She reached out and touched his forehead with one cold, dry finger.
“Does he?” she said softly.
Barbara took the whistle. She held it to her ear. She heard a lullaby, a promise, a scream. She saw Leo’s future—a long road of foster homes and fist-shaped bruises. She saw her own forty-year retirement crumbling like a dry leaf. barbara devil
The name stuck. Barbara Devil.
It was infinite. It was unbearable.