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I nod. “There was nothing she wouldn’t do. She was a good mom before Dad died. But after…” I shake my head. “But I just wanted justice. I wanted the world to know what kind of guy Denny is.”
I look up at him, blood racing, waiting for questions, but all I see is affection. Concern.
“You believe me?”
“What? Of course.”
I search his eyes. “Because of how I was in the elevator?”
“No, because of how you are period. Because I know who you are.”
My belly flip-flops. “You didn’t even know my name until now.”
“A name isn’t who a person is.”
I put my forehead to his chest, smash my face to his chest. The relief I feel is nearly overwhelming. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. After what you’ve been through? I don’t remember the specifics of the case, but I sure remember the Vonda O’Neil feeding frenzy. I remember that. And you were innocent all that time. God.”
The world feels like it’s raining, and the rain is a mixture of tears and pure water that’s washing everything clear.
He believes me. He’s with me. I want him to say it again. And again and again.
“That’s when you came here?”
I sigh. “My mom took a year to burn through the money. She had a lot of bad boyfriends. She was going downhill. It got less and less safe for me and Carly as the money dwindled. I’d been secretly saving, though. And then I did an interview they paid me for, and that was a lot of money. That was what I used to move one night. I just took her and ran. I didn’t want Carly to stay back there. It wasn’t safe for either of us, but especially not Carly. I mean, it wasn’t always so bad. Before my dad died, we were a normal family. A happy family.”
He sets a hand on my arm. “I can’t even imagine.”
“You believe me,” I say.
There’s an angry edge to his voice. “Of course I do.”
I feel like laughing.
“I don’t know how you could doubt it,” he says. “I mean, after all those hours we spent in that little workroom toiling side-by-side using toothpicks and glue to get tiny paper curlicues to stick to tiny paper tree trunks? When two people go through an experience like that together…”
I snort and scrub my face with my hands.
“Seriously, even if I hadn’t been in that elevator shaft with you, where it was, let’s face it, pretty obvious you’re not somebody who would’ve gone into a well voluntarily—”
“I would never,” I say.
“I know. And also, Denny? That’s not a good guy there.”
“You know him?”
“Jesus, the way he came at you? Don’t need to taste much to know if it’s cottage cheese.”
“You punched him.”
He gets up from the stoop, stands in front of me, reaches down, and pulls me up into his arms. “If I knew what I know now, I would’ve put him right through that glass.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Henry
We walk forever. It seems important for her to move, like she needs to put physical distance between Denny and herself, and a car won’t do.
