She had picked up a sweatshirt and clean clothes for me, plus the dinosaur pajamas Owen always chose when he stayed at my apartment.

“You didn’t put him in that cage,” she said when I told her what I was thinking.

“No.

But I kept looking away from things I didn’t want to believe.”

“Then don’t look away now.”

Elaine had never liked Curtis.

She was also the kind of person who could dislike someone without turning that feeling into a prophecy.

She asked what the doctors said, whether Owen needed anything, and if I had a lawyer.