Her troops arrive. Francie, and Susan, and Georgina, bringing coffee and food, bringing love and encouragement. She nearly cries when she sees them. They stay in the room with her for a few minutes and then go into the hallway when Ponder returns.

Soon after that, Julia wakes. Her eyes open and then lock in on her mother. Iris squeezes her hand. Ponder takes a deep breath.

“Baby, it’s OK,” Iris says.

Julia just looks at her, confused, dopey.

“Julia,” Ponder says, “can you tell us what happened?”

Julia tries to speak, but her throat is too bruised. Ponder hands her paper and a pen.

WOMAN, she writes in a shaky hand. MEDIC. GAVE ME SHOT.

“She came in your cell and gave you a shot?” Ponder asks.

Julia nods.

“Did she say why?”

SHE SAID SHE WAS SORRY, Julia writes.

Ponder gestures, and she and Iris step outside. Her friends all fall silent.

“There was no medical order to sedate her,” Ponder says.

“Someone did this to her. I want her under guard,” Iris says. “Kyle, too. No one can get near him.”

“I agree,” Ponder says. “You want to tell me why this is happening?”

Iris doesn’t answer. She goes back into Julia’s room. She kisses her daughter’s cheek; Julia is groggy with drugs to ease her pain, and she tries to smile at her mother. “Mama is going to take care of everything,” Iris says. “Everything.”

“Accent,” Julia whispers. “She had accent.”

The words are a knife in Iris’s heart. “Was she older? Graying hair?” Iris asks.

But Julia is asleep.

Iris goes back out and asks her friends to stay with Julia for a few hours. They all agree.

“Where are you going?” Ponder asks.

“You find whoever this woman was. Go look at the security footage. She wasn’t supposed to be there and she was. Someone got her access; someone bribed someone. Figure it out. You protect my daughter,” Iris says. “I have to go check on my son.”

But she knows Grant is safe, under orders to stay at home and not answer the door or the phone. She has someone to stop first.

59

Grant

Grant walks out of the house. They still haven’t announced that his father and sister were arrested in separate incidents, so right now there’s no press lined up in front of their house, but word has started to spread in the neighborhood. He can tell: the man puttering in his garage who stops to stare, the woman who turns away from him as she is walking her dog, and that odd Mrs. Butler, who watches him the whole time she’s coming back from the mail station as he walks past her.

He goes to Mike’s house. Mike’s car is in the driveway; so is Peter’s.

He knocks on the door.

Mike answers it. He just stares at Grant for a moment.