Page 44 of Power Play

“Where’d you get evidence?”

“Cole.”

“When did you talk to Cole?”

“At the glass. When you went to get your coffee.” She thought about it with her whole face. “He said Daddy’s a big softie and you gotta be patient.”

Of course it was. Cole Westbrook, twenty-six years old and a professional athlete, was teaching Iris how to build a case.

I made her a sandwich and cut it into four triangles, because rectangles were currently unacceptable. She got going on the crust, then put both hands flat on the table beside the drawing.

“He’s gonna stand in the door,” she said.

“What?”

“When he comes home. He stands in the door and he doesn’t say anything and then he says something.” She went back to the crust. “That’s what he does.”

She’d just described in twenty words the man I’d spent most of a morning trying to get onto a page. I was a grown woman with a teaching license and I’d been out-written by a preschooler.

He knocked on the casita door early the following Tuesday. He used two knuckles, low, and then two more. He hadn’t made a sound in the hall, not one board. That only happened when I was writing, because the rest of the time I tracked the house without trying.

I shut the laptop harder than a laptop deserved and crossed the room and opened the door.

He was dressed for the rink, his backpack over one shoulder. The strap had folded his collar under and he hadn’t fixed it. Behind him, out in the house, Iris was doing the morning at full volume.

“I need to ask you something,” he said.

He didn’t say I hate to ask or I know it’s a lot. There was no windup at all.

I put a hand on the door frame, mostly to give it a job.

“Okay.”

“Saturday’s your off day. There’s a team thing that morning. I need the morning, and I’ll be back early afternoon.”

I had plans on Saturday, real ones, made weeks ago, for Sedona with Maren. With my hand on the frame I ran the math I’d been running all my adult life. It always came out the same.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He didn’t move. “That’s not an answer.”

I stopped. Nobody refused those. The graceful non-answer had been my currency for as long as I’d been an adult. He handed it straight back and waited for a real one.

“I had plans,” I said.

“What kind?”

“Sedona. With Maren.”

He took that in. He never rushed to the end of anything.

“Can you move it this week?” he said.

He didn’t say you should be able to move it. He asked whether I could.

“Maren can probably do Thursday.”

“Thursday works for me if you need it.”