Isabelle called me from a holding room at the courthouse.

I almost did not answer, but Maya was asleep beside me, curled under a quilt in the safe house bedroom, and I knew one day she might ask whether I had given her mother a chance to speak.

So I answered.

For ten seconds, all I heard was breathing.

Then Isabelle whispered, “Is she alive?”

The question was so ugly I closed my eyes.

“Yes.”