In Her Tracks (Tracy Crosswhite #8)(2)

That’s who she was.

That’s what she did.

He shook the thought and looked at Elle’s reflection in his rearview mirror. This was his night with his daughter. “How are you doing, Angel?”

“Butterfly, Daddy. I told you.”

Elle’s pink plastic shoes hung over the car seat. She was growing—and becoming more intuitive. Her teacher at the Montessori school said Elle had been reacting negatively to the divorce. She suggested that Bobby and Jewel not argue in front of Elle.

Good luck with that.

“I’m sorry. I meant to say how’s my butterfly doing?”

“Can you take me trick-or-treating?”

“That’s Mommy’s night to be with you, Butterfly. But I get you Thanksgiving weekend.”

“But I want you to take me.”

“Mommy wouldn’t like that very much, I don’t think.”

“Mommy doesn’t like you, Daddy.”

“No?” He looked again in the rearview mirror. What the hell kind of a mother told her daughter that?

“She said Graham is going to be my new daddy, and if I was bad, he would leave, too, and then I wouldn’t have any more daddies.”

This was the type of manipulative bullshit he had lived with, what he would continue to live with, long after the divorce, what he couldn’t get his attorney or the judge or the guardian ad litem to understand. And if he accused Jewel, she would deny she said it and turn it against him. She’d say Chin had made up the story to gain leverage in the parenting plan, and what type of sick husband used his daughter that way?

And the guardian ad litem would agree.

This was his new reality.

“I’m not leaving, Butterfly. And I won’t let Mommy take you away.”

“When’s the surprise?” Elle said, as if the matter were closed.

Chin had told Elle when he called that he had a surprise. “Just a few more minutes.”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Can you wait? We’re almost there.”

Chin spotted a line of cars, most exiting a parking area delineated by hay bales and pumpkins. A bright-orange tractor and scarecrows glowed beneath decorative strands of lights. “We’re here, honey. Isn’t it beautiful?”

A young man dressed as Darth Vader directed Chin into the parking lot, and Chin helped Elle from her car seat, taking a moment to reattach her wings.

“Don’t hurt my wings,” Elle said. “Daddy, don’t hurt my wings.”

“I won’t, Butterfly. I promise.” Chin tried to help Elle slip on her jacket, but she protested, claiming it would crush her butterfly wings. He carried her over puddles from a recent rain into the tent. “It’s a big Halloween party. Are you excited?”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Elle said again.

“Oh, right. Okay. Come on, we’ll find the toilet.”

He followed signs to a series of port-o-potties. They entered one that smelled like disinfectant. The butterfly outfit being a onesie, he had to remove the entire costume. He felt like Chris Farley in the movie Tommy Boy changing his clothes in an airplane bathroom. Once finished, Chin reversed the process and put his daughter back into her costume. They used a hand sanitizer and stepped from the port-o-potty at 9:35 p.m.

“Okay. You ready for the corn maze?”

“I’m hungry.”

Chin stifled a scream. Jewel refused to feed Elle when it was his night to have her.

Inside the tent he found bags of popcorn, caramel corn, cookies, soda, and bottled water. He was about to give up, promise food when they got home, when he spotted a signboard advertising hamburgers, fries, corn dogs, and chicken sandwiches. Perfect.

“Two hamburgers and fries,” he said to a teenager behind the counter.

The teenager shook his head. “We’re closed. I think all we have left are corn dogs.”

Not great, but better than the alternative. “Fine. Two corn dogs.”

The kid took Chin’s money. Then he said, “I have to heat them in the microwave.”

“How long?”

“Just a couple of minutes. Unless you want to eat them cold.”

Chin couldn’t tell if the kid was being a smart-ass or a dumbass. “We’ll wait.”

The kid shrugged.

“Let’s take a picture,” Chin said to distract Elle. He lifted her onto a hay bale. “Okay, spread your wings.”

Elle proudly lifted her colorful wings. Chin snapped her picture, then dropped to a knee and they took a selfie. When the food hadn’t arrived, Chin went back to the counter, but the teenager was gone. “We’re closed,” a woman cleaning up said.

“I ordered two corn dogs from a kid working the counter five minutes ago.”

The woman opened the microwave and found them. “Sorry about that. Jimmy must have forgot. I sent him to the corn maze.”

Major dumbass.

Chin took the corn dogs and sat with Elle, watching to be sure she chewed each bite, so she didn’t choke. He checked his watch: 9:42.

Elle ate half the corn dog and announced, “I’m done.”

Chin threw the remainder of both dogs in the garbage, lifted her, and hurried to the corn maze ticket booth. Jimmy stood behind the counter.