She said she loved Benji like he was her own.”

“She wanted this house,” I said.

“She wanted your rig paychecks without the burden of a child.”

Clay let go of the monitor and took two slow steps back into the middle of the study.

His eyes fell on the framed dinosaur drawing on the side bookshelf, with its lopsided yellow sun painted in the corner above the brown T. rex.

“That call on the porch,” Clay said, his eyes on the drawing.