My son sobbed the entire drive to his grandmother’s house. “Daddy, please don’t leave me here.” My wife snapped, “You’re babying him.” I left him anyway. Three hours later, a neighbor called. “Your little boy ran to my house shaking. He’s hiding under my bed and won’t stop crying.”

A woman entered the room then, tall, sandy-haired, wearing plainclothes with a badge clipped at her belt. She introduced herself as Detective Alberta Stark. Her eyes moved over the room quickly, taking in everything. When she spoke, her voice was firm but not unkind.

“Mr. Edwards, your son is not under arrest,” she said, as if she could hear the panic radiating off him. “Do you understand me? Right now, he is a child who appears to have been the victim of severe abuse and acted while attempting to escape. We need to secure the scene, document everything, and get statements.”

William nodded once, though the words barely penetrated.

Detective Stark glanced toward Owen, then back to William. “Your wife is next door?”

“She said she was staying for dinner.”

“Then we need to speak with her immediately.”

“I’m coming.”

“Sir—”

“I’m coming,” he repeated, and there must have been something in his face that made her decide not to fight him.

They crossed the yard with squad lights flashing against the darkening sky. The gap in the fence was wider than it looked on video, two broken slats bent inward where Owen must have forced himself through. Blood smeared one board at shoulder height. William’s knees nearly buckled again.

At Sue’s property, the front lawn was crowded now—another officer, EMTs loading a stretcher, neighbors standing farther back in shock-lit clusters. William saw Sue only briefly as paramedics wheeled her toward the ambulance. Her face was covered in blood and gauze, one side of her head wrapped hastily, her body rigid with either pain or rage. Even unconscious-looking, she seemed furious.

Marsha stood on the porch under the yellow light, arms folded tightly across her chest.

When she saw William, she came down the steps fast. Not with fear. Not with relief that their son was alive. Not even with confusion.

With fury.

“What did you do?” she hissed.

The words landed so grotesquely out of place that for a second William could not process them.

“What did I do?” he repeated.

“Yes.” Her eyes blazed. “What have you been telling him? What kind of garbage have you been filling his head with?”