Then you can call that social worker.”

I stopped with my hand on the driver’s door handle.

The cold wind blew a strand of hair across my face, and I tucked it behind my ear.

“Why would I want to call Denise?” I asked.

“To clear all this up,” Thomas said.

He stared hard at the front tire of my car and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“You tell the hospital people that Vanessa just dropped the pan,” he said.

“You tell them it slipped out of her hand while she was washing it.