Aria reached the kitchen with her heart outrunning her feet.
The cup lay in three pieces near the stove. Gladys stood pressed against the counter, one hand flat against her chest in the checking way that had stopped being subtle days ago. Across from her, a man in an unremarkable coat stood with his hands visible and his weight easy, the posture of someone who had done this before and found threats unnecessary.
He was not large. That was the wrong thing to notice and Aria noticed it anyway how ordinary he looked, how little the moment needed him to perform menace to be one.
“Mama.” Aria did not run to her. Running felt like giving him something.
“I'm all right,” Gladys said, though her voice had gone thin. “He came in through the garden door. I dropped the cup. That's the whole crime s
