The garden at the back of the Grayson estate was quiet at that hour.
Lucas was sitting on the stone bench near the fountain with his elbows on his knees and a glass of water he had not touched. Ethan stood a few feet away with his hands in his pockets looking at nothing in particular.
They had come out here without discussing it. Just drifted toward the same space the way they had always done when something needed to be said away from the house.
Lucas spoke first.
"Eight years," he said.
Ethan said nothing.
"She was out there for eight years," Lucas continued. "Alone. With a paralyzed child and a pregnancy and a man who was hitting her." He looked up. "And we did not know."
"We looked," Ethan said.
"Not hard enough."
"We did not know where to look," Ethan said. His voice was even
