Her chin quivered. “I didn’t want the car to go bump. I didn’t want to see the ocean without you.”
I gripped the table. Four days earlier, she was at Sheila’s for her supervised visit. Somehow Dalton had found enough private time to tell her his plan.
That evening, Detective Sergeant Lowell Shelton sat on our sofa while Nora and her rabbit settled on my lap. He listened without requiring her to repeat anything. Outside, he promised a specialist child interview and advised contacting my lawyer.
Wednesday brought a court order suspending Dalton’s visits during the investigation. That afternoon at the Child Advocacy Center, Nora met an interviewer while I waited. For forty minutes, I clutched her rabbit and watched aquarium fish circle.
She gave that same account, Shelton told me afterward. She additionally recalled Dalton’s photo of a seaside blue pool with a slide, where they would spend a week.
