Shannon’s shoulders sink low in the chair, his neck hidden, his hands laced together in his lap, fidgeting. He wags one foot.

“Why don’t you tell me?” he asks. “Since you seem to know exactly what I’m doing.”

“How did you get the money to pay for the lawyer when you put the property in your own name?” Kateri asks.

He won’t look her in the eye. She hears the click of his teeth.

“If you couldn’t pay the utilities,” she says, “and the taxes were years behind, how did you manage to pay Dan Sullivan for his services? It must have been, what? A thousand dollars?”

Kateri perches on the edge of her desk. She can wait a long time, but she watches all the small movements that Shannon makes, his fingers, folded, unfolded, his hands in his hair, his bouncing knee.

“Did Mr. Miller pay for it?” she asks.

It takes him a minute to respond. Finally he says, “He has been nice to me.”

“Nice,” Hurt repeats.

Shannon’s face flames up, hot pink spots on his cheeks. He bites his lower lip.

“How long have you known Bear Miller?” Kateri asks.

Shannon shrugs. “A couple of months.”

“Do you know anything about him?” Kateri asks.

Shannon’s eyes search. “I don’t know what you mean,” he says.

“Anything about his family? His past? Where he’s from?” she asks. “Do you know if he goes by any other names?”

“No,” he says, and his chest caves a little.

She tries a little harder. “Michael?” she asks, then, “Bart? Bartholomew?” His face is blank. “Jane?” she says.

He jumps. “What? No.” Then he adds, “That’s a woman’s name.”

“Mr. Miller knew your situation at home, correct?” Kateri asks. “He’d been nice to you, as you said. He understood your struggle.”

“I guess,” Shannon says. “I don’t know why it matters.”

“Does he know about your sister?” Kateri asks.

Shannon’s face pales.

“If he was willing to pay your legal fees,” Kateri says.

“He didn’t pay them.”

“Who did?”

“I did,” Shannon says, but Kateri doesn’t quite believe him. He’s hiding where he got the money.

“He knew about Birdie,” Kateri says, and pauses for a long time, watching Shannon get uncomfortable. “Would he also hurt your mother?”

His face begins to look green in the hollows of his cheeks. “No,” he says, barely voiced. “No.”

“But he knows,” she says.

“Yes,” he says.

“Who hurt you, Shannon?” Kateri asks.

“What?”

She points at his neck. “Who tried to strangle you?”

“No one,” he says.

“You have visible bruising on your neck.”

He pulls his collar around him, lowers his head.

“Who did that?”

He looks small in the chair, hiding more than just his neck.

“How often did you fight with your mother?” Hurt asks.

Shannon shrugs.

“Often,” Hurt says. It is not a question.

“Sometimes,” Shannon says.

“Physical,” Hurt says.

“No.”

“You just punched a hole in the wall over a question,” Hurt says. “You’re trying to tell me that doesn’t also go on at home?”