Free Mad Honey: A Novel by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan Page A

about the overturned lamp, the glass on the floor from the broken lightbulb, or the nightstand that was knocked over.”
    “No,” Asher answers firmly, “because I was not in Lily’s bedroom .”
    “That’s interesting,” the detective says. “Because your fingerprints are.”
    Asher goes still.
    This is a mistake, I think. This is ridiculous. The only fingerprints in police databases belong to criminals, to kids with records, not kids like Asher.
    I suddenly remember him scrubbing at the pads of his fingers in the kitchen sink last spring, trying to remove the ink. Hockey camp, he said, by way of explanation. All the counselors have to get it done.
    “Stop talking,” I say, but my voice is only a wheeze. I grip the arms of the chair and force the words out faster. “ Stop talking, Asher .” Standing, I look coolly at Mike. “I believe we have the right to an attorney.”
    He holds up his hands, a conciliation. “I’m just doing my job,” he says.
    “And I’m just doing mine.” I haul my son up by his arm, pull him out of the conference room and through the halls of the police station.
    We do not stop until we are in the parking lot. By then, Asher has shaken off his shock. “Mom,” he says, “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I found Lily at the bottom of the stairs. I swear it.”
    “Not here,” I say, gritting out the words, and I unlock the doors of the truck.
    When you work with bees, the first thing you do is blow smoke. It’s how a beekeeper lulls them into complacency. Or how a teen tries to convince his mother that everything is okay.
    Asher gets inside the truck. I lean against its powder-blue haunch and take out my phone. Jordan, my brother, is in Ireland on vacation with his wife and his eleven-year-old son. He is semiretired these days, but he used to be a renowned defense attorney.
    It is the middle of the night overseas, and the phone rolls right to voicemail. “Jordan?” I say. “It’s Olivia.”
    I remember the conversation we had twelve years ago, as vividly as a slap—how angry Jordan was, when he found out the truth about my marriage: My God, Liv, why didn’t you tell me? I would have come for you. I would have gotten you away from him.
    “You told me to call you the next time I need help,” I say into the phone.
    Asher’s temple is pressed to the cold glass of the window. His eyes are closed.
    I take a deep breath. “I need help.”

LILY2
    NOVEMBER 25–29, 2018
    The week before
    Afterward, Asher and I start laughing like maniacs, as if we have just robbed a train and are now galloping off with the gold. This goes on for what feels like forever, until at last, out of breath and delirious, we fall silent.
    “I think I have splinters in my ass,” I say.
    “You want me to get some tweezers?”
    “I’m good.”
    This is a lie. I’m phenomenal . I am grateful for his arm around my waist, because I need an anchor. I feel like my bones are made of light.
    The blankets we brought up here are a tangled mess. I grab an afghan and wrap us up in it.
    We lie there on the floor of the tree house looking up at the wooden ceiling. It’s quite a fort Asher’s grandfather built: a window on each wall, the rafters overhead held together by round pegs. There’s a brass telescope in one of the windows, pointing out at the beehives. A rusty lantern hangs down from a chain attached to a thick tree limb. At the far end of the tree house is a hammock slung between two walls, and beneath it a pile of books, definitely worse for wear. The Chronicles of Narnia. The Hunger Games. Charlotte’s Web. Moldy boxes containing Battleship and Candy Land. Asher’s sketchbook. A small wooden box.
    In front of another window is a ship’s wheel. It is so easy toimagine Asher, age seven, standing there with his hands on the wheel, steering through an imaginary storm.
    If it came to it, he’d go down with the ship. And I would go with him.
    For a while we just lie there, not talking, the two