The sitter’s door shut behind her with a soft little click that felt louder than it should have. Molly stood for half a second on the stoop, eyes closed, listening for Scarlett’s fussing through the thin wall, for any sign that she should go back in and say one more goodbye. Nothing—just the muffled murmur of cartoons and Anne’s cheerful voice. Safe.
She turned her collar up against the thin wind and started toward the diner. The shortcut ran behind a string of closed storefronts—a barber shop, a tax place whose neon OPEN sign never lit and an old Pawn shop boarded up for as long as she had lived there. Cutting across the alley that always smelled faintly of stale beer and wet cardboard. Molly told herself not to take it at night. She told herself, even now, that this was still day enough
