When the last paramedic had left, Corey put her arms around him. “It’s my fault.”
“Our fault.”
“You said it could happen.”
“Could, not would. A possibility.”
“He found her on the Ave, brought her to an abandoned building in the trunk of his car. She jumped through a locked window to get away.”
He held Corey close. He knew how troubled she’d been about bringing Annie home. How she’d labored over that decision. He’d encouraged Corey to meet with Luther and his CCO to work it out. He stepped back, trying to get his bearings. The price for their mistake was too high.
“The police are there now,” she said quietly. “Mom is saying Annie fell. She swears Luther didn’t do it, that he was out with her.”
“Let’s make sure Annie’s safe, then we’ll deal with them.”
“Abe, I blew this. It’s—”
He touched a big hand to the small of her back. “She’s still alive, babe. Let’s do what we can for her.”
Billy’s eleventh-grade family night was at 5:30 on Queen Anne Hill. Abe and Corey agreed to meet there at 6:00, after his last appointment. She’d pick up Billy as planned.
Corey cancelled a meeting and went to check on Annie at the hospital. She stayed at Harborview until Annie was sleeping soundly, safe and settled, then Corey called her lawyer, Jason Weiss.
She told him about Luther and Annie. When she asked him to get a court order to keep Luther away from the battered girl, he said, “It doesn’t often work.”
“I’m going to talk with him,” she replied. “I need a starting place.”
She could picture him, thinking about it, rubbing his right ear lobe between thumb and forefinger. “That could work,” he admitted.
Some time later, she didn’t know how long, Corey made her potluck purchase, then she went home to pick up her son.
Billy was brooding. When she pulled up, he was sitting on the front porch bench looking up at the clouds. On the way to the truck he just stared at his phone scrolling through old text messages, shrugging noncommittally when she asked how he was doing. Now he was leaning against the window of their black pick-up, staring at the faces on Broadway. They lived on Capitol Hill, and Corey was coming south on Tenth, anticipating the soft right past the Harvard Exit Theater, toward Lake Union. At the last moment she veered left, following Billy’s eyes down the busy street.
Broadway wasn’t picturesque, like the waterfront, or old, like Pioneer Square. It was, however, Broadway, and it was, in its way, a Seattle phenomenon: quirky street life, hip stores, the “hot” spots, the fringe. Corey drove slowly, trying to see it through his eyes. Wild hair colors. Pierced body parts. Cross dressing. Ethnic restaurants. Gay bars. Straight bars. Edgy clothing stores wedged between fast food franchises. Tourists. Tattoo parlors. Homeless people. A fancy market (the QFC). Sex shops. Smoke shops. A trendy mall. Dick’s Drive-in. College kids. Street kids spanging, asking for spare change. Suburban kids. City kids. Cruising. Drugs scored at ice cream parlors, pizzerias, hamburger stands.
Much of her work led to this odd adolescent mecca. She found runaways and this was one of the places they ran to. And though she knew the kids, knew every shop and every stoop, Broadway was still as foreign to her as the mountains on the moon. Growing up, she worked summers on a fishing boat, and after school at the wharf, canning fish. As a teenager Corey didn’t have free time. Billy smiled, a girl with blue and green streaks in her hair was blowing bubbles. “You’re awfully quiet,” she said. “Something wrong?”
“Mom.” It came out ma-umm.
“Okay. Sorry.”
At the light, a woman in rags pushed a shopping cart full of garbage in front of their car and into the QFC parking lot.
“I can’t reach Aaron.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not responding when I text. I call, I go straight to voicemail, which is full. He’s not at school. Two days now… Today I couldn’t find Maisie.”
“Won’t Aaron be there tonight?”
“Un-unh, I don’t think so.”
“And that’s okay? It’s his house.”
Billy shrugged. “His dad stays out of stuff, unless Aaron says fireman instead of firefighter.”
“Easy—”
“Sorry. He’s just so serious…his mom’s in New York.”
She turned down Denny, thoughtful. “His dad’s pretty high up at Olympic—”
“Yeah, a dean.”
“Just what does he do?”
“Tries to figure out what’s going on, I guess.” Billy tapped his thumb on the seat. “If there’s a problem, he decides what’s okay. Like where you can use your phone. Or if something’s racist.”
“I see…I could ask him about Aaron tonight.”
“That’d be okay. Don’t talk about me.”
“Hmm-hmm.” It was quiet until Corey asked, “Storm game tomorrow night?”
“Cool.”
At Seattle Center they turned up the hill to Aaron Paulsen’s family’s home. The Paulsen’s house was a series of glass and metal planes, cleverly assembled to form cleanly-articulated, overhanging rooms with sweeping views. From the front door Corey looked south, toward downtown. Cream-colored clouds and flat skyscrapers were etched in a hard, blue sky. A sunset played streaky pink off the vast reaches of glass. The islands to the southwest were fir-green mounds floating in the dark waters of the Sound. The snow-capped Cascades circled behind the city to rest against Mount Rainier, glistening pink in the sunset. Corey turned away from the view. Backlit by the cream and pink striated northern sky, the Paulsen’s dream house was a little chilly.
“What’d you bring?” Billy asked.
“Sweet and sour pork.” She raised her eyebrows, a question. “From Chungee’s.”
He put his arm around her. “It’s okay, mom.” At the door, she leaned against her boy. They had the same lithe, athletic bodies, though he was half a head taller; the same black hair, though hers was cut short, and his was tied back in a pony tail. She wore form-fitting jeans and a sweater. His jeans were older. He had a tear in his left back pocket and a hole at his right knee. Billy’s T-shirt was from a rock concert at the Gorge. Some group she didn’t know.
She glanced up at her teenage son fidgeting on the doorstep, his arm draped around her. Along with Abe, he was the person she liked best in the world. Billy’s arm dropped to his side as the door opened.
Inside, modern art mixed it up with French Provincial furniture. The potluck offerings were spread across a vast pine table. She saw lots of pasta and vegetable casseroles. Corey finally set her Chinese take out alongside a fancy platter of spinach lasagna.
Billy found a friend and disappeared into the basement. Corey looked around for someone she knew. After more than a year with these people, she still felt like she had to work to keep from making a mistake. Near the window one of the soccer moms, Susan Hodges, a single mother who had a big job at Amazon, was talking with Aaron’s dad, Toby Paulsen, the dean at Olympic and their host at the potluck. Another mom she didn’t know was listening in.
“Hey, Corey,” Toby called as she came over.
He wore a brown corduroy sport coat and old grey Dockers. Shoulder length brown hair framed a thin face. Toby