Cole only slips his hand into mine and retreats farther behind me.
“This is Cole Barrow. You probably just don’t recognize him because he’s a big five-year-old now.”
My brother looks at me as though I’m a foreign species, but Alana crouches low. “Hi, Cole. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hi.” Cole’s word is no louder than a breath.
“Do you help Piper walk her dog very often?”
Cole doesn’t respond.
“He lives one street over,” Nick says to her. “In the house with the white fence that you asked about.”
Of course she’s asking all kinds of nosy questions about our neighbors. Surely her newspaper will bring her back home soon, right?
Alana stands to her full height, nearly a head taller than me. “I was admiring your home, Cole. You have a lovely yard.”
Again, he doesn’t answer her, and Sidekick strains at the lead. “We had better go. We’ll see you in a bit.”
“Piper, when you get back”—Alana touches my arm, and I use Sidekick as an excuse to step away—“I would still love to talk to you about Jacob and Lydia.”
“I don’t know anything that would be of interest to you.”
“I don’t think that’s true at all. Nick was telling me that Jacob wrote you a letter.”
I shift a glare to Nick. “Oh, he did?”
“Don’t be angry with him. He wants the same thing I want—the same thing you want. Justice for Lydia.”
I glance meaningfully at Cole. “Now isn’t the time to discuss it.”
“Of course. Later, then. Maybe after you get home? Do you have the letter here, or is it with the police? I would love to see it.”
If Cole wasn’t here, I would give this overbearing reporter a piece of my mind. What is wrong with my brother, that he can’t see she’s just using him to advance her career?
I turn on my heel without responding and race down the steps before the vicious words on my tongue spill out. Cole collected a stick while I wasn’t paying attention, and he runs it along the wrought iron fence. A metallic thunk, thunk, thunk strides along with us.
I allow myself a few moments to silently seethe over crafty Alana Kirkwood, but I can’t let her rob me of the opportunity I have to talk to Cole privately.
“Do you like having a little brother, Cole?”
He shrugs.
“Does he cry a lot?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a good helper?”
Another shrug. Another fence. Thunk, thunk, thunk . . .
My chest aches with impatience. How does one go about making a five-year-old talk? How would my mother have tricked me into talking?
The answer is simple—she wouldn’t have tricked me. She would have just asked what she wanted to know.
I glance at the child beside me, at his blond curls and his hand pocketed in mine. Maybe he just needs to be asked.
“Cole.” He turns his big brown eyes to me. “Have your parents talked to you about Lydia?”
His hand goes stiff inside mine, and his eyes widen. Oh, great. I’ve scared him.
“You don’t need to be scared.” I squeeze his rigid hand. “I’m with you, okay? Nothing is going to happen.”
“I can’t talk about her.” Cole’s voice is so quiet, I have to lean closer to hear. “It’s a rule.”
I crouch beside him. “It’s okay when you’re with me.”
He shakes his head. One hand covers his bottom, and he does a squirmy sort of dance.
Perfect. This is why I avoid being alone with kids. “Do you need a restroom?”
Again, he shakes his head, but his hand stays planted atop his bottom.
We walk on. Questions build in my head, and with the stick limp at Cole’s side, I actually have silence to accommodate my thinking. Was he asking his parents too many complicated questions and they told him to stop? It would be hard—impossible, even—to explain what happened to Lydia without terrifying a small child. Especially one who knew and loved her, and walks the same streets she did.
Cole crouches next to the fence. “Look. A spider.” He pokes it with his stick, causing the spider to scurry. “They eat other bugs. They catch ’em in their web and eat ’em.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m very smart,” he informs me.
I can’t resist a smile. “Yes, you are.”
When he turns back to the spider, he leans closer. And the hem of his shirt slides up high enough that I catch a glimpse of a dark blue line.
He’s so focused on the spider, he doesn’t notice me lightly adjusting the fabric of his trousers, where the bruise seems to come from. Doesn’t notice the whoosh as my breath exhales from my chest at the sight of it—lines in all shades of purple, blue, and gray crisscrossing on his fair skin.
Lines from a father’s belt make sense for a boy who tried to hide a frog under his bed to keep as a pet and who threw his dinner against the wall when he didn’t want to eat it. But for this complacent and meek child? What could be the cause?
The answer comes swiftly, as if being presented on a platter. I can’t talk about it. It’s a rule. His hand protective over his rump.