“Listen.” For a moment, his face softened. “I’ve learned enough about you to know that you’re a fine person and a good cop. That comes from judges, other police officers, people who know your family. I don’t doubt your intentions, but there’s nothing good you can do for Channing.”
“You’re wrong about that.”
“I’ll tell her you stopped by.”
He retreated inside, but Elizabeth caught the door’s edge before it could close. “She needs more than strong walls, Mr. Shore. She needs people who understand. You’re six feet and change, a wealthy man with the world at his feet. Channing is none of those things. Do you have any idea what she’s feeling right now? Do you think you ever could?”
“No one knows Channing better than I.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Do you have children, Detective?” He towered above her, waiting.
“No. I don’t have children.”
“Let’s revisit this conversation when you do.”
He pushed the door shut and left Elizabeth on the wrong side of it. His feelings were understandable, but Channing needed a guide through the bitter landscape of after, and Elizabeth knew those trails better than most.
Looking up at high windows, she sighed deeply, then threaded between box bushes that rose like walls around her. The path twisted around giant oaks, and when it spit her out on the driveway, she found Channing seated on the hood of her car. Loose jeans and a sweatshirt swallowed the girl’s small body. A hood kept her eyes in shadow, but light touched the line of her jaw as she spoke. “I saw you pull up.”
“Channing, hi.” The girl slid off the car and pushed hands into her pockets. “How’d you get out of the house?”
“The window.” She shrugged. “I do it all the time.”
“Your parents…”
“My parents treat me like a child.”
“Sweetheart…”
“I’m not a child anymore.”
“No,” Elizabeth said sadly. “No, you’re not.”
“They say everything’s okay, that I’m safe.” Channing clenched her jaw: ninety pounds of china. “I’m not okay.”
“You can be.”
“Are you okay?”
Channing let sunlight find her face, and Elizabeth saw bones that pressed too tightly against the skin, circles beneath the girl’s eyes that were as dark as her own. “No, sweetheart. I’m not. I barely sleep, and when I do, I have nightmares. I don’t eat or exercise or talk to people unless I need to. I’ve lost twelve pounds in under a week. It’s not fair, what happened in that house. I’m angry. I want to hurt people.”
Channing pulled her hands free from her pockets. “My father can barely look at me.”
“I doubt that.”
“He thinks I should have run faster, fought harder. He says I shouldn’t have been outside in the first place.”
“What does your mother say?”
“She brings me hot chocolate and cries when she thinks I can’t hear.”
Elizabeth studied the house, which spoke of denial and quiet perfection. “You want to get out of here?”
“You and me?”
“Yes.”
“Where to?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
Channing got in the car, and Elizabeth drove them out of the historic district, past the mall, the car dealers, and day-care centers. She drove into the country, then to the gravel road that ran deep into the woods before turning up the face of the mountain that rose alone from the hills around the city. Air whistled through the car as they climbed, but neither spoke until they neared the top and the road flattened into a parking lot.
“This is the abandoned quarry.” Channing broke the silence, but with little real curiosity.
Elizabeth pointed at a gash in the woods. “Just up that trail. A quarter mile.”
“Why are we here?”
Elizabeth killed the engine and set the brake. She needed to do something, and it was going to hurt. “Let’s take a walk.”
She led Channing into the shade, then up a winding trail that was beaten flat by all the people who’d walked it over the years. It grew steep in places. They passed bits of litter and gray-skinned trees with initials carved into the bark. At the top of the mountain, the trail emptied onto an overlook that offered views of the city on one side and of the quarry on the other. In places, trees grew from shallow soil; in others there was only rock. It was a stark and beautiful place, but the drop into the quarry was two hundred feet straight down.
“Why are we here?”
Elizabeth stepped to the edge and peered down at the vast expanse of cold, black water. “My father’s a preacher. You probably didn’t know that.” Channing shook her head, and Elizabeth’s hair lifted