THREE
I didn’t want to interrupt Mark’s meeting—or deal with Sherry’s cheerfulness—so I texted Mark I was leaving, texted Hayword I was picking up David, and then I went out the back way to my car.
I hadn’t even been home ten minutes.
Fern called me before I was out the driveway. I sat still and listened to her yell at me.
“Mother! What have you done? The police want to talk to me. They think we had something to do with this. Why did you lie?”
“Fern,” I said, “I did not lie. Can we talk in person or on one of my burner phones.” Was that what they called them? “Just in case someone is listening. You don’t have to talk to the police. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just tell them you’re too busy to talk to them.”
“I am too busy!”
“There you go,” I said. “I just talked to the detective o
