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notice. “Thanks.”
    He handed the food to Adelaide as he drove off. Had she picked up on the offer he’d just received? He hoped not. He knew it wouldn’t reflect well on him.
    Why he cared, he couldn’t say.
    Addy stretched her legs as she sat up, and he cranked the heat again so she’d be comfortable.
    “If you won’t go to the police, what will you tell Milly?” he asked.
    “I haven’t figured that out yet.”
    “I really think you should come forward.”
    “That changes everything.”
    The sarcasm in her response took him by surprise. “Pardon me?”
    She lifted her chin, revealing her unwillingness to bend on this issue. “I can’t, okay? If I come forward, whoever did this will hurt Gran. He told me so.”
    “Why would anyone want to hurt either of you?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “Are you not going to respond?”
    “It’s just a freak thing that happened. If I put it behind me and forget, it won’t happen again.”
    “You hope.”
    She didn’t answer.
    “What if Milly already filed a missing-person report?”
    Obviously not enchanted by that idea, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Would Chief Stacy allow her to? It’s only been one day. Doesn’t it take, like...three days for the police to consider a missing adult as a criminal case?”
    “Depends on the circumstances.”
    “Right.” She slumped over, as if her chances of having the ordeal go unnoticed weren’t as good as she’d hoped. “I was taken from my bed.”
    “How’d that happen?”
    “There’s a door to the outside in my bedroom, where the porch wraps around the house. I left it open to get some air, and he cut through the screen door.”
    “Then it’s not like you drove off with him. I’m guessing the police are already involved.”
    She stuck a French fry in her mouth. “So...I’ll just tell everyone the same thing I told you.”
    “That you must’ve been sleepwalking.”
    She had to roll back the sleeves of his sweatshirt; they were too big to stay pushed up on her long, thin arms. “Why not?”
    The marks on her wrists suggested she’d been bound, which upset him more than any of it.
    “Because no one will believe you.” Especially once they saw what he did.
    “That part doesn’t matter.”
    “It only matters that they not learn the truth. Is that it?”
    She’d been shoveling the food down pretty fast, but at this she slowed. “Basically.”
    He stopped at the light where he needed to turn to go to Whiskey Creek. “You’re not making sense,” he said in frustration. But then something occurred to him that he should’ve thought of before. “Wait a second. He didn’t...rape you, did he?”
    She’d had her panties on, and they’d been intact. Her shirt hadn’t been torn off, either. But those marks on her wrists...
    “No, he didn’t,” she said, but she’d spoken too quickly and the tears that welled up called her a liar.
    Shit! He was an idiot for not catching on sooner. She’d been beaten but his sweatshirt had covered her wrists until she started eating. And the way she’d responded when he questioned her led him to believe she knew the person who’d hurt her and was even trying to protect him. That screamed domestic violence, not rape—at least, not stranger rape.
    If she’d been sexually assaulted, maybe she was refusing to go to the hospital because she didn’t want anyone to find out, didn’t want to go through the humiliation.
    Or she had no confidence it would make any difference.
    “Adelaide, please,” he said, “let me take you to the hospital. I know it’ll be degrading and...terrible but...I don’t think you should make this decision in your current, uh, condition.”
    A tear crested her lashes and ran down her cheek as she shoved the rest of the food away. “You don’t know anything.”
    A car honked behind them. The light had turned green, and he hadn’t noticed.
    “I know this is...a hard situation,” he said as he accelerated. “But...they have