“He broke Zane’s nose, and his eyes were all swollen and black, and his lip was cut and swollen. I snuck him a sandwich when I could, a PB&J, but he could hardly eat.

“The day after, on Christmas Eve, I heard Dad go in, and in a little while Zane was yelling—screaming—like he was hurt again. And he said—Dad said—Zane had the flu. He was contagious and no one was allowed to see him, and spread germs. Even though Grams and Pop were coming for Christmas. And when we got to the resort, we’d tell the people there he’d been messing around on his bike and had a bad fall. He had to stay in the room while we went skiing. And when we got back, we had to say he fell when he was skiing.”

She took the tissue Emily pressed into her hand. “You can call the resort if you don’t believe me. You can call them. We go every year. They’ll tell you he had the black eyes and everything when we got there. And you can talk to people where we live, to his teachers, and they’ll tell you how we said he fell skiing.”

“What resort do you go to?”

“High Country Resort and Spa. We go from December twenty-sixth to the thirtieth. We go every year.”

“I went to see Zane Christmas Eve,” Emily said. “My sister called, said he was sick, said we had to move Christmas dinner to my place because of germs. I went to take him some chicken soup, and a book I was going to smuggle in—on their do-not-read list. A Dark Tower novel, that’s all.”

When she felt her throat burn, she took a swig of Coke, breathed out the helpless rage. “They wouldn’t let me go up, and they left him there alone on Christmas while they came to dinner. They’ve cut me off from the kids recently. I don’t get to see them very often, there’s always an excuse.”

“They said you didn’t want to spend time with us, that you had other things you wanted to do. We didn’t believe them, honest we didn’t, but that’s what they said. Dad says you’re a lazy slut.”

Emily managed a smile. “Sometimes I wish.” She kissed Britt’s cheek. “We have more evidence. A friend—the father of my nephew’s best friend is on his way here now. He’s an EMT, and he heard Zane was hurt, he stayed with him at the hospital. Zane gave him his house key, asked him to go in and get some notebooks he’d hidden. He said he’d written it all down. They took him to prison, Detective Keller. They had to take him out in a wheelchair. If you became a cop to help people, help us.”

“What’s the name of the friend bringing the notebooks? I need to clear him with the officer on the night desk,” he said when they both hesitated.

“Dave Carter.”

“Give me a second.”

He should call his lieutenant, Lee thought. Child services. He should call Buncombe and get the full name of the brother. But for now, he’d play it out.

The kid wasn’t lying.

He came back to find the girl with her head on her aunt’s shoulder. She looked so damn small, so beat-up.

“How’d you get out of the hospital?”

“I snuck into another room for the phone, and called Emily. She was already there, but they wouldn’t tell her where I was because my father said not to. I went down the stairs, and she met me. Because she believes me, believes Zane, because she said we had to tell the police. My father will hurt her, too, if he can.”

“You don’t worry about that,” Emily told her.

“If I’m going to help you, I need your names.” It would take him about two minutes to find this Zane with a call to Buncombe, but he wanted the girl, the little girl with exhausted green eyes, to tell him. To trust him.

“Do you believe me? Will you believe me even when my father says I’m lying?”

“If I didn’t believe you, I’d have made calls already. I’m a detective.” He smiled when he said it. “I could find out your names, and your brother’s. But I didn’t, because I believe you, and I want you to believe I believe you.”

Britt looked at Emily, got a nod. “You have to trust.”

“I’m Britt Bigelow. My brother’s Zane. My parents are Dr. Graham Bigelow and Mrs. Eliza Bigelow. We live in Lakeview Terrace. And I think he’ll kill me if he can now that I’ve stopped lying.”

“He’s not going to touch you, or Zane, again. Didn’t I tell you I wouldn’t let him? The wrong Bigelow is in prison, Detective. And I’m Emily Walker.”

“Got someone here for you, Detective.” A uniformed officer led Dave in.

“Hey, Britt, let me have a look there.” With a messenger bag over his shoulder, Dave crouched down by her chair. “Are you hurting?”

“I have an awful bad headache, Mr. Carter, and my cheek hurts a lot. My eye, too.”

“Oh, Britt, why didn’t you say? Damn it, I didn’t even ask, not really. I must have some Advil or something.”

“Let’s not,” Dave said as Emily started pawing through her purse. “I don’t know what they gave her in the hospital. But I stopped on the way.” He opened the bag, took out a bag of frozen peas. “Quick relief. You just hold that on your cheek, okay? How many?” He held up two fingers.

“Two. I’m okay, Mr. Carter. I feel better since we came here.”

“Good to hear.” Dave rose, held out a hand to Lee. “Dave Carter.”

“Detective Keller.”

“Well, Detective Keller, since I had Zane’s key and his permission, I don’t think going in the house, into his room qualifies as unlawful entry, but I’ll take that lump if it comes.”

He pulled several notebooks out of his bag. “I read the first entry in the one marked Number One. If you can read that and do nothing about getting Zane out of that place, about putting Graham Bigelow behind bars, you aren’t human.”

Lee opened the first book, read the first entry.

December 23.

When he finished, he picked another entry at random. Opened the second book, did the same.

“So, Britt, did your grandparents come to visit last summer?”

“In August, after we got back from vacation. They stayed with Emily. It used to be their house, but they gave it to her and my mom. Mom didn’t want it, so Emily paid her share. We had them over on the last day for a party on the sailboat. It was really nice. Then…”

She leaned into Emily again, carefully drank some Sprite. “Then after everybody left, my father got mad. He hit Zane in the stomach—he likes to hit in the stomach because it doesn’t show. He said Zane embarrassed him because he’s a bad sailor, and all he did was talk about baseball with Pop and he ate too much of the food like a greedy pig. And I don’t remember all of it.”

“That’s enough.”

Lee closed the book.

“If you had to go in front of a judge, and swear under oath, would you say everything you’ve said to me?”

“Will you get Zane out of prison if I do?”

“I’m going to work on that. Mr. Carter, do you remember Zane having a skiing accident?”

“Yeah, Christmas before last. Face-planted, he told me. Ah, shit. Shit.” Dave pressed his fingers to his eyes. “He didn’t come around until after the first of the year—and he and my Micah are usually joined at the hip. He had a broken nose, but it was healing up. I didn’t question it. But it was right after that he asked me to help him get stronger. Learn to lift. Because of baseball, he said, and I didn’t question that either.”

“I told you.”

“Yeah.” Lee nodded at Britt. “You did. Now Mr. Carter corroborated your statement, your aunt’s. And I’m going to wake somebody up at the High Country Resort and Spa, and nail it down a little more.”

“We stay on the Executive level. They have twenty-four-hour butler service. But I don’t know the number.”

“I’ll get it. I need to talk to the police chief in Lakeview.”

Britt shook her head, cringed back against Emily. “He’s a friend of my dad’s. He’ll—”

“He may be a friend of your dad’s, Britt, but he’s a law officer, and I’ve worked with him a couple times. He’s not going to push this away. You have to keep trusting me, but another thing I have to do is going to be hard for you. I have to contact child services.”

“They can’t take her.” Emily wrapped both arms around Britt. “I’m her aunt.”

“I’m going to push as much as I can push, but if I don’t contact them, it’ll be harder yet. You took the minor child out of the hospital because both you and the minor child feared for her safety and well-being. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“All right. You have to let me do my work, you have to trust I’m going to do that work with the safety and well-being of Britt top of my list.”

“Zane.”

“He’s right up there with you, kid. I’m going to show you a place you can wait, maybe get some rest. Can you wait here, Mr. Carter? I just have a couple more questions.”

“Sure.”

“One more thing. The grandparents, not local?”

“Not anymore.” Emily answered. “My parents moved to Savannah nearly ten years ago. You’re looking for other family, in case they won’t let me keep them. They’d come. They’d come without hesitation.”

“Okay. Let me show you where you can wait.”

When he settled them, he hit the break room, got coffee, brought some to Dave. “Being an EMT, I figure you can handle the coffee.”

“Thanks. Jesus. Britt, she’s tight with my daughter. Seeing what he did to her. What he did to Zane.”