P. Parrish - South Of Hell

But Joe’s list for Amy had been very specific.

Plain, not hip-hugger, blue jeans, size two. T-shirts with a minimum of a half-sleeve and no printing on the front, size small. A parka with a hood. Plain white underpants, no bikinis, size three. A pair of sneakers, size five. A plain white training bra, size 32A, no padding.

The bra had almost done him in. He finally found a clerk who helped him with that one.

Before he left the store, he had decided that he wanted to get Amy something personal, something Joe hadn’t put on the list. After ten minutes of walking around among the toys, he gave up and headed toward the checkout. As he passed the jewelry counter, he saw a display of cheap necklaces. He settled on a small heart-shaped locket on a silver chain.

He hadn’t shown it to Joe or Amy at the hotel room, because he wanted to give it to Amy in private. He hoped it would help him make a connection that Amy hadn’t yet allowed him to make.

The courtroom doors opened with a soft bang. Louis rose quickly as Shockey came toward him.

“What happened?” Louis asked.

“The kid was great,” Shockey said. “Judge Fells said he believed her stories about Brandt’s abuse, but he didn’t completely buy the fact that she may have seen Brandt murder her mother. He wasn’t willing to dismiss it totally, either. He wants Dr. Sher to dig deeper.”

“How long did he give us?”

“Ten days,” Shockey said. “In the meantime, Family Services will notify Brandt that he has a hearing coming up. Brandt will have to get a lawyer and fight to get her back. He still might be able to do that if we don’t come up with something to prove him unfit.”

“Where does Amy stay until then?” Louis asked. “If Brandt even suspects she’s remembering things, she’ll need to be protected.”

“Fells knew that,” Shockey said. “Amy understood it, too. Fells told her she had two choices. She could stay in the juvenile jail, or he could order a cruiser to sit outside her new foster home twenty-four hours a day.”

“What did Amy choose?”

Shockey smiled. “It was the damndest thing I ever saw,” he said. “The kid stood up and said, ‘How come I can’t stay with Miss Frye? She can protect me. She has a gun.’ So the judge turned to Joe and said, ‘What about that, Sheriff Frye?’”

“What’d Joe say?”

Shockey laughed softly. “You should’ve seen her face, but I could tell she couldn’t say no to that girl. Joe said she’d stay until the next court date. Now all I gotta do is get the department to pick up the hotel tab, and we’re all set, at least for ten days.”

The doors opened again. Joe and Amy came out. Amy was talking to her, excited about something, but he could tell Joe wasn’t listening. Her mind was three hundred miles away, in Echo Bay.

“Look, guys,” Joe said. “I have got to call Mike. I don’t know how I’m going to explain this. Amy, would you stay here with Detective Shockey for me? For five minutes?”

“Are you coming back?” Amy asked.

“Yes,” Joe said. “You’ll be fine with Detective Shockey. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Joe hurried off to find a pay phone. Amy pushed her hair from her eyes and wandered to the bench to sit down. There was a woman sitting farther down the hall, nursing a baby. The woman’s breast and the baby’s face were covered with a cloth diaper, but still Amy watched them, fascinated.

Shockey looked at his watch. “I gotta go. I have a meeting with my lieutenant at eleven. I have to bring him up to date on this stuff.”

Louis looked at Amy. “Go ahead. We’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Shockey went over to Amy and explained to her that he had to go, then gestured to Louis. She gave him a small nod and watched him until he disappeared out the glass doors. Then she glanced around, probably looking for Joe. When she didn’t see her, her eyes came to Louis.

He walked to her slowly. She watched him, but to his surprise, she didn’t look as if she was going to run. He sat down next to her and reached into his jacket pocket. Her eyes followed his every move, showing nothing but wariness until he withdrew the locket and held it out to her.

“I’d like to give you this,” he said.

Amy stared at it. “That belongs to her,” she said.

“No,” Louis said. “It’s for you.”

Amy picked it from his palm and opened it. “There’s nothing in it,” she said.

“You can put anything inside you want.”

Amy closed the locket and looked up. Her expression was no longer one of fear but of curiosity. She was staring at him so intensely that Louis had trouble sitting still.

Behind him, he heard the familiar clip of Joe’s boots on the tile floor. Amy hid the locket quickly in her back pocket.

“Where’s Jake?” Joe asked.

“Went to report in.”

Joe’s eyes went from Louis to Amy. “You guys ready?” she asked.

Amy rose and walked to Joe. She wanted to take Joe’s hand, but Joe pulled gently away from her and started to the door. Louis rose to follow but stopped partway across the lobby, catching sight of an Ann Arbor uniform. Then he saw the face and the bald brown head of Sergeant Eric Channing.

Channing came forward. “You got a minute, Kincaid?” he asked.

Joe heard Channing’s voice, and she and Amy paused at the door and looked back. Louis waved them on.

“You guys go ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”

Channing waited for them to leave. He drew a hand from his pocket and gestured to the bench. “Have a seat.”

“I’ll stand, thank you.”

“Sit down. Please.”

Louis dropped to the bench. Channing glanced to the doors, then down the hall, and finally took a place next to Louis. Louis braced himself, not wanting another confrontation. But if this was going to be another warning, Channing was approaching it far differently from the first time. His expression was not that of a combatant but of a man who needed something.

“I told you I’d be watching you, and I have,” Channing said.

“Look-”

“Be quiet,” Channing said. “Let me have my say here. That girl you were talking to just now, is she the one I’ve been hearing about around the station? The strange one you and Shockey found at that farmhouse?”

“Yeah.”

“Word is you’ve fought like hell to keep her out of the system and convinced your girlfriend to take care of her.”

“What’s that have to do with you?”

“Just answer the question,” Channing said. “That true?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“I was standing over there, watching you a few minutes ago with her,” Channing said. “You surprise me, Kincaid. You handled that pretty good.”

“What do you want from me, Channing?”

“Five more minutes.”

Louis shook his head and leaned on his knees. There was a trio of lawyers coming toward them, and Channing waited until they had passed before he spoke.

“I have something to show you,” Channing said.

Channing reached into his back pocket and withdrew a worn brown wallet. He opened it and flipped through the plastic sleeves. When he found the photograph he wanted, he held the wallet open to Louis. Louis took it and looked down at the picture.

Her hair was a puff of cascading ringlets, light brown with streaks of gold, as if the sun had lightened them. Her small face was the color of caramels. Her lips were pink and full like Kyla’s. Her eyes were gray and somber — like his own.

“Her name is Lily,” Channing said. “She’s eight years old, and she’s yours.”

Louis stared at the picture, everything numb but the hard pounding of his heart.

“Kyla lied to you, but she was only trying to protect Lily,” Channing said. “Don’t hate her for that.”