“It’s not okay,” she said, her face screwed up in frustration. “We have one job as parents, and that’s to keep our kids safe. I get that she has no experience with … well, other human beings, apparently … but you’re the father. You’re supposed to see the loose gun before it becomes a problem.”
“It hasn’t been a problem. Tula hasn’t been in a room with an unattended gun.”
“Given your girlfriend’s history with firearms, that doesn’t make me feel a lot better.”
“But moving to Houston would solve everything.” He kept his tone as neutral as possible.
An emotion that might have been regret passed over Sarit’s features. “I wanted to wait until I knew for sure it was happening before talking to you. I guess Tula must have overheard a conversation or two.”
“You wanted to wait—why? So it could be a done deal and I’d have no way to fight it?”
“You don’t have much standing to fight it. You don’t abide by the agreement we have now.”
“That’s not fair. I see Tula the proscribed number of days per month, just not always on your schedule.”
“It’s not my schedule. It’s the schedule we worked out with the courts and then you don’t follow it, as usual. It’s not about me, Reed. It’s about Tula and giving her stability, constancy. She has to know she can depend on you.”
“She knows that,” he said testily. “I would do anything for her.”
“Anything? You’ve pawned her off on some troubled teenager you barely know so that you and Ellery can play single, carefree lovers together.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ve been working, not canoodling with Ellery.”
Her mouth fell open. “Working. I suppose you think that’s better.”
“Sarit, my job requires—”
She held up both hands to forestall him. “I don’t want to hear another word about your damn job. You were supposed to be on vacation with your daughter this week.”
“I have been. She’s had a blast. Just ask her.”
“Just not with her father.”
Reed glared at her and stalked to the window. He looked out at the dark, empty street, where the streetlamps cast angled shadows. A young woman on a bike went by. “Do you know why Ellery was abducted by Francis Coben all those years ago?” he asked without turning around.
“He liked her hands,” Sarit replied, sounding tired. “It was the middle of the night and she was alone, so he just grabbed her. He was a murderous psychopath. Take whichever explanation you prefer.”
“She was alone, yes,” Reed said, turning around slowly. “Because her mother was at the hospital with her sick older brother. Her father had left the family.”
“Yes, I recall. It’s a sad story, Reed. What is the point?”
He spread his hands. “She had no one else. No aunts, uncles, cousins, or anyone else to step in when times got tough at the Hathaway household. If there had been someone … anyone to see that Ellery got fed supper that night. Someone, maybe, to bake her a birthday cake. Someone to keep her company in that apartment so she wasn’t out riding her bike in the middle of the night all alone. If there had been just one extra person to care for Ellery, she wouldn’t have been abducted.”
“People from nice, whole families don’t get victimized, then.” Sarit wasn’t buying it.
“They are less vulnerable. But it does happen, of course. However, then you have a family to help you heal from the trauma. You don’t have to weather it alone and the damage is less durable.”
Sarit rubbed her head as though it hurt. “Is there a point to this analysis, Mr. Profiler?”
“You want to protect Tula. I understand that desire because I share it.” He put his hand to his heart. “But this move you are suggesting would take her away, not just from me, but from her grandparents, her aunts, uncles, and cousins. People who love her and whom she loves. They are not just family but her safety net, too.”
“I’m trying to see that she doesn’t need a safety net.”
“You can’t,” Reed said with a tinge of sadness. “You can’t keep her safe from all harm because it’s not possible, not if you want her to have any kind of life at all. You are her mother. You were her first home, her first love. But you are not everything. Not now, and definitely not in the future, when she’s crying about some hurt that you can’t soothe either because you don’t understand it or you aren’t even there to see it.”
Sarit blinked back tears. “That’s a fatalistic vision.”
Reed shook his head. “You worry about Ellery and her mental health. I don’t think she’s any threat to Tula at all, but I do see a lesson from her. You can’t do it alone. You shouldn’t want to. Kids need mothers, yes, but they also need fathers who will buy them rocket ship shoes and push the swing as high as it will go in the park. They need teenage babysitters with blue fingernails. They need aunts to take them to the art museum and uncles who will show them how to change a tire.”
“I know how to change a tire,” Sarit said, her tone grudging.
Reed smiled. “And who taught you?”
She met his eyes and their gaze held for a long moment. “You did.”
* * *
When they left the bedroom, nothing was resolved as far as Houston, but Sarit had agreed to keep him in the loop on further discussions. He found Ellery standing at the kitchen island over a pizza. She nibbled halfheartedly at one slice while Tula and Ashley, perched on stools across from her, devoured the rest. “Didn’t you two just eat dinner?” Reed asked the girls.
“That was hours ago,” Ashley replied.
“Yeah,” Tula said, her mouth full. “Hours.”
Reed nudged Ellery. “Can I talk to you a moment?”
She looked at Sarit and then back at him, obviously trying to guess the nature of his proposed conversation. “I don’t know,” she said. “Do you think she can be trusted here with the knives?”
Ashley tittered while Sarit shot her a dirty look. “I’ll risk it,” Reed said, tugging on her hand.
She allowed him to half-drag her to the bedroom, where he shut the door. “If you want to yell at me about the gun, Sarit already beat you to it.”
“I don’t wish to yell at you.” He tugged some more until she stumbled into him, at which point he wrapped his arms around her. She was stiff and unyielding in his embrace. “I’m sorry she decided to parachute in behind enemy lines like this,” he said against the side of her head.
“Is that what I am? The enemy?” Her voice was muffled against his shirt.
“No, of course not.” He ran his palm down the smooth plane of her back. “Poor humor. I just meant that it wasn’t fair of her, showing up like this out of the blue. One more person in your personal space, hmm?”
“One that hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.” He paused with his chin atop her head, considering. “She’s a brilliant woman who is suspicious of things she doesn’t understand. This includes you.”