Chapter 7

The deputy hadn't come yet when the gravel crunched again.

Not the slow roll this time.

A truck came all the way up to the porch and cut its engine.

The clock over the stove read ten past two.

Meryl was at the window before the dome light died.

Gray coat. Pale hair. A folded paper in his hand instead of the map.

"He's here," she said.

Elam came up off the couch.

"No." Meryl put her hand flat on his chest. "He wants you to be the one who answers. Stay with her. Lock it behind me."

She stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut.

The deadbolt turned at her back.

Rolan stopped at the bottom of the steps.

Up close he was handsome in an expensive way, calm in a way that cost something to keep.

"Meryl Harp," he said, like they'd met. "You run the fry stand. Arden talked about you."

"You don't get to say her name on my porch."

He smiled and held up the paper.

"I'm not here for trouble. I'm Bexley's father. My attorney spelled it all out. The man you've got in there has no standing. None."

"He's got a notarized guardianship."

"Signed by a dead woman, witnessed by nobody who matters." He said it gently, like he was sorry for her. "A guardianship isn't custody. I'm her blood. A judge sees that in four minutes."

Meryl kept her back to the door.

"Then go see a judge."

"I'd rather not drag a five-year-old through a courtroom. I'm trying to do this quiet. Hand her out, and none of it touches you." He took a step up. "You seem like a sensible woman."

"That's close enough."

He stopped. The smile stayed, but the warmth went out under it.

"You don't have a thing on paper that lets you keep her."

"No." Meryl took the folded letter from her apron pocket. "But my sister did. She wrote it for the night you'd show up. You want to hear the part she wrote about you?"

Something moved behind his eyes.

She read it in the porch light, her voice flat and level.

"'He'll tell you he's her father. He is. But he was never once the same as safe. Don't you give her to him, Meryl. Be the one I couldn't be in time.'"

The yard went quiet except for the bugs.

"That's not a legal document," Rolan said. His baritone had gone thin.

"No. It's just my sister telling me who you are." She folded it away. "And I already called the county. There's a deputy on his way out here now."

For the first time Rolan looked at the road.

"You called the sheriff on me."

"I called the sheriff on the man in the protective order Arden filed in Cincinnati. Your name's on every page."

That landed. His jaw worked.

Light spilled yellow across the porch boards behind her.

The curtain in the front window had pulled back.

Bex stood on the arm of the couch, nose near the glass, two birds hugged to her chest.

She wasn't looking at Rolan.

She was looking at Meryl.

"That one," Bex said through the window, clear enough to carry. "That's the safe one."