Chapter 8 · Her Case

"Daddy!"

The scream hits me before the elevator doors finish opening. I shove through the gap sideways, heels catching on the track, and there's Maya, five years old and barefoot — barefoot, in my lobby, because Renata didn't even stop for shoes — screaming that word like it's the only word she owns.

"Renata." My voice comes out flatter than I mean it to. "What the hell is she doing here?"

"She wouldn't stop crying in the car." Renata's got Maya's shoes in one hand, a diaper bag sliding off her shoulder, sweat at her hairline like she ran the last block. "She said she saw his car. The black one. She just — she got out at the light, Ms. Cole, I couldn't—"

"You let a five-year-old out of a moving car."

"It wasn't moving, it was a light, I—"

I don't have time for the rest of that sentence, because Maya's not looking at me. She's looking past me, at the elevator bank, at the doors that are sliding shut behind me right now, and her whole face cracks open like she's found water in a desert.

"Daddy's here!