Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE WITH BLUE CURTAINS
Naomi did not let me leave the courthouse through the front entrance.
She took one look at the message and called the bailiff back into the hallway.
The bailiff photographed my screen, recorded the number, and asked whether I recognized the angle from which the picture had been taken.
I did.
The photograph had been taken from the second-floor landing above us.
I looked up.
The landing was empty.
The blue security camera above the stairwell pointed toward the elevators, not the corridor where Meadow and I had been standing.
Whoever had taken the picture had chosen the only blind spot.
Naomi escorted us through a restricted hallway and down to the employee parking level.
Francine met us beside her dented green Subaru.
She had changed out of her office shoes and into sneakers, which meant she had already decided the day might require running.
She opened the back door for Meadow.
Meadow climbed inside without speaking.
Her purple elephant went first.
Then she slid across the seat and pressed herself against the far window.
Francine looked at me over the roof of the car.
“What happened?”
I showed her the message.
The color left her face.
“We are not going to my apartment,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because Dustin knows where I live.”
“He knows where everyone lives.”
“Not everyone.”
Francine called our aunt Celia, who owned a small house forty minutes outside the city.
Aunt Celia had moved to Arizona the previous winter but had not yet sold the house.
It sat at the end of a quiet street behind two maple trees and a row of blue curtains that made every room look like it was underwater.
Only Francine had a key.
We drove there in separate cars while Naomi contacted the county investigator.
I checked the rearview mirror so often that Meadow finally noticed.
“Is Grandma following us?”
Her voice was barely more than breath.
“No.”
I hated how quickly I answered.
I hated more that I did not know whether it was true.
Meadow lowered her eyes.
“She follows slow.”
I looked at her in the mirror.
“What do you mean?”
She rubbed the elephant’s trunk against her chin.
“When she thinks you’ll look.”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“Has she followed us before?”
Meadow did not answer.
The traffic light turned green.
I drove through it while every ordinary car behind us became a possibility.
At Aunt Celia’s house, Francine walked through every room before letting us inside.
She checked the closets, the back door, and the crawl-space hatch in the laundry room.
Then she stood on a chair and disconnected the old wireless doorbell.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“Because Dustin installed it for her two years ago.”
I stared at the black square in her hand.
“He said it was not connected anymore.”
“Dustin says many things when the truth would require effort.”
Francine placed the doorbell in a metal mixing bowl and carried it to the garage.
Meadow watched her.
“Aunt Franny?”
Francine crouched.
“Yes, bug?”
“Will Grandma come through the walls?”
The question broke something in both of us.
Francine’s face remained calm, but her eyes filled.
“No.”
She took Meadow’s small hands.
“These walls belong to us tonight.”
Meadow looked toward the hallway.
“Grandma says houses belong to the person with the key.”
Francine pulled the spare key from her pocket.
“Then I guess I am queen of this one.”
That earned the smallest movement at the corner of Meadow’s mouth.
It was not a smile, but it was the memory of one.
We made a bed for her in the room with painted stars on the ceiling.
She refused to sleep unless the closet door was open and the hallway light remained on.
At eleven that night, I found her sitting upright beneath the blanket.
Her winter hat had slipped over one eye.
“Do you want me to fix it?”
She shook her head and pulled it lower herself.
I sat at the edge of the bed.
“Your head is safe here.”
Her breathing changed.
It became quick and shallow.
I stopped talking.
The pediatrician had told me not to press for details and not to turn every quiet moment into an interview.
Children often protected adults from information they believed adults could not survive.
I had always thought Meadow told me everything.
Now I understood that children tell you what they believe your world has room to hold.
I lay beside her until she slept.
At two in the morning, Francine knocked softly and handed me a mug of tea.
Naomi was on speakerphone from her kitchen.
“The unknown number was prepaid,” Naomi said.
“The courthouse is pulling entry footage.”
“Could it have been Judith?”
“She was visible behind you in the hallway when the image was taken.”
“Dustin?”
“Also visible.”
“Then who?”
“We do not know yet.”
Francine set her laptop on the table.
“I went through the messages Hannah saved.”
She turned the screen toward me.
Dustin’s texts filled a spreadsheet.
Mom was trying to help.
You always make Meadow fragile.
You are humiliating my family.
Bring her home before this becomes permanent.
One message had arrived ten minutes after the judge signed the order.
You have no idea how many people agree with me.
Naomi asked Francine to enlarge it.
“Preserve the metadata,” she said.
“I already exported the thread and backed it up twice.”
“Good.”
I stared at Dustin’s words.
“Who are the people?”
Naomi was quiet for a moment.
“That is what discovery is for.”
The next morning, Ms. Alvarez arrived for a home safety visit.
She inspected the kitchen, the locks, the bedrooms, and the medicines in the bathroom cabinet.
She asked whether we had weapons in the house.
Francine said no.
She asked whether Dustin had access to our financial accounts.
I said yes.
She asked whether he controlled my phone plan.
I said yes again.
She asked whether the car I was driving was titled in both names.
I looked at Francine.
“It’s titled to his company,” I said.
Ms. Alvarez wrote something down.
“Do you have independent funds?”
“I have a savings account.”
“How much?”
“About four thousand dollars.”
Francine’s eyes moved toward me.
She knew what I had not yet checked.
I opened my banking app.
The password did not work.
I tried again.
The account was locked.
I called the bank from the kitchen.
The representative confirmed that the login credentials had been changed at 7:42 that morning.
The balance was forty-three dollars and seventeen cents.
A transfer had moved the rest to a joint account two minutes before the emergency hearing began.
My mouth went dry.
“Can he do that?” I asked Naomi when I called her.
“He can move money from some joint accounts, but this helps us establish financial control.”
“He took everything.”
“He left enough to claim it was not everything.”
That sounded exactly like Dustin.
He never slammed doors when he could close them softly and leave you wondering whether you were dramatic for hearing the click.
Ms. Alvarez asked to speak with Meadow alone in the dining room.
I waited on the porch while Francine sat with me.
Through the blue curtain, I could see Meadow’s small silhouette at the table.
She kept her hat on.
She kept the elephant in her lap.
Ms. Alvarez did not take notes while Meadow spoke.
She listened.
After twenty minutes, she came outside.
Her face revealed nothing.
“Meadow mentioned a blue chair,” she said.
I searched my memory.
Judith’s guest room had a blue upholstered chair beside the window.
“What about it?”
“She said she was tied to it.”
My stomach turned.
“With what?”
“She did not say.”
“She said Judith sat on her legs in court.”
“Children disclose in fragments.”
Ms. Alvarez watched my face.
“Do not question her about the chair.”
“How am I supposed to sit beside her and not ask?”
“By reminding yourself that the forensic interviewer will ask in a way that protects both Meadow and the integrity of the investigation.”
“What if Judith hurt her more than I know?”
“Then we find out carefully.”
“What if Dustin knew?”
Ms. Alvarez did not answer.
She did not need to.
At noon, Francine went to buy groceries and a prepaid phone.
I stayed with Meadow in the living room.
She watched a cartoon without reacting to it.
Halfway through, a delivery truck stopped outside.
The driver carried three large white boxes to the porch.
Each box had Meadow’s name written across it in Judith’s perfect block handwriting.
I did not open the door.
The driver left them beside the steps and drove away.
Naomi told me to photograph the boxes before touching them.
The first contained every hairbrush Meadow had ever used at Judith’s house.
The second contained bows, ribbons, headbands, and a silver vanity mirror.
The third contained a child-sized mannequin head with long blond synthetic hair.
A note was pinned to the forehead.
PRACTICE BEING GRATEFUL.
Meadow saw it before I could cover the box.
She screamed.
It was the first loud sound she had made since Tuesday.
She ran backward, struck the coffee table, and collapsed with both hands over her hat.
I dropped beside her.
Francine returned while she was still crying.
She called the police.
The responding officer photographed everything and bagged the note.
He explained that the delivery might violate the no-contact order even if Judith had used a third-party service.
Then he checked the shipping label.
The return address did not belong to Judith.
It belonged to Dustin’s office.
By evening, Dustin’s attorney sent Naomi a formal denial.
Mr. Cole did not prepare, authorize, or knowingly facilitate any delivery.
At eight seventeen, my old phone received a voicemail from Dustin.
His voice was calm.
“Hannah, I heard someone sent Meadow a gift.”
He paused.
“You should be careful who you blame.”
There was another pause.
Longer this time.
“People lose custody when they become paranoid.”
The voicemail ended.
I played it twice.
On the third time, Francine raised one finger.
“Wait.”
She took the phone and increased the volume.
Behind Dustin’s voice was a faint mechanical buzzing.
Then a woman laughed.
Not loudly.
Not close to the phone.
But I knew that laugh.
Judith had left the voicemail with him.
And beneath her laughter, just before the recording ended, another sound rose in the background.
May you like
Electric clippers.
HAIR GROWS FORWARD
