Diana knelt beside her, careful of the glass.
“I know you were managing.”
Sarah turned on her.
“You don't get to say that like I was broken.”
“You weren't broken.”
“Then stop looking at me like I am.”
Diana nodded through her tears.
“All right.”
Sarah pressed her hands against her eyes.
“I don't know how to be somebody whose dad is dead.”
The sentence came out so plainly that it seemed to empty the room.
Her mother sat on the tile beside her.
“You don't have to know today.”
Ruth brought a towel, not to clean the floor but to put under Sarah's knees. Hank fetched the broom and stayed at the far side of the kitchen until Ruth nodded him closer.
Nobody tried to hold Sarah until she reached for her mother.
Then Diana wrapped both arms around her and held on as if she had been waiting twenty-four years for permission to grieve with the right person.
They stayed there while Hank swept the glass.
At dinner, Sarah apologized for shouting.
Ruth said, “Accepted. But don't apologize for having a bad day in a house full of people who already know it's bad.”
Hank looked at his plate.
Sarah said, “That includes you.”
He raised his eyes.
“You can be upset,” she told him. “Just don't make me responsible for it.”
He nodded slowly.
“That's fair.”
Diana took off her ring to wash dishes, then put it back on afterward. Sarah noticed. Her mother noticed her noticing. Neither said anything.
At eight, Velez called again.
They had found Owen.
Alive.
Sarah stood so abruptly the chair scraped behind her.
“Where?”
“At a motel outside Salem. He's at a hospital now. Dehydrated, frightened, some bruising. His caregiver is with him.”
“Did they let him go?”
“He left when the men watching him went outside. A clerk helped him call for help.”
Hank leaned against the counter, one hand covering his eyes.
“Can we see him?” Diana asked.
“Not tonight. He's being treated, and we need to take a statement when he's able. I'll let you know.”
“What did they want?” Sarah asked.
Velez paused.
“The letter. The copies. Anything Michael had left.”
“Did he tell them about the key?”
“He says he didn't know there was a key.”
Sarah remembered the blue string against her palm.
Then she remembered the man in the diner walking directly toward her.
“They thought he sent it to me,” she said.
“We're still establishing that.”
“But that's why.”
“It's one possibility.”
Sarah sank back into her chair.
The difference between being killed for a secret and being killed because somebody guessed you had one did not improve the thought.
Velez added, “Owen asked whether Diana was safe. He also asked whether the baby was safe.”
Diana's hand went to her mouth.
“He means you,” the detective told Sarah.
“I know.”
After the call, Sarah went to the porch.
The night smelled of wet cedar and cold earth. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked twice. A porch light came on in a neighboring yard.
Hank joined her after a few minutes.
“May I?” he asked.
She nodded toward the empty chair.
He sat.
For a while they listened to traffic on the distant road.
“I'm glad he got out,” Sarah said.
“Me too.”
“I'm also angry with him.”
“You can be both.”
“Everyone keeps giving me permission.”
Hank considered that.
“Maybe we're practicing not giving you orders.”
She smiled faintly.
“That could use practice.”
He nodded.
She looked at the pale scar on his knuckle.
“How did you do that?”
“Fixed a chain and forgot the wrench wasn't as stubborn as I was.”
“You're not going to tell me you punched somebody?”
“No.”
“Disappointing. Your mysterious reputation is in trouble.”
He laughed quietly.
Sarah watched the dark hedge.
“What would he think of me?”
Hank did not answer quickly.
That mattered.
“He'd want to hear everything,” he said. “Then he'd ask questions you thought were obvious, and he'd probably annoy you by worrying about your tires.”
“I don't have a car.”
“He'd find something.”
She looked down at her hands.
“Would he be disappointed?”
“In what?”
“I don't know. The diner. Not finishing school. Being tired all the time.”
Hank turned toward her.
“Sarah, he worked on engines in a cold shop. He knew what a tired person looked like. He wouldn't confuse it with a failed one.”
She stared at him until she had to look away.
“You sound very sure.”