Fifteen minutes before the taxi, my six-year-old put her arms round my waist and whispered that when I travel, her stepmother puts something in her juice and then films her. I looked at the kitchen. Cora was standing in the doorway smiling, still holding the glass.

PART 1 — FIFTEEN MINUTES

The case was by the front door. I had my jacket over one arm and I was going over a presentation in my head that I was supposed to give in Verrin City at two.

Then Mina came down the hall barefoot.

She did not say anything at first. She came straight at me and put both arms round my middle and put her face into my shirt.

“Daddy, don’t go today.”

I said the thing you say. Two nights, sweetheart, I’ll be back Thursday.

She shook her head against my shirt. And then she turned her head sideways and looked down the hall at the kitchen.

That is the detail that stopped everything. Not the words. The look.

“When you go away, Cora puts something in my juice.”

I went cold from the scalp down.

“What?”

“She says it’s vitamins. But after, I don’t feel like me. And then she starts recording.”

I went down onto one knee so I was level with her.

“Recording you for what, Mina?”

She put her lips together the way she does.

“She says she has to show you how I am when you’re not here.”

I did not look toward that kitchen and it took everything I have ever had.