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Where’s Brittany’s ball? Where is it?
She looks at Jewlee, who is so sad now it makes Girl’s heart hurt.
How can Girl tell her how happy she is here, how this is her whole world now and nothing else feels right?
“Are you Brittany?”
She understands finally. Are you Brittany? Very slowly, she leans toward Jewlee, gives her a kiss. When she pulls back, she says, “Me Alice.”
“Oh, honey . . .” Jewlee’s eyes started leaking again; she seems to shrink. She pulls her into her arms, holding her so tightly that Alice can hardly breathe. But she laughs anyway. “I love you, Alice.”
She says it again, just because she can, and because it makes her feel like she can fly. She isn’t just Girl anymore. “Me Alice.”
AT HER DESK IN THE STATION HOUSE ELLIE STARED DOWN AT THE HUGE array of papers spread out in front of her. The tiny black letters swarmed the pages, blurred. She shoved the pile aside, feeling a ridiculous satisfaction when the papers fluttered to the floor.
She got up from her desk and left her office. There, alone amidst the empty desks and quiet phones, she paced back and forth.
Back and forth.
What now?
All of their investigations had led them nowhere. There was no way they could convince the court that George Azelle was an unfit parent.
Julia—and Alice—were going to lose.
Ellie went to the secret cabinet in the back room and grabbed a bottle of scotch so old it had once belonged to her uncle. “Thanks, Joey,” she said, nodding as she poured herself a drink. At the last minute she decided to take the bottle back with her. Switching on the light, she sat down at her desk in the main room and sipped her drink.
What now?
It kept coming back to that, like bits of flotsam circling a drain.
She was just pouring another drink when the door opened.
George Azelle stood there, wearing faded designer jeans and a black suede shirt that was open just enough to reveal a triangle of thick black chest hair.
“Chief Barton,” he said, stepping in. “I saw the light on.”
“It is the police station.”
“Ah. So you’re always here at midnight, are you? And drinking?”
“These are hardly ordinary times.”
He nodded toward the bottle. “Do you have a second glass?”
“Sure.” It wasn’t exactly professional, but she was off duty and right now she didn’t care. She went into the kitchen, got him a glass and ice and returned to her desk. In her absence, he’d dragged a chair over to sit across from her. She handed him the glass. The ice clinked against the sides.
She studied him closely, noticing the shadows beneath his eyes that told of sleepless nights; the thin strips of scarring that lined the inside of his left wrist. Sometime, long ago, he’d tried to kill himself. “I love her, you know. Regardless of what you think you’ve learned from all those reports on the floor.”
His words struck her deeply, found a soft place to land. They were compelling; no doubt as he’d intended. She leaned back from him, needing distance between them. “Tell me about your marriage.”
He gave a negligent flick of the wrist. The movement was strangely seductive. She was reminded of some rich, idle Lord of the Realm. “It was terrible. She slept around. I slept around. We fought like crazy people. She wanted a divorce. It would have been my third.” He smiled disarmingly. “I’m a romantic, in my way.”
Ellie knew about that kind of faith. A believer, she thought, like me. She pushed that comparison away. “And where is your wife now?”
“I don’t know. If you’re wondering why I sound so emotionless when I answer, remember that I’ve been answering that question for years. No one ever likes my answer. I thought she took Brittany and ran off with some new man.”
Ellie watched him talk. There was something deeply seductive about him. Maybe it was in the tone of his voice, so soft and confident, or the way his lilting accent made every word sound carefully considered. “Did you testify in your own defense?”
