Chapter Four #2
I crouch beside the table. “All right. Show me what’s missing.”
“Brown marker. Green glitter. Two frogs. Scissors. Tape.”
“Where’d they go?”
“If I knew, they wouldn’t be missing.”
We search the kitchen.
The brown marker is under the refrigerator. The scissors are shoved between couch cushions. One plastic frog is inside the sugar bowl for reasons I decide I’m better off not knowing. The second frog is gone completely.
Wren stands in the middle of the kitchen looking close enough to tears that I abandon the search.
“I need two.”
“You got one.”
“The instructions say two.”
“We’ll make one.”
“With what?”
I open the junk drawer to find twine, batteries, three screws, a deck of cards, old receipts, and a green bottle cap.
I hold up the cap. “Frog.”
“That doesn’t look like a frog.”
“Needs eyes.”
“With what?”
I grab two peppercorns from the cabinet.
Wren watches while I glue them onto the bottle cap. The result looks like something that crawled out of a crooked creek behind a meth lab.
She leans closer.
“It’s ugly.”
“Nature’s full of ugly shit.”
“Dad.”
“Stuff.”
She giggles.
I draw legs with the black marker and set the thing near the river.
“There.”
“It looks dead.”
“Then it’s part of the food chain.”
Wren considers that. “That’s science.”
We spend the next hour finishing the project.
I don’t rush her when she decides everything needs more glitter.
I don’t check my phone every time it buzzes.
I turn it facedown instead and ignore the club for a while.
I don’t correct her when she gives one of the deer spikes.
When she decides the entire sky needs to be redone because the cotton-ball clouds are too round, I help peel them off.
She cuts. I hold. She glues. I keep the glitter contained to one side of the table, which ought to qualify me for federal emergency management.
By the time we’re done, the forest stands upright, the river flows in the right direction, and the bottle-cap frog has been promoted to APEX PREDATOR because Wren thinks he looks mean.
She writes her name across the bottom.
WREN WELLER
Then she looks at me. “Do you like it?”
“Best ecosystem I’ve ever seen.”
She smiles.
I reach for a wet paper towel and wipe a streak of glitter from her cheek. “You eat?”
“Glamaw brought egg salad.”
“That means no.”
“It was crunchy.”
“Eggs shouldn’t crunch.”
“I know.”
I stand. “Grilled cheese?”
“And tomato soup?”
“Yeah.”
“No crust.”
“Crust builds character.”
“I have enough character.”
She sounds like me. That should concern me.
Mostly makes me proud. I start heating soup and butter bread for the skillet, already knowing I’m cutting the damn crust off.
My phone buzzes again. This time I look.
Unknown number. I ignore it. I know who it is.
Then my phone rings again while Wren sits at the table drawing fangs on the bottle-cap frog.
Different number this time. I recognize it.
I step into the hall and answer quietly.
“What?”
Legend’s voice comes through. “Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Twila there?”
I look toward the kitchen. “Hell no.”
“Brothers saw you talking to her this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“To stop.”
Legend goes quiet long enough that I know what’s coming.
“Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“You told Twila Dix not to do something?”
“Wasn’t my best work.”
“No shit.”
I hear movement on his end, followed by a door closing. When he speaks again, his voice is lower.
“We got word from someone on the inside.”
“Inside where?”
“Pearly Gates.”
“What word?”
I move far enough down the hall that Wren can’t easily hear me, but I keep the kitchen doorway in sight. She’s making the frog attack one of the deer.
“Twila’s name came up.”
Every bit of lazy afternoon disappears. My grip tightens around the phone.
“What about her?”
“Deputy Dix has been asking about old property around Pearly Gates all morning. Somebody reported it back.”
I think of the nervous man across from the clubhouse. The way he kept checking the street. The way he bolted the second he saw my cut.
Fuck.
Twila was already digging around Pearly Gates before this morning. That part ain’t new. Somebody inside is paying enough attention to know her name, track what she’s asking, and report it up the chain.
The danger just noticed her back.
“Where is she now?”
“We don’t know.”
I grab my keys from the hook.
Wren looks up from the table. “Where are you going?”
I stop.
Her ecosystem is finished. Soup is heating. Two pieces of bread wait beside the skillet.
My daughter is looking at the keys in my hand like she already knows exactly what they mean.
The old choice opens in front of me again. Never enough of me to go around. Club, family, and somewhere at the bottom of the list, me.
I point toward the stove. “Turn that burner off.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
She gives me a look.
Right.
Bad choice of words in this house too.
“I need to make another call outside.”
“You just made one.”
“Another one.”
“That’s suspicious.”
“You’re seven.”
“I ain’t dumb.”
I walk back into the kitchen and turn off the burner myself. Then I crouch in front of her. “I might have to go out.”
Her face falls before she can hide it.
“The project’s done,” she says. “But it’s a weeknight and Glamaw only does pickup and the night shift.”
“I know.”
“You said grilled cheese.”
“I know.”
“You always have to go.”
Her fingers pick at a dried streak of glue on the tabletop instead of looking at me.
I call Glamaw and reach for my keys before the phone finishes ringing.
Thank fuck she lives close.
I look at the keys in my hand. Then set them on the table.
“Fifteen minutes.”
Wren glances up. “For what?”
“To eat.”
Her eyes search mine. “You promise?”
“Yeah. Glamaw drives slow.”
I make the grilled cheese. Cut off the crust. Pour the soup. Then I sit with my daughter while my phone vibrates against the counter again and again. I leave it there.
Wren eats half her sandwich and spends several minutes explaining why wolves are misunderstood before the screen finally lights up with a message from Legend.
GIRL SEEN OUT AT OLD PEARLY GATES. MATCHES KAYLEE.
My attention locks on the words.
A second message follows.
NO WORD ON THE DEPUTY.
I look at Wren, then at the keys sitting beside my elbow.
Kaylee being seen alive near the old Pearly Gates complex is the first solid chance we’ve had in a long damn time to catch a current trail before it goes cold.
And somewhere between breakfast and now, Pearly Gates learned Twila Dix is asking questions.