Lettie again nodded.

Trying to escape the absurdity, I resorted to harsh reality. "Lettie," I said softly. "Mrs. Jefferson, listen to me. I need to know that you're going to let Keeshiana out of the apartment here so she can go back to school. Do you understand?"

"But I can't. I really can't. You can see that."

I didn't want to get into threats that I would take the child. If I didn't make progress, I'd have to get to that soon enough. Trying to remove the girl from her mother's custody would always be a last resort, and it was the last thing I wanted to do. "I tell you what," I said. "Why don't you and Keeshiana dress up warm and we go outside now for a minute all together? Lettie, we can each hold one of Keeshiana's hands. We see anything that makes us uncomfortable, we come right back in here. Promise."

Lettie was frowning, shaking her head from side to side, but the young girl stopped her chewing and her eyes lit up. "You could just undo me a minute, Momma," she said.

Struck by the phrase, hairs raising on the back of my neck with premonition, I said, "What do you mean, 'undo,' Keeshiana?"

"You know." She wriggled in the chair. "So I can get up?"

Frustration crowded out any other expression on Lettie's face. "You fine," she said to her child, then spoke to me, her tone dispassionate, even reasonable. "She don't need to go gettin' up. She get up, she try an' go out."

My flat gaze went from Lettie to her daughter. "Keeshiana, I'd like to see you stand up, please."

Her eyes, panicked, flew to her mother.

Which was my signal. With an exaggerated slowness, I pushed back, stood up, and sidestepped to Keeshiana's end of the table. Pulling out her chair, I drew in a sharp breath. A clothesline wrapped perhaps a dozen times around her waist and legs held her in her place.

Devin Juhle, the homicide cop from my childhood, fell in next to me as I emerged from the darkened pod into the bright and windswept cut of packed earth and glass that led out to the sidewalks. I was carrying Keeshiana in my arms, a blanket wrapped around her legs, her own arms around my neck.