Chapter 4

She couldn't sit with it.

She put the papers in a canvas tote and drove back toward the lights.

A quarter past nine. The midway had thinned, the ride lines short.

The north lot was half mud, cars parked crooked in the dark.

A green Ford sat at the far end, rust on the tailgate.

Meryl parked two rows off and walked with the tote against her chest.

Elam cracked the driver's door when she was still ten feet out.

"You read it," he said.

"I read it."

"Get in the back. Keep your head low."

Bex was buckled in the middle, asleep, the bird held in both hands.

Meryl climbed in beside her and pulled the door to without a slam.

For a second she just looked at the girl.

The braids. The pocket on the gingham dress. The chipped tail notch under one small thumb.

"She's Arden's," Meryl said.

"She's Arden's."

"And you're not her dad."

"No." Elam watched the side mirror while he talked. "I was Arden's friend since we were nineteen. Best one she had."

"Then why do you have her, and not me?"

He was quiet long enough that she heard the fair's music, far off and winding down.

"Arden got away from Rolan when she was carrying Bex," he said. "Changed her number. Left the state. Told you she lost the baby so you'd quit looking and he couldn't use you to find her."

"She let me bury a baby that was breathing."

"She hated it. Said so every month."

Meryl pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

The tote slid on her knees. She caught it.

"The order in there calls him her father."

"He is. Blood and nothing else." Elam's voice went flat. "He never held her. He wants her the way he wants a thing he's owed."

"Does he have any right to her? A court order?"

"No custody order. Just a lawyer's letter and his name on her blood."

"Three years ago the creek came up on 400S," he said. "She was driving home. To you. Bex was with me."

Meryl knew that road. She knew the low crossing where the water sat after rain.

"The last thing Arden asked me was to keep Bex hidden till I could put her with you. Not the county. You."

"Why wait three years?"

"Rolan has money and patience and a private man who finds people. I kept us moving. He picked up the trail this summer."

Meryl's phone buzzed against her leg.

A text from Dot.

"Hey hon - some man in a nice coat asked me did I see a little girl in blue gingham. Told him no. You okay?"

Meryl turned the screen so Elam could see.

His hands settled on the wheel.

"That's his investigator," he said. "Or him."

"It's him. Gray coat. He had her school photo on his phone."

Elam shut his eyes for half a second.

"Then he's close."

Across the lot, three rows over, a dome light came on inside a gray truck.

The door opened.

Rolan Haskins stepped down into the mud, the folded map still in his hand.