Once again she took Britt’s hand, and they walked to the station house. As they did, a man walked out. Britt’s hand squeezed hers hard.

He looked tired, Emily thought, and his suit jacket looked as if he’d slept in it. A good day’s worth of scruff gave his face a rough, tough sort of look. He paused, watched them come—the woman in red Converse high-tops, with disordered dark hair, faded jeans. The girl with a battered face and bare feet.

She couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but knew they assessed.

“You need some help?”

Britt spoke before Emily could. “Are you the police?”

“That’s right. You got trouble?”

“We have a lot of trouble.” Brown, Emily noted, his eyes were brown like his hair. “Do you have identification?”

His eyebrows lifted, but he reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat, took out his badge.

“Detective Lee Keller. Why don’t you come in, tell me what the trouble is?” He gave Britt a look that had hope trembling inside Emily. “You look like you could use a soda. Let’s go get you one.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Detective Lee Keller assumed the exhausted woman was the kid’s mother. But he set that aside. He knew it was better not to assume.

He didn’t have to assume the fear. It was all over both of them. He didn’t have to assume somebody had hit the girl, put her in the hospital. He could see her face, the hospital gown.

He led them through a lobby area, waved off a question from the officer at a counter, and kept going.

He stopped by a vending machine. “What kind do you want?”

“I … Could I please have a Sprite?”

“Sure.” He glanced at Emily. “You want really bad coffee or a cold soda?”

“I’ll take a Coke. I have change.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He slid dollars in the bill slot, got the Sprite, two Cokes.

He led them down another corridor, then another, and into an area marked Criminal Investigations Division.

He pulled over a couple chairs from other desks, sat at another. “Have a seat. Why don’t we start with your names?”

“I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to tell him yet.”

Emily shifted over to drape an arm around Britt’s shoulders. “Honey—”

“It’s okay,” Lee decided. “How about we start with who hurt you?”

“My father.”

“Has he hurt you before?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” The woman pressed her lips to the top of the girl’s head. “Baby.”

“Just slaps before, or pulling my hair really hard. I didn’t tell … my brother. I didn’t tell him because if he tried to stop him, he’d get hurt worse.”

“Where’s your brother?”

When Britt shook her head, Emily cupped her chin. “Detective Keller can’t help if you don’t talk to him, if you don’t tell him. Remember? All the truth.”

“You left the hospital without your shoes,” Lee commented in that same easy tone, “without your clothes. You must’ve been afraid.”

“I called nine-one-one, and he grabbed the phone, and hit me in the face. He hit me before that because I threw up. I was scared because he was getting mad. I could hear him going off about Za—about my brother. He went to a school dance, and I don’t know why that made my father so mad, but it did. My mother went to bed, but he stayed up. And I could tell he was going to hit my brother when he got home.”

“Does he do that a lot?”

“He hits my mother and my brother.”

“I’m not her mother, I’m her aunt,” Emily said at Lee’s narrowed look. “I didn’t know about any of this before tonight. I should have, but…” She shook her head. “Tell him everything.”

“When my brother got home, he started. He said my brother was late. Four minutes, do you get it?” Sudden passion spiked in her voice. “Four minutes, and he made it like Zane had done something criminal, right? He said he was grounded, no sports, and that means he couldn’t go to States—the baseball championship. He started accusing him of drinking, doing drugs. He doesn’t! And he said awful things about Zane’s girlfriend. And she’s nice, but he said things, started shoving Zane, hit him in the stomach.”

She gripped the can of soda tight. “He mostly hits where it won’t show. I don’t know why I ran in to my mother. I knew she wouldn’t help, but I did anyway. And I got sick, and she got mad, and she yelled for Dad, and he got mad. And he came up and hit me.”

Beside her Emily sat silent, shoulders shaking as tears rolled.

“That’s when Zane ran upstairs, and he hit Dad. He did it to stop him from hurting me. That’s defense of others, right? You don’t go to jail for that. They shouldn’t put you in jail for that. And they had an awful fight, hitting and hitting, and Mom pushed and scratched Zane’s face, but Zane didn’t stop. And my Dad hit Mom in the face, and I ran to the phone and called nine-one-one, and I heard Zane yell, and thuds. Awful thuds. I think he fell down the steps. Dad came in, and hit me again, and he told Mom to get his bag—he’s a doctor. He told her to hold me down because I tried to fight, and he got out a syringe, and stuck me.

“That’s the truth. That’s what happened.”

She sat back, closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, stared hard into his. Crossed her arms defensively.

“Okay.” Careful, Lee only nodded. “Did the police come?”

“They must have, but he gave me something, and when I woke up in the hospital, he was there, waiting. He said what I had to say. That Zane had hit Mom, hit me, hit him. That if I didn’t say what he said, he could hurt me worse than he had. No one would believe me if I said different, and Zane was already on his way to prison. I’d be like an only child. He took the phone out of the room, and he told the nurses no one could come in, and he went to get some sleep. I think they put Mom in the hospital.”

Lee filed away the details, including the brother’s name—Zane—the father being a doctor. The brother an athlete—must be baseball if he was going to States. And high school, older brother.

“Tell me about your mother.”

“He never hits her where it shows, until tonight. Sometimes she hits back, but it’s…” Color rushed into her face. She pressed her lips together, gave Emily a pleading look.

“It’s all right. You just say the truth, and it’s all right.”

“It’s that … I think they like it. I think she likes it. They have sex after most of the time, and then she acts like nothing happened. He buys her something, and she’s like nothing happened.”

She turned to Emily, burrowed in. “I couldn’t tell you. I was afraid to tell you, but I was getting more afraid of not. Because when Zane goes to college, I’ll be alone. Did Dad push him down the steps?”

Emily nodded. “But he’s going to be okay. The boy isn’t yet sixteen,” she said to Lee. “He has a concussion, a broken elbow, a seriously sprained ankle. The doctor wanted to keep him in the hospital overnight, but … their father is a surgeon there, and the police where we live believed him and my sister, and he’s friendly with important people. Like judges. They took that boy to Buncombe. He’s fifteen. He’s hurt. He’s never been in trouble. You could talk to anyone and they’d tell you. His coaches, his neighbors, his teachers.”

“Why did his doctor sign him out?”

“Because the man who put him in the hospital said if she didn’t, he would. You can talk to her. She’s Dr. Marshall, at Mercy Hospital.”

Lee made another note. “Has he hurt your brother enough for the hospital before?”

“He didn’t let Zane go to the hospital before. He locked him in his room. Christmas, Emily, you remember? Not last Christmas. The one before.”

“Oh God.” Emily closed her eyes. “Zane didn’t have flu, and he didn’t have a skiing accident when you were at the resort.”

“We came home from school. The last day of school before Christmas. Dad was home early, and when we came in, we could hear Mom crying, and Dad yelling. Zane tried to stop me, but I ran back, and she was on the floor, and there was blood, and he was hitting her, and I yelled for it to stop. And Zane…”

She took a long sip of Sprite. “Before, he’d make me go upstairs, sit with me. Or if it happened when we were already in our rooms, I’d go to his, and he’d let me stay until it stopped. But this time, he tried to stop him from hurting her, and Dad…”

She let out a hiccupping sob. “I kept yelling to stop, and he—Dad turned and looked at me, and he was going to hit me. And Zane pushed me back and tried to stop him. He hurt him so bad, Mr. Keller. He kept hitting him, and he kicked him, and she just watched! And Dad picked Zane up, like over his shoulder, and took him upstairs, locked him in his room. I should’ve done something, but I was afraid.”

“It’s not your fault.” Even paler than she’d been, Emily brought Britt’s clenched fist to her lips, kissed it. “None of it’s your fault.”