Dalton rejected every allegation. His lawyer supplied a sworn statement from Sheila saying he was at her house that morning.
I called her. “Was he really there?”
“He was there when I left, and there when I got back,” she said. Afterward, she accused me of using an accident to take his daughter away and hung up.
Ruth phoned that evening from hospital. She recalled a man waiting beside the highway in a silver sedan on two August Tuesdays.
“He was learning my road, wasn’t he?”
Before we ended the call, she asked me to retrieve her purse and glasses from the wrecked car.
After one that morning, Nora awoke screaming, “No bump.” Grant brought her to our bedroom and sat against the headboard as she slept on him.
At six, he remained awake, his hand resting on her back. I dressed for the impound lot as my sister watched Nora.
Chapter 3/5
