Delia stared at me as though I’d started speaking a language she didn’t know.

The state’s specialized unit went into the basement and brought my son up on a stretcher.

His blood pressure was dangerously low and there were signs his injuries were turning septic, and as they carried him through the chaos he searched the crowd until he found my face.

“I’m right here, son,” I told him. “I’m not leaving your side again.”

Irving tried to block the paramedics in the hall and was on the floor in handcuffs a moment later.

Piper, who’d spent the evening playing lady of the manor in my dead wife’s coat, began to weep and insist she’d known nothing about any basement.