Chapter 7 - Nowhere Safe for Sunday
Moreno told us to leave the motel without advertising where we were going. An officer met us in the lobby and accompanied us to a family services office across town, where we could sit behind a locked reception door and wait for instructions.
Winnie held her shoebox city against her chest. Micah had gone back for it with the officer's help after she cried. "I made a hospital and a library," she explained to Moreno. "People go there when they need something."
"That's a pretty good city," the detective told her.
"Are you saying someone plans to hurt Winnie?" Leah asked.
"We take the threat seriously," Moreno answered. "Keep her away from the people who made it."
The man with the floor plan was Calvin Doss, a contractor linked to aggressive property disputes. He had no business inside our home.
Micah rubbed his hands. "He came to our door last month. Said he was surveying the road. I let him see the back garden."
"You had no way to know," Leah said.
"I still let him in."
Ruth sat quietly with Winnie's hand in hers. At last she said, "I will not sign that house away. Not to rescue Beth from something she did."
I looked at her. "You may have to leave it for a while."
"Leaving isn't giving it up," she answered.
That was the first firm sentence she'd spoken since Beth fell in the hallway. Then she reached for Winnie's shoebox city and helped repair a paper bridge that had collapsed in the rush.
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At eleven, Moreno returned with worse news. Doss had been recorded entering our backyard the previous afternoon, several hours before Beth made her accusation.
He had already been preparing the house while we were still planning Sunday's meal.
