Chapter 1 - WAIT HERE
Bernice Carter pushed open the kitchen door at dawn and stopped so suddenly her work bag slipped from her shoulder.
Roger was asleep on the tile floor.
Five years old.
Barefoot.
Curled around his stuffed elephant.
His pajamas had ridden up at one ankle, and his cheek rested on the cold floor beside the refrigerator.
“Roger…”
Bernice dropped her bag and ran to him.
She lifted him into her arms.
He was cold.
Sleepy.
Physically unharmed.
But no five-year-old should have been sleeping there while his father was ten yards away.
“Roger… why are you on the floor?”
Movement came from the guest-room hallway.
Bernice turned.
The guest-room door stood half open.
Gideon was inside.
Beside Celina.
Bernice’s younger sister.
Celina wore yesterday’s cream blouse. Her auburn hair was messy, and guilt drained the color from her face the instant she saw Bernice.
For one terrible second Bernice thought only one thing.
Affair.
Then Gideon rushed into the hallway.
He reached toward Roger.
Bernice stepped back hard.
“He must’ve gotten out of bed!”
Roger stirred in her arms.
His eyes barely opened.
“Daddy told me to wait here.”
Gideon froze.
Celina went pale.
Bernice slowly turned toward her sister.
Celina started crying.
“I thought he was always asleep…”
Bernice felt the room tilt.
“What does that mean?”
Celina shook her head.
Gideon cut in.
“She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Bernice pulled Roger tighter.
Then looked at her husband.
“How many nights did you leave my son down here?”
Gideon said nothing.
That silence answered more than Bernice wanted.
She carried Roger to the living room sofa, wrapped him in a blanket, and called her neighbor Mrs. Holt to sit with him while she figured out what was happening.
Then she walked back toward the guest room.
Celina was putting papers into a canvas tote.
Bernice snatched the top sheet.
Not love letters.
Not hotel receipts.
A timesheet.
Provider:
Celina Carter.
Child:
Roger Carter.
Service:
OVERNIGHT CHILDCARE — 8:00 P.M. TO 6:00 A.M.
Date:
Last night.
Hours claimed:
10.
Bernice stared.
“Childcare?”
Celina covered her face.
Gideon said:
“It’s through your hospital.”
Bernice looked at him.
Her employer, St. Anne Regional Medical Center, offered night-shift employees a childcare reimbursement benefit.
She knew that.
She had never used it.
At least she thought she had never used it.
Then she saw the total at the bottom of the monthly sheet.
$2,400.
Approved provider:
May you like
Celina Carter.
Bernice had apparently been paying her sister to care for Roger on nights when Roger had been told to sit alone on the kitchen floor.
