Chapter 4 - The Pink Mitten
The operating-room clock moved as if someone were dragging its hands through wet cement.
At midnight, Emma woke crying in Jo's lap. She kept saying the same sentence: "Mommy pushed me away."
I knelt in front of her.
"She pushed you somewhere safe, honey."
"I know." Emma rubbed her eyes. "But she told me not to let the shiny thing fall."
My heart lurched. "What shiny thing?"
Emma opened the pink mitten she had carried all evening. A broken silver chain spilled into her lap. At its end hung my mother's cross, no longer than my thumb, with a small dark stain near the clasp.
"Mommy put it in my hand when Aunt Mallory started yelling," Emma said. "She told me to close my fingers. Then the pot came."
I didn't touch the pendant. Ortiz had asked us to preserve anything connected to the attack.
"You did exactly what Mommy asked," I told Emma. "I'm proud of you."
Her face crumpled. "If I was good, why didn't she get up?"
I wrapped my arms around her. "Because someone hurt her. Not because of anything you did."
Jo called Ortiz. The detective photographed the cross and placed it in an evidence pouch, then let Emma watch her seal it.
"It isn't disappearing," Ortiz promised. "We're keeping it safe."
A woman spoke from the far end of the hall.
"That's my necklace."
Mallory stood beside Grant, a white bandage above one eyebrow and one arm in a sling. She looked pale, but the hatred in her eyes was familiar.
I stood between her and Emma.
"Get away from my daughter."
Mallory ignored me. She stared at the evidence pouch.
"Mom promised me that cross when I was twelve. Ask anyone."
Grant caught her elbow. "Don't say another word."
May you like
But Mallory leaned around him and looked straight at Emma.
"You have no idea what your mommy is hiding."
