Chapter 8

The deputy’s name was Marchetti. He was young, maybe twenty-eight, with a shaved head and snow in his eyebrows. He came through the broken door with his gun out and his boots crunching on glass. He saw Derek face-down in the minnow aisle with a gaff hook in his thigh, and he didn’t ask questions. He put a knee in Derek’s back and cuffs on his wrists.

Derek was still talking. That was the thing. Even with his face in the water, he was talking.

“She stabbed me,” he said. “My wife stabbed me. She’s crazy. She’s pregnant and crazy.”

“Sir, stop talking,” Marchetti said.

“She took my niece. She broke into my aunt’s shop.”

“Sir.”

“You’re going to want to hear my side.”

Marchetti looked at me. I was standing in the aisle with the gaff hook still in my hand. Poppy was behind me. Verne was by the register.

“Ma’am, put the hook down.”

I dropped it. It clanged on the floor.

“Are you hurt?”

“My hand.”

“The child?”

“She’s not hurt. She’s cold.”

Marchetti got on his radio. He called for an ambulance. He called for backup. He called for a female officer. The shop filled with blue light and static. I could hear the wind outside, and the truck still wedged in the doorway, and the minnow pumps humming like nothing had happened.

Derek turned his head. His cheek was on the floor. Water and minnows. He looked at me.

“You think you won?”

I didn’t answer.

“You’ll lose everything,” he said. “The shop. The job. The town. They’ll call you a liar.”

“I have the SIM.”

“You have a piece of plastic.”

“It has Bo’s number.”

“Bo will change it.”

“It has Dani’s number.”

He went quiet.

“She’s alive,” I said. “You told me she was dead. You cried about her. You had a funeral for her in your head, and she was in a motel in Colchester with a black eye.”

“You don’t know what she is.”

“I know what you are.”

Marchetti told him to shut up. Derek didn’t.

“You think Dani is a victim?” he said. “She gave me Poppy. She knew what I was. She didn’t care as long as it wasn’t her problem.”

“She didn’t know about Bo.”

“She knew I owed money.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It’s close enough.”

Poppy stepped out from behind me. She walked to the edge of the aisle. She looked at Derek like she was seeing a stranger.

“You said Mama gave me away,” she said.

Derek closed his eyes.

“You said I was bad.”

“Poppy, go with Emmie,” I said.

“He said I was bad.”

Marchetti looked up. His face was hard. He had heard enough. He had heard the whole thing. He had heard a five-year-old say it.

“Sir, you have the right to remain silent.”

Derek started laughing. It was a thin, broken sound. “You’re all going to see. She’s my wife. She’s lying.”

My water broke. It was a hot gush down my legs, sudden and shocking, and I grabbed the counter to keep from falling. The minnow tanks swam in front of me.

“Ma’am?” Marchetti said.

“I’m in labor.”

Verne was already moving. She took Poppy by the hand and pulled her away from Derek. She wrapped the horse blanket tighter around her. She looked at me over Poppy’s head.

“I’ll take her,” she said. “I’ll take her.”

“Don’t let him see her.”

“He won’t.”

The ambulance siren was a far-off sound, coming the long way around the flooded causeway.