His father was dangling his car keys in his hand, talking on his mobile phone. In another hour or so, the sky would begin to lighten, darkness diluted into a full-blown blue. Garrick shut down his call, opened the door, and there stood Aster with a crying boy who was dripping in red paint.

Evan was tired and he rubbed his eyes. When he looked again, the older boy was still there.

His father did not react in the way that Evan expected him to. At all. He took one look at Aster’s face, and the boy clutching his arm, and he said, “Let’s get you sorted out,” in a voice that was gentler than Evan had heard in a long time. Aster’s lip wobbled and she ran to her father, and Evan heard him murmur, “It’s okay, sweetheart—we’ve found Mum.”

The ambulance had already left with Olivia, and so Garrick loaded the boy into his car and instructed both of the children to go to bed. Their aunt would be there in the morning.

“You’re in charge, Aster,” he said. “I’m trusting you not to leave the house this time.” She nodded, a miserable expression on her face.

Her father gave her a rough hug. “I’ll call you with news as soon as I have it,” he said. Then he was gone.

* * *

Neither child was tired enough for bed, the residue of adrenaline from the night’s events still spinning through their young bodies.

Aster made them both hot chocolate, but Evan couldn’t bring himself to enjoy its cloying sweetness, fear for his mother like a lead weight in his stomach.

His sister was reluctant to talk about what had happened at the old man’s shop, saying only that the boy was shot, then passed out for a time on the way home, but Evan had been unable to contain his own adventure, the facts spilling from him like water from a faucet.

“She might have been able to shout for help if she hadn’t banged her head,” he explained. “They don’t know yet. Or maybe she did call for help, but it was nighttime and no one heard her. Or maybe the pain from her broken bones was too much to cope with and passing out was her body’s defense mechanism.” He was parroting the conversations he had overheard between his father and the paramedics. But then he was back to being Evan. “She hit her head on a box, Aster, and the bruise looked like a flower.”

“What type of a box?” It was an idle question from Aster. She was rinsing out their mugs, dark circles beneath her eyes like half-moons, yawning, not expecting much of an answer.