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He wants control. Your husband’s gone, your mother-in-law’s gone. His grandchildren are all that’s left. He wants to throw you away and keep them for himself. Maybe you should call a lawyer. But no, the way he is, he’s probably already tired of the kids.
“I saw them myself just this morning. They were fine. Happy. How are you feeling?”
Her legs crawled with fire. Her eye pumped blood. She couldn’t close her left hand.
“Peachy,” she croaked. “But…school?”
“He’s hired a babysitter to help him and handle all that dialing-into-class-remotely stuff. It’s almost the Christmas break anyway. No big deal. He’s got it figured out.”
There was a tickling in her head, somewhere unscratchable. She tried to scratch it anyway. Felt her hand stop short in the cuff.
Man up. Stop crying.
“Now, getting to the reason I’m here? They gave me a call. Said you could ID the guy.”
She licked her lips. It felt like they were made of softly chewed gum. The room was swimmy and thin.
The sooner you get out of here, the safer they are. The sooner the police catch him, the safer you’ll be. And the sooner you can get them away from that man. Focus.
“Ma’am?”
“Sorry, it’s—my face,” she said. “It’s painful.”
“What can you tell me about the person who broke into your house?”
She tried to pin down her thoughts, everything scrambled by worry over her father-in-law.
Focus.
A yellow skull. Old shoes. Long laces. Tall.
“He’s from that new café.”
“What’s that?” the sergeant said, leaning close.
“From the sandwich shop. Bakery. On Route 23, by Starbucks? The new one.”
“I know it, yeah. You recognized him from there?”
“He’s the manager there.”
“So you know him.”
“No.”
“Sorry, it was this manager or not?”
“It was him.”
“So you do know him.”
“I only met him once.”
“Once?”
“Once,” she repeated.
“When?”
