Hush Hush by Laura Lippman

in a moving car, as they had found out on one memorable trip to the Delaware shore last summer.
    Crow headed out to work. No music at the Point tonight, but he had to be there Tuesday through Saturday. The restaurant had become as important to the Point’s bottom line as its lineup of bands and PBR on draft. They were doing the whole locavore thing, a challenge in March. But while the Point’s location in West Baltimore enhanced its reputation with the hipsters who loved out-of-the-waydiscoveries, it made it hard to get as much traffic as they needed. Crow’s partner, who happened to be Tess’s father, couldn’t imagine finding a place of similar size in a more desirable location. Crow, for his part, worried that some essential gestalt would be lost if they relocated. Tess had heard about this when her father called her to ask what the hell gestalt was.
    The evening flew and crawled by. Tess made Crow-approved fish tacos. Carla Scout picked out the pieces of canned corn, leaving behind the halibut, shredded chard, and avocado. They had two shows, a Dora the Explorer and Wonder Pets! , which was Tess’s favorite. She liked to sing along when the duck cried: “THIS IS SEWIOUS. THIS IS SEWIOUS.” Carla Scout allowed—there was no other word for it—Tess to rub her back as they watched. These days, Carla Scout was prone to demand “Daddy do” even when Daddy wasn’t there. Tess didn’t have the heart to ask Crow if the tables were turned when she was gone, if Carla Scout ever insisted that “Mama do.”
    At 8:30 Tess crawled into the bath with her daughter, held her tight against her body. Damn, Melisandre was in good shape , she thought, remembering the taut body in those sleek leggings. But then—Melisandre had given birth to her last child eleven years ago, not three. Melisandre, according to the overview of her life she’d provided for the security assessment, had a personal trainer, worked out every day. Tess was lucky to work out three times a week these days, and she was eating more without realizing it—Carla Scout’s rejected fish tacos tonight, for example.
    But the bath was the one place where Carla Scout was completely Tess’s. They rocked together, talked about their day to the extent that they could. (“Mommy and Mr. Sandy saw Uncle Tyner and met a lady.” “A friend?” “No, not a friend. Just a lady.”) Because of Carla Scout’s early weeks in the NICU, Tess had never really known her daughter as a newborn, had not experienced the exhilarating terror of holding a child so fresh and fragile. The girl was sturdy now, strong and thin, a lanky string bean. Her father’s genes.
    The bedtime book was Bear at Home , which had been the running choice for seven nights now. How Tess yearned for the day when they could read chapter books—the Shoes stories by Streatfeild, Betsy-Tacy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , perhaps her all-time favorite, although she had been less enchanted by his subsequent adventures in the Great Glass Elevator. Tonight, she found herself envying Bear’s orderly, well-kept house. Carla Scout insisted on turning the pages, holding the book at an angle that made it difficult to read. Book finally finished, there was a brief disaster when Clownie could not be found. Someone—Tess suspected Dempsey—had hidden the doll under a chair in the living room. “I can’t close my eyes,” Carla Scout announced dramatically, as she did almost every night. “Then don’t,” Tess told her. “I’ll be back to check on you every fifteen minutes.” She showed her daughter on the bedside clock when she would return. Carla Scout seldom made it past the second bed check.
    Still, true to her worst-case scenario, it was ten o’clock and Tess needed an hour to set the kitchen to rights—so it could be destroyed again tomorrow. She fell asleep on the sofa, too tired to finish her second glass of wine, and that was where Crow found her when he returned at two. She would be up at