Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction

Do
you believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? What does it feel
like to know you’ll be a grandpa, Rand?
The Elliotts
entered with mumbled hellos and downcast eyes, and I
slammed the door shut on the cameras. Rand put a hand
on my arm and immediately removed it under Marybeth’s
gaze.
‘Sorry, I was in the shower.’ My hair was still dripping,
wetting the shoulders of my T-shirt. Marybeth’s hair was
greasy, her clothes wilted. She looked at me like I was
insane.
‘Tanner Bolt? Are you serious?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, Nick: Tanner Bolt, are you serious. He only
represents guilty people.’ She leaned in closer, grabbed
my chin. ‘What’s on your cheek?’
‘Hives. Stress.’ I turned away from her. ‘That’s not true
about Tanner, Marybeth. It’s not. He’s the best in the
business. I need him right now. The police – all they’re
doing is looking at me.’
‘That certainly seems to be the case,’ she said. ‘It
looks like a bite mark.’
‘It’s hives.’
Marybeth released an aggravated sigh, turned the
corner into the living room. ‘This is where it happened?’ she
asked. Her face had collapsed into a series of fleshy ridges

---

– eye bags and saggy cheeks, her lips downcast.
‘We think. Some sort of … altercation, confrontation,
also happened in the kitchen.’
‘Because of the blood.’ Marybeth touched the ottoman,
tested it, lifted it a few inches, and let it drop. ‘I wish you
hadn’t fixed everything. You made it look like nothing ever
happened.’
‘Marybeth, he has to live here,’ Rand said.
‘I still don’t understand how – I mean, what if the police
didn’t find everything? What if … I don’t know. It seems like
they gave up. If they just let the house go. Open to anyone.’
‘I’m sure they got everything,’ Rand said, and
squeezed her hand. ‘Why don’t we ask if we can look at
Amy’s things so you can pick something special, okay?’ He
glanced at me. ‘Would that be all right, Nick? It’d be a
comfort to have something of hers.’ He turned back to his
wife. ‘That blue sweater Nana knitted for her.’
‘I don’t want the goddamn blue sweater, Rand!’
She flung his hand off, began pacing around the room,
picking up items. She pushed the ottoman with a toe. ‘This
is the ottoman, Nick?’ she asked. ‘The one they said was
flipped over but it shouldn’t have been?’
‘That’s the ottoman.’
She stopped pacing, kicked it again, and watched it
remain upright.
‘Marybeth, I’m sure Nick is exhausted’ – Rand glanced
at me with a meaningful smile – ‘like we all are. I think we
should do what we came here for and—’
‘This is what I came here for, Rand. Not some stupid
sweater of Amy’s to snuggle up against like I’m three. I want
my daughter. I don’t want her stuff. Her stuff means nothing

---

to me. I want Nick to tell us what the hell is going on,
because this whole thing is starting to stink. I never, I never
– I never felt so foolish in my life.’ She began crying,
swiping away the tears, clearly furious at herself for crying.
‘We trusted you with our daughter. We trusted you, Nick.
Just tell us the truth!’ She put a quivering index finger under
my nose. ‘Is it true? Did you not want the baby? Did you not
love Amy anymore? Did you hurt her?’
I wanted to smack her. Marybeth and Rand had raised
Amy. She was literally their work product. They had created
her. I wanted to say the words 
Your daughter is the
monster here
, but I couldn’t – not until we’d told the police –
and so I remained dumbfounded, trying to think of what I
could say. But I looked like I was stonewalling. ‘Marybeth, I
would never—’
‘