“And her mother was telling him where she was.”
The voice.
Low.
Rushed.
I’d known it.
Somewhere under the shock, I had known that voice.
“So I made a choice,” Meredith said.
“In about four seconds.”
“I told you she was gone.”
“Because if you believed it, he’d believe it.”
“He’d hear it from you.”
“And a man doesn’t hunt for a little girl he thinks is already gone.”
I stared at her.
“You didn’t have the right,” I said.
“No,” Meredith said.
“I didn’t.”
“And I’d do it again.”
“I registered her upstairs as a confidential patient.”
“Hospitals do it for kids in danger all the time.”
“She was Jane Doe on the pediatric floor for two nights.”
“Then I brought her here.”
“Mrs. Pruitt was my patient for ten years.”
“She gave me the key before she moved.”
“We were leaving Sunday,” Jason said.
“My cousin’s place in Oregon.”
“Once she was out of state, I was going to tell you.”
“Once she was safe.”
“I swear, Hannah.”
“I was going to drive back and tell you everything.”
“That’s what ‘yet’ meant.”
I looked at the closed door of the shed.
I could hear the scratch of her brush on the canvas.
“Did she ask for me?” I said.
Meredith’s eyes filled.
“Every day,” she said.
“Every single day,” Jason said.
“First thing in the morning.”
“Last thing at night.”
“‘Can Mom come yet?'”
“And every day, I said, ‘Soon.'”
My phone buzzed.
In the pocket of my robe.
I hadn’t even realized I’d brought it.
I pulled it out.
A new number.
Of course.
“Pretty morning for a walk.”
Ice ran straight down my spine.
Another text.
“Didn’t know you liked orchards.”
And another.
“Nice dog.”
I turned the screen toward Jason.
He read it.
He went gray.
He moved to the corner of the shed.
He looked down the long row of apple trees toward the tractor road.
I followed his eyes.
At the end of the row, maybe three hundred yards out, a truck was parked.
Gray.
Old.
Front bumper crushed in.
The same truck from across the street at the fu.neral home.
