I let it go.

The coffee was too hot to drink, so I held it and watched the steam come off it.

“She’s five,” I said.

“She isn’t a press release, Elisa.”

Her hand went to her hair again.

“That woman from the county says forty-eight hours before a judge looks at anything.

Forty-eight hours, like it’s a parking ticket.” Her voice had a scrape in it.

“And then they’ll want to talk to her alone, with a stranger in the room, and she’ll say whatever they put in her head.”