Stella was pulling on her jacket. “I’ve got to go home, Mattie. It’s nice to see you, Dr. Walker,” she said as she tried to pass by.
Cole juggled the box, holding it with one hand. “Don’t go before I have a chance to thank you for helping us find our Sophie.”
Mattie took the box from him while he shook hands with Stella. Cole expressed his heartfelt gratitude, which the detective accepted with grace.
“I need to tell both of you that Sophie sort of fessed up this evening. She said she climbed up onto Gus Tilley’s truck to pet Dodger through the window. She knows she’s not supposed to do that kind of thing, so she didn’t want to tell me about it.” Cole shook his head, looking sheepish. “She says she didn’t climb inside the truck, so she didn’t fib when she said she’d never been inside. I’m sorry. If she’d told us the whole truth during your interview, we could have factored it in much sooner.”
“Kids,” Stella said. “It’s always hard to take what they say at face value. But to tell you the truth, Dr. Walker, I sort of suspected as much. She gave you a little look before she answered, and I thought she might be bending the truth.”
Cole frowned. “I would hope my kids know it’s safe to talk to me.”
Stella gave his arm a quick touch. “Just hearing you say that tells me you’ll do a good job with those daughters of yours.”
“I’ll keep trying.”
Mattie had been thinking about when Robo alerted at Tilley’s truck. “Robo indicated Sophie’s scent at the open door of the truck. He didn’t jump inside. I assumed he’d caught her scent on the seat, but I guessed wrong. He’d found her scent on the inside door, where she’d gripped to hang on.”
She’d taken him away from the truck to preserve the scene. She’d screwed up, another pitfall of jumping to conclusions.
Sergeant Madsen’s words came back to her. Always listen to your dog! If you don’t, you’ll only be as good a team as a human cop can be. If you do, the possibilities are endless. This was her mission, her life’s work. She couldn’t make these kinds of mistakes in the future.
Cole was studying her, his dark eyes soft with concern. “Don’t blame yourself, Mattie. I’ve got so much guilt about this whole deal that I’ve decided I need to let it go. Mrs. Gibbs and I will never let the girls come home unsupervised again. All we can do is learn from our mistakes, make corrections, and keep going.”
“That sounds like a road map for life,” Stella said. “I’ve got to get home now, so I’ll say good-night.” Before she closed the door behind her, she glanced back at Mattie and gave her a wink.
“Let me take this to the kitchen,” Mattie said, turning to carry the savory-scented box through the living room. Robo trotted behind her, tail waving. Cole followed, and after she placed the box on the counter, he reached in to unpack.
“Here’s a casserole, some cheesy broccoli, and rice. I hope you like that.” He raised an eyebrow in question.
“I like just about anything I don’t have to cook.”
“My girl. I hear ya.” He grinned as he continued to unpack. “Meatloaf, a couple of salads, and some famous Molly Gibbs chocolate cake. She said to tell you that she thinks you’re getting too thin, so she wants you to eat everything.”
Her eyes prickled with hot tears, and she couldn’t speak for a moment.
Cole glanced at her, and his face fell. “I hope that didn’t hurt your feelings. It wasn’t meant to.”
“No, no. It’s just so nice of her.”
He drew the last item from the box, a package wrapped in white butcher paper. “Here’s a fresh knuckle bone for Robo from Crane’s Market. I’ll put it in the refrigerator.”
“Let’s put the food in there too. I already ate dinner.”
“All right. It’ll be even better tomorrow. No problem finding room for it. I see you don’t like to invest in a lot of food.” He threw her a look over his shoulder as he moved the beer aside and placed the dishes in her almost empty refrigerator. He closed the door. “Sophie wants to invite you to her birthday party next Friday. She was going to invite her friends and have her first sleepover, but now she wants only you and Robo to come. I hope you can make it.”
It made her sad that Sophie had changed her plans with her friends, and she wouldn’t disappoint her for the world. “We’re happy to come. If she changes her mind and returns to her original party plans, just let me know.”
“She won’t change her mind about having you. If she wants to add her friends, I hope you can stand being with a bunch of giggling girls.” He shook his head. “I never thought I’d see the day when I hoped for that. It would be nice for her to get back to normal.”
“It will happen.”
“Do you have a minute so we could talk?”
“Sure,” she said, turning to go to the living room. “Robo has his rawhide in here.”
Robo trotted ahead, pounced on his chew, and took it to his bed. He plopped down and got back to business, comfortable with having Cole in the room. Mattie and Cole took seats on opposite ends of the sofa.
“Sheriff McCoy called and told me Jed Franklin confessed,” he said, his eyes earnest. “But I need to know what it was like for Sophie. The cave she talks about. Everything you can tell me.”
Mattie forced herself to go back into the root cellar—the dark, closed-in space, the dank smell, and the chill. Bending both legs up so she could hug them against her body while she sat, she described it to Cole as objectively as possible. By the end, she had to clamp her jaw against a shiver.
Cole was sitting on the edge of his seat, leaning forward and bracing himself, elbows to knees. “And the abrasion on her wrist? It was from a chain?”
She’d reported this to Dr. McGinnis during his exam. “Yes.”
“How did you get her free?”
Mattie told him how she’d hacked through the shelf to free the end and how Brody cut the chain off Sophie’s wrist later.
Cole drew a breath and released it in a quivery exhalation. “I’m not sure how I can deal with this. I want to throttle the guy.”
“He’ll be convicted.” She knew it wouldn’t be enough even as she said it.
He gave her a look and shook his head before turning away to stare at the coffee table. “She still carries around that damn toy dog he gave her. Last night, before she went to sleep, I heard her whisper to it. She said, ‘My name is Sophie.’”
The tears that were always so close to the surface sprang to her eyes. She bowed her head, leaning against her bent knees, hiding her tears from Cole. In the silence that followed while she presumed he wrestled with his own emotions, she thought of her therapist’s words about emotional self-reliance.
She cleared her throat so she could speak. “I’ve been working through some things from my past with a therapist during the last few months. She talks about learning to take care of yourself emotionally. I think that’s what Sophie’s doing. If the toy gave her comfort in that cellar, Cole, let her have it. She’ll work through it. She won’t carry it around forever.”
“I suppose you’re right.” He studied her as if trying to really see her. She realized she’d wound herself up into a tight little ball.
“I’ve missed you the past few months, Mattie. All of us have. Is that why you haven’t been around lately?”
She couldn’t tell him how much it hurt to know he still loved Olivia . . . and now to actually see him with her. “For the most part. I’ve been a mess lately, not good company for anyone, but I’m working on it.”
He winced as if her pain were his and reached his hand across the space in the middle of the couch, holding it palm up. She released her arm from around her knees, freeing her hand to meet his. He clasped her hand, his feeling large and warm, and held it while they sat listening to the sound of Robo’s teeth scraping against his rawhide. When the silence between them lengthened, Robo quit chewing and raised his head to stare at Cole, ears pricked and alert.