“So he decided to leave?” I said, confused. Why would Brett try to help his children, only to ditch them a few weeks later?

Behind us, the coffee maker gurgled, and with a spluttering release its cycle came to an end. Crissy startled and tried to cover up her nerves by brushing her bleached hair off her shoulder. “No,” she said. “He decided we should leave. All three of us.”

It was the last thing I expected her to say. Brett had always seemed so selfish. That was the footing on which my perception of my uncle was built. In the past couple of hours, I’d come to find out the man I thought I had pegged had quit gambling, started dealing drugs to build a nest egg, and launched a mission to rescue his children from his ex.

“It didn’t happen right away,” Crissy explained. “Brett had just started seeing Cheryl, and she wanted him to hire a lawyer, try to get sole custody. He was looking into that, but it was taking too long. He tried to threaten her. Everyone saw us, our clothes, those haircuts.” Crissy’s expression was etched with fury. “Everyone knew she had problems, so Brett told Felicia he’d go to child services. She just laughed. He didn’t have a leg to stand on. Everyone knew about his gambling and drinking, too. After a while, he realized the only way to get us out of there was to take off.”

“What about Cheryl?” I said. “She thought they were in a serious relationship.”

“He liked Cheryl,” Crissy acknowledged. “He was sad about having to leave her. A couple of times he even said he’d try to convince her to move after we got settled—if he could get her to forgive him, that is. Cheryl had it in her head that she was going to reform me.” Crissy snorted. “Anyway, the main thing was that we had to get out of town, and Brett didn’t tell Cheryl anything about that. He said he had a whole plan—he was going to quit his job and collect his final paycheck, and then a few days later we’d clear out. We were going to do it when Felicia was at work. We kept it from Abe. The only way we could pull it off was if Felicia didn’t find out.”

“But she did find out,” Tim guessed, reading the grief in Crissy’s eyes.

Again, she nodded. “Abe picked that Friday to try to corner Brett at work. You were with him,” she said, shooting daggers my way. “When he found out Brett had quit the plant and was planning on leaving, he flipped out and ran straight to her. If he’d just kept his mouth shut, she wouldn’t have had a clue. God, was she furious—not with Abe, with Brett. Abe just happened to be the one standing in front of her.”

Again Crissy’s gaze flicked to me, sharp as the tongue of a snake. As if I needed reminding about what happened next. For Tim’s benefit, she said, “Felicia hit him.”