“Okay,” I said. “Now picture a sixty-year-old woman with four foster kids in rotation who does that shit on the regular. Tell her to look for whatever she’s missing in the sofa cushions: that’s where she keeps the TV remote and most of her important tax documents. Zola didn’t take anything from that house; she just wanted to get out of there and go home.”

“Can I?” Zola asked. “Can I go home now?” She watched the rest of the kids lined up to get back on the school buses.

“What can I do?” Sean whispered near my ear.

I could not watch this happen. Zola was too young; they were going to ruin everything for her. “Jo,” I said, low, “what did she say Zola took?”

“Bracelet,” Jo whispered. “Gold.”

Zola stood beside Joellen, holding her hand. Terrified.

Blood thundered in my ears.

“Sean,” I said, “take my phone. Call Francine. Tell her to come home. Tell her I stole a gold bracelet from a foster house and there’s a police officer here to search my room. Tell her I need her.”

They all stared and said nothing. Joellen, Jane, the cop.

Zola.

My whole life of careful perfection, my future, gone—and I couldn’t have cared less.

Chapter Twenty-one

I USED MY KEY AND OPENED the door. Terry Johnson got a whiff of the cop and nearly twisted himself into a pretzel, barking and nipping at him. I picked the dog up and lifted his ear to whisper please, calm down. He wiggled and whined, but I held him tight. Poor Francine. All I ever brought her was trouble. Now a cop was in her house, and she wasn’t home. Was this even legal?

Zola still clung to Joellen. Sean was gone; he’d convinced Jane to take him home for his mom’s car, and he went looking for Francine, who was not answering her phone. I grabbed the grocery pad from the fridge and raced to scribble out a list.

“Miss,” the officer said, hovering at the bottom of the stairwell. “I need you to stop what you’re doing and—”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, but—”

“Then hold on.” I could not believe the words coming out of my mouth. To a cop. Neither could Zola. Or Joellen. They sat nervously together at the kitchen table, and my terrified lungs refused to let me get a full breath.

“Muir,” Joellen whisper-begged. “Don’t do this to yourself. Let him go through the motions. Just do what he asks, we’ll clear it up, and it’ll be over.”