The steel of the handcuffs clicked loudly in the quiet living room.

My father’s hands shook as Harper pulled them behind his back.

“You can’t do this,” he whimpered, his face turning a deep, mottled red.

“I already told you, Richard,” Harper said, tightening the metal cuffs. “We have six separate signed statements about what happened to Sadie.”

“Six?” Melanie gasped from the doorway.

She had been hiding near the hallway stairs, her knuckles white as she gripped the wooden banister.

“Six,” Wyatt repeated, his hand solid and warm against my lower back. “Your neighbors saw everything, Melanie.”

My mother didn’t look at her husband as Harper led him toward the front door.

She was still staring at her phone, her thumb tapping the screen once more before she slipped it into her leather bag.

Outside, the wind threw a sheet of cold rain against the glass.

“The wire transfer is complete,” Eleanor said, her voice dry and completely devoid of emotion.

“He will be home before they even finish taking his mugshot.”

“We will see about that, Mrs. Davis,” Detective Harper said, guiding my father out into the damp October air.