On a Thursday about two weeks after he found Baylee and Dylan on the church pew, Chase came home from work at 1:45 in the morning to find Baylee sitting in her pajamas on the sofa in the formal living room, clutching a cup of tea in her trembling hands. Her eyes were red and her face striped with tear stains.
“What"s wrong?” he asked, hurrying across the floor, his boots clunking loudly on the wood.
She jumped and spilled tea all over herself.
“Sorry,” he said, grabbing the cup, worrying she might have been burned.
It was stone cold.
He set the cup on the coffee table, rings in the wood be damned, and slipped his arms around her.
“What"s wrong, honey?” he asked.
She sniffled, melting into his embrace, and abruptly shattered into sobs. Without pausing to consider, he scooped her up i
