« To tell the truth. »
The chair scraped as I stood. « What truth? »
Nora covered her mouth, but the sob still broke through. « About who took Emily that night. »
« I need you to know I tried. »
Ten years earlier, after Abigail died, Emily and I became a team of two.
I wasn’t a perfect father. I burned toast, forgot picture day, and packed lunches that made Emily sigh.
Then her friend, Nora, started coming over more that year.
***
Emily and Nora were 12, old enough to want freedom and young enough to need someone watching from the porch.
Nora’s parents had died when she was four, and she lived three houses down with her grandmother, who loved her but was slipping further every month.
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