He’d called the police the second he hung up with me.
They’d been on their way while I crouched in the dark.
But Christopher — careful, meticulous Christopher — had left before they arrived, because an empty bed had spooked him, because a man planning what he was planning does not improvise well when the plan goes wrong.
By the time officers did a quiet welfare check at dawn, he was already returning through the front door with pastries and a smile.
That’s why I played dumb.
Because Toby, my brilliant boy, had said one more thing on the phone that morning, in a voice far too old for nineteen:
“Mom. He doesn’t know that we know. That’s the only advantage we have. Don’t waste it. Don’t confront him. Let me talk to the detective. We’re going to do this so it sticks.”
PART 3
The detective’s name was Ruth Okafor, and she was the kind of calm that comes from having seen the worst of people and deciding to stand between them and everyone else anyway.
