”
He lifted her.
His knee finally registered pain when he put weight on it. He ignored that too.
Rebecca watched them walk toward the side gate.
“Nathan.”
He kept moving.
“Nathan, please.”
He stopped.
Not because she asked.
Because Lily had gone rigid.
Nathan turned only enough to see Rebecca past his shoulder.
She looked smaller than she had five minutes earlier.
“I didn’t hurt her.”
Nathan looked at the broken hatch.
At the exterior latch.
At Lily’s muddy bare feet.
Then back at Rebecca.
“You’re going to need a better sentence than that.”
The paramedic who examined Lily in the ambulance was named Curtis and had a narrow mustache that made him look, Lily later said, like somebody from an old cowboy movie. He asked before touching her. He explained the pulse oximeter. He let her squeeze it herself. He told her the red light made her finger look like E.T.’s.
She almost smiled.
Nathan sat on the bench opposite her, his elbows on his knees.
His uniform was ruined.
Mud had soaked through both trouser legs. One service ribbon hung crooked. A clump of grass was stuck near his left shoe.
He stared at Lily’s feet.
Scrapes marked both heels. Her right ankle had begun swelling.
“How long were you down there?” Curtis asked.
Lily looked at Nathan.
“You can tell him.”
She shrugged.
“Was it daytime when you went in?”
Another shrug.
“Were you hungry?”
She nodded.
“Thirsty?”
Another nod.
Curtis gave Nathan a glance that carried more information than he wanted.
“Did you eat breakfast today?”
Lily picked at a spot of dried mud on her coat.
“I had cereal.”
Nathan checked the time.
6:42 p.m.
His mouth went dry.
“Nothing after?”
Lily shook her head.
Curtis handed her a bottle of water.
“Little sips.”
Nathan watched her drink.
The fact that she took instructions seriously nearly broke him.
Outside, police moved through the yard. Flashlights crossed the dark kitchen windows. Someone photographed the hatch.
Rebecca sat in a patio chair under supervision.
Nathan could see only the side of her face.
He had called her at 11:17 that morning from the base.
He remembered the conversation with painful clarity because there had been nothing memorable about it.
You coming home for dinner?
Should be.
Lily wants you to see something she made.
What is it?
If I tell you, she’ll kill me.
Tell her I’m bringing dessert.
Not chocolate. You’ll wind her up.
Love you.
Love you too.
That conversation now felt like evidence from somebody else’s marriage.
Detective Bennett stepped to the ambulance door.
“Colonel?”
Nathan looked at Lily.
Bennett understood.
“She can stay with the paramedic. I just need thirty seconds.”
Nathan walked two steps away without letting the ambulance leave his sight.
Bennett kept her voice low.
“The power was cut at the main disconnect.”
Nathan looked toward the house.
“Outside?”
“Side utility panel.”
“Could Rebecca have done it?”
“Possibly. But not while we were all standing there.”
“Then someone else was here.”
“Or a timer, remote device, electrical fault at the disconnect. We don’t guess.”
Nathan rubbed his mouth.
“Any sign somebody’s inside?”
“Officers are clearing the house.”
“Lily said no one else was there.”
“She’s seven, frightened, and just came out of a confined space. We take what she says seriously, but we don’t put the burden of certainty on her.”
Nathan nodded.
He appreciated Bennett immediately for that sentence.
“What happens now?”
May you like
“That depends on what we find. Child welfare has been notified.”
The words made him turn sharply.
