“Of course it was, Stephen. Otherwise you wouldn’t have landed at the police station sporting the biggest shiner I’ve ever seen.” She stepped over CDs and video games to stop at the window. Christina had climbed into the old tire swing and had conned J.D. into pushing her. Tossing her black curls over her shoulder, the three-year-old clung to the ropes suspending the swing from a branch of the old apple tree and laughed delightedly. Tiffany sighed. When was the last time Christina had laughed—really laughed? When had Philip pushed her in a swing, or helped her onto a slide, or sat on the other end of a teeter-totter? Never. He’d never had the time, and here was J.D.—with most of his weight resting on his good leg as he shoved on the worn black rubber—sending Christina into a slowly spinning circle in the shade of the leafy tree.

Muttering under his breath, Stephen set his guitar aside and climbed to his feet.

“The officer said there was talk about a girl.”

Stephen snorted. “It wasn’t about a girl.”

“Then what? Isaac Wells?”

Stephen’s muscles tensed. Suspicion slitted his good eye. “I already told you that I don’t know nothin’ about him taking off.”

“I know, but the officer on the phone said you were found with keys that might belong to Mr. Wells.”

Stephen paled to the color of chalk.

“No way.”

“They have the keys down at the station. With Mr. Wells’s initials on them.” She paused at the door and her son, chewing nervously on the corner of his lip, nearly ran into her. “You want to explain?”

“They weren’t mine.”

“Then whose?”

His jaw worked in agitation. “I—I don’t know.”

“Stephen—”

“I mean it, Mom. I found ’em. In, in, the park when I was in-line skating.”

“And you didn’t tell me or turn them in to the police?” Oh, how she wanted to believe him, but this was way too much of a coincidence.

“No.”

“You know that the police are going to take those keys out to Mr. Wells’s place. If any of them fit in the locks of his house or his cars, they’ll have a lot more questions for you. A lot.”

Stephen’s lips clamped together and Tiffany realized it was useless to argue with him at this moment. She’d give him a little time to think things over, but then she intended to get to the bottom of whatever it was that was bothering him.

“Wait for me in the car,” she told her son, and stopped at the back porch where Christina, her small hand fitted snugly in J.D.’s large one, was skipping toward the house.

“Unca Jay says we can get ice cream,” she announced.

“Does he?”

“After dinner.”

“That’ll be a while, honey. I’ve got to run Stephen to the clinic. Come along.”