washed her hands in the sink and sat at a pint-size plastic picnic table. “You want a snack?” she asked, holding out a shortbread cookie she’d just taken from the cupboard.
He looked at the cookie, shrugged and pushed a car on the track.
“What kind of ice cream did you get last night?” His father had told him that they’d have some.
“Chocolate. I get chocolate. Daddy gets ’nilla.”
Leaving the cookie on the table, she sat down on the floor with him. “In a cone or a bowl?”
He shrugged again.
“Do you ever eat so much it hurts your stomach?”
Another shrug.
There were games she could play with him, activities designed to give her insights into his psyche. She had hoped she wouldn’t have to resort to something that formal. But...
“Let’s play a little game,” she said, leaning back against the wall. He seemed happier when she gave him his space.
He didn’t seem to have heard her.
“Levi, will you play a game with me?”
“Then can I go back to my daddy?” Those blue eyes were wide and sad as he looked at her.
“Yes.” It was the only answer she could give him. Her purpose was not to make him unhappy. Or to make him dislike her, either. They needed to work together, Levi and she, to make certain that he was safe. Even if he didn’t know that.
“Okay.”
“So this is a talking game,” she started. “You can still play with your cars while we do it.”
Picking up another car, he had one in each hand and circled one around the track.
“So in this game, I tell you one of the best things that ever happened to me, one of my happiest times, and then you tell me yours. Okay?”
He nodded.
“So, one of my happiest times was when...” She’d been ready to give him the rote—the memory she’d chosen long ago for this exercise, the same one she used every time.
And then she stopped. He wasn’t exhibiting any need to confide in her, didn’t seem to need an excuse to open up, and he certainly wasn’t going to care about her and her identical twin sister playing a trick on their fourth-grade teacher.
Not at that moment, at any rate.
“When I was little, my twin sister and I were picked to do some television commercials,” she told him. “The best one was when we got to ride on the hood of a sports car for a little bit, right on the track.”
He looked at her then. “Did you go fast?”
“No. We were on the hood. But when we were done, my sister got to ride in it.”
“All the way around?”
“Yes.”
He pushed the car around the track again.
“It’s your turn now. What’s the best time you ever had?”
She waited.
“My fish.”
“Your fish is the best time?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What did you do with your fish?”
“Daddy and me goed fishing on a boat and I got to pick out goldfish for my pond we builded.”
“You have a pond?” She’d missed that the night before.
He nodded and pushed the car in his left hand for the first time.
“Where?”
“With the stuff outside.”
“What stuff?”
“Chairs and cooking and stuff.”
Lacey would have picked up a little car, too, if she’d felt herself welcome. Instead, she watched the adorable little boy pushing his miniature vehicles with such precision while she leaned back against the wall.
“And you went fishing for goldfish?”
“No!” His giggle slipped inside her, lightening the weight she carried. “You buy them in the store, where they dunk that thing in for ’em.”
She smiled then, liking this child—a lot—and knowing that, regardless of what she found out, he was going to be one of those she never forgot.
THRUMMING HIS FINGERS on the arm of the chair, Jem stared at the magazines on the table beside him. He stared at his phone, too, scrolling through his favorite news site, but seeing nothing. He reholstered his phone.
What in the hell was taking so long?
Was it possible that someone really was hurting his son?
Impossible.
He’d know.
But one thing he’d learned since Levi had come into the world, turning his life upside down—kids had incredible imaginations.
They were apt to say anything that came into their heads. Fabrication or not. To a kid Levi’s age, everything seemed real. From cartoons, dreams he’d had and stories he’d imagined.
Jem had always encouraged his son’s free thinking. And when Levi came up with outlandish stories, he’d asked questions to play along. Because to Levi, in those moments, they were real.
He’d also taught his son never to lie. He could imagine. He could make up. But he could not change facts that he knew to be true.
But Lacey Hamilton, her crew at social services, whatever other professionals she might have involved in their lives—none of them knew that.
Shooting up out of the scarred wooden chair, he strode to the door, opened it and caught a woman’s questioning look as she passed by the room on her way down the hall. She probably knew who he was. Why he was there.
Obviously she’d know in whose office he’d been waiting.
Back inside, he closed the door and sat down. What was taking them so long?
Pulling his phone back off the holster at his waist, Jem started making calls to his site bosses. He fielded problems and offered solutions, helping those who worked for him to do their best work.
All the while trying to ignore the fact that he’d never felt so helpless in his life.
* * *
“SO THE NEXT part of this game is, I tell you my worst memory.” Lacey felt like a creep as she sat there in the small playroom with a little boy who had no good reason to trust her. Pumping him for information that could make a drastic change in his life. If his life needed a drastic change.
Fully knowing that for most kids, even when the change was needed, it wasn’t welcome. The devil you knew was much better than facing the fear of the unknown. And being ripped away from those you loved—even if they weren’t good to you—was the worst.
“It was when I was little and had to be in the hospital and I was really scared.”
She had to make it bad enough that he wouldn’t feel intimidated talking about his, no matter how bad it was.
And yet not so bad as to give him nightmares.
It also had to be true. Her rule. The kids in her life generally had major trust issues. She was not going to add to them by lying.
He looked up at her. “Were you sick?”
“I had to stay overnight,” she said. “I