“She’s okay. She’s really smart, really brave. Your aunt brought her to see me last night.”

“Emily. Britt got to Emily.” Now he squeezed his eyes shut against the tears.

“And they got to me. Zane, Dave got your notebooks. I read them. I read every page. I’m sorry I couldn’t get you out sooner. It took some time.”

And in those brown eyes, the stranger’s eyes, Zane saw what he’d seen in Dave’s.

Belief.

“I … I’m going to get out on bail?”

“No. Just out. The charges are dropped. We can talk later, okay? Let’s get you out. I’ve done all the paperwork so we can just get you dressed and go.”

He started to shake, couldn’t stop. “I can leave? I can just leave?”

“Try some good, easy breaths,” Lee told him, and took his hand. “Just easy breathing. You should never have been here, Zane. Now, I’ve got some clothes for you. Or Emily got them for you. She got new—hopes she got the sizes right. She thought you wouldn’t want to wear whatever you had on when you came in.

“We went for sweatpants,” he continued, talking casually as he got the shopping bag off the floor. “A button shirt, boxers, sandals.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. Let me give you a hand, help you change.”

It wasn’t so embarrassing because the cop kept talking as he changed the orange pants for sweats, the orange top for a blue shirt, slipped the sandal onto his good foot.

“Pants are a little short, but they work.”

“They said I had to—they said I had to—”

“You don’t. Come on.” He got an arm around Zane, helped him stand, helped him with the crutch. He picked up the bag, walked Zane to the door, banged twice.

The door opened; the guard stepped back.

He smelled piney cleaner, maybe bleach. He knew he was shaking again, but the cop didn’t say anything.

“Who are you?”

“Detective Keller. Lee. I’m Lee.”

“Graham will stop you. He’ll—”

“He won’t. I arrested him, and your mother.”

Both Zane’s knees buckled. Lee just held him up, kept walking. Slow, but kept walking.

“Breathe now. Keep that easy breathing going. He’s not going to hurt you or Britt again. You were smart to write it down, Zane. That was smart.”

Nobody stopped them. Guards opened doors, let them pass through without a word. Then the sun was in his eyes. He saw the gate. And through the gate he saw Britt, saw Emily. He wanted to run, tried to walk faster.

“Easy. We’ll get there.”

“He hurt her. He hit her. Her face—”

“She’s going to be fine. She’s got a good story to tell you. She busted out of the hospital. You got a hell of a baby sister. Just a few more steps.”

They called his name. Emily was sobbing and calling. But Britt didn’t cry, not yet. She just kept calling his name.

The gates clanged open, and when he walked through, they surrounded him.

“Oh, baby, oh, Zane. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Emily lifted his face, stroked her fingers over him. “I’m so sorry.” When he only shook his head, she held him again, held him and Britt close and tight.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

“I can’t go back there. Please, please. I can’t go back there.”

“No, honey, no. To the lake house. Grams and Pop should be there by now. We’re going home. Our home now. I’m going to take care of you now. Here, you and Britt sit in the back. I’ll ride up front with Lee. Lee, who I owe a really big home-cooked meal to, a really good bottle of wine, and, hell, sexual favors if he wants them.”

He laughed, shook his head. “Just doing my job.”

“They’re my life now. You saved my life.”

They helped Zane into the car, and Britt cuddled up against him. “Does it hurt?”

He gave the hand that held his a squeeze. “Not anymore.”

Lee listened to the siblings talk, fill each other in. Resilience, he thought, thy name is youth. Both kids would have some hard bumps yet, need some therapy, he imagined. But they’d be okay.

Zane actually laughed when Britt told him about sneaking out of her hospital room in her bare feet. Lee noted she—for now anyway—edited out the part about her father being there, threatening her, when she woke.

Just as Zane did his own editing.

“Was it awful in there, in that place?”

“No, it wasn’t so bad.” For a second, Zane’s gaze met Lee’s in the rearview. “Not much different than being locked in my room back at the house.”

“Lee took us to a shelter for the night. Well, it was really morning by then. It was sad, but not. A lot of women and kids in there who get hurt at home. Like us. But it gives them a safe place. They were nice to us. Emily said we’re going to make a donation, in all our names. Like a thank-you.”

“I guess she can’t give them sexual favors.”

With a big, rolling laugh, eyes sparkling with tears and that laugh, Emily looked back at him. “Smart-ass.”

“Emily? Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry.”

She reached back for his hand. “You either.”

He settled back, his good arm around his sister. He had a bad moment when he saw the lake, but he pushed it away because the car didn’t head toward Lakeview Terrace, but the other side.

The safe side.

He saw the water, the woods, the cabins, the flowers, the boats. And then the rental car in Emily’s driveway. His grandparents on the front porch, already running toward the car.

They cried. Zane guessed everybody would cry for a while off and on.

“I’m going with Lee for a little while,” Emily told him. “I’ll be back. With pizza. I think it’s pizza night.”

“Could I—Detective Keller, could I talk to you for a minute first?” Zane asked.

“Sure.”

“Okay, everybody in the house.” His grandmother took over. “Let’s make a picnic lunch. Come on, sweetie.” She drew an obviously reluctant Britt toward the house.

“You didn’t say what you arrested them for.”

“For what they did to you and your sister.”

“Eliza didn’t hit us.”

First name, Lee noted. Not our mother.

“She put those grooves in your face.”

Zane touched the scratches with his fingertips. “I guess so. It’s hard to remember.”

“She let it happen, that makes her complicit. She abused you, Zane, just like Graham did.”

Zane wanted to believe. God, he wanted to believe. “He knows a lot of people. He can get really good lawyers.”

“Trust me.” Lee gave him a steady look that eased the cramping in Zane’s gut. “I’m pretty good at my job. Emily’s going with me because I think she can help convince your mother to tell the truth.”

“Then she won’t go to jail. But—”

“A lighter sentence if she tells the truth, cooperates. But she’s not going to be able to take you away from Emily or your grandparents. For one thing, both you and Britt are old enough to choose; for another, we’re going to prove she’s unfit. You don’t need to worry about this.”

“Will you come back and tell me what happens?”

“Yes. Are you prepared to go to court, to stand before a judge or jury and tell what happened?”

“Yes. I want to.” It rushed through him, that want, like a wave of strength. “I want to look him in the face and say what he did. I want to.”

“Good, because you’re going to get your chance. I’ve got to get to it now.”

“Sir? Thank you. Thank you for getting me out, for keeping Britt safe. I’m never going to forget it.”

“You take care of yourself, Zane. Let’s get you inside so your grandparents can fuss over you.”

“They’re good at it. Sometimes I’d imagine we could live here,” he said as Lee helped him up to the porch. “After one of the times, I’d think what it would be like to live here.”

“Now you will.” He opened the screen door. “Can you make it the rest of the way?”

“Yeah. I can make it.”

I bet you can. I bet you will, Lee thought.

“Tell Emily we gotta get moving.”

* * *

They talked about it from every angle on the drive to the station house in Asheville, and while Lee’s impression of Emily as a tough woman who handled herself only strengthened, he still hesitated at the door of the interview room.

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Lee.” Emily laid a hand on his arm. “I am doing it. It may not do any good other than getting it out of my own craw, but I’m doing it.”

“When you’re finished, or you’ve just had enough, bang on the door.”

“Got it.”

He opened the door, signaled the cop in the room to come out. Emily walked in, and the door closed behind her.

Eliza sat at a small table, back straight, cuffed hands folded on the table. Her face carried the night’s violence, but her eyes, Emily noted, burned with angry pride.

“It’s about damn time.”

Her stomach hurt. Emily noted it with a detached interest as she sat across from her sister. “It really is, isn’t it?”