we’d always been best friends, and at least once a month I’d sleep at her place or she’d sleep at mine.”
“When did that stop?”
“About a year ago, I guess. But what was so weird was that he’d let me come over there, but he wouldn’t let her come to my house. I asked Lorna why, but she just shrugged and said nobody could explain parents. My mom and dad started to feel insulted by it and didn’t want me to go over there anymore after a while.”
“I can understand that.”
“Well, it made me mad, so a couple of times I made ’em let me go anyway.”
“Did anything strike you as unusual?”
“Not really.”
Anna felt something brush against her leg and discovered the puppy had joined her and was looking up at her with hopeful eyes. Bending, she scooped Jazz onto her lap. “This is a harder question, Mary Jo, and I want you to think very carefully about it. When you spent the night with Lorna, did anything happen that made you feel uneasy? Did anything seem not quite right? Anything at all?”
“Hmm…” Mary Jo was silent for a bit. “Well…it sounds silly, but her dad made us get ready for bed at eight o’clock. I mean, we always used to stay dressed until we went to bed, but the last few times he insisted we get ready before we watched TV. I thought that was kind of weird, but parents can be crazy sometimes, you know?”
“I know.”
“Anyway, that just seemed stupid to me, but…” She hesitated. “This sounds awful, Miss Anna, and I don’t want you to think poorly of me.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Well…” Mary Jo drew a long breath. “I don’t have a sick mind or anything, but it just made me uncomfortable to see Lorna running around in front of her dad in those baby doll pajamas. She didn’t put on a robe or anything. My dad would have a fit if I sat around in the living room dressed like that.”
It was now Anna’s turn to draw a deep breath. Her heart accelerated. “But he didn’t say anything or do anything?”
“Not about her running around like that. But then she was acting funny. I couldn’t figure it out. It was like she didn’t want to be dressed that way, either. She kept her arms all folded up and scrunched herself into a corner of the couch, like she wanted to hide. And she didn’t say much after that. Her dad got on her about being so gloomy. She just kind of ignored him, and then he tried to tickle her out of it. Tried to tickle me, too, but not much. I figured that was because I wasn’t one of his kids and he didn’t think it would be right. But he tried to tickle her, and she said the weirdest thing.”
“What was that?”
“She said, ‘Don’t touch me.’ And then she looked at him like she was gonna kill him. It sort of scared me. I didn’t know she hated her dad that much.”
Anna drew a shaky breath. “Thanks, Mary Jo.
You’ve been a great help.”
“Really? I hope so. Oh! I just remembered one other thing. The last time I was over there, she had this big old pipe wrench under her bed. I asked her what it was doing there, and she told me she was afraid of burglars coming through the window. Did you ever hear anything so crazy?”
Anna had.
Under her own bed she had kept a hammer. It required a lot of effort for her to find her voice. “Thanks, Mary Jo. This is what I needed.”
“Good. If I think of anything else, I’ll call you. But you know, Miss Anna, I haven’t been over there since. When my dad heard that Mr. Lacey had tried to tickle me, he flat put his foot down about me ever going there again.”
“Your dad is right, Mary Jo. Absolutely right. Don’t go over there again.”
When she hung up the phone, her hands were shaking. She looked down at the little puppy curled contentedly on her lap and tried to drag herself back to the present. But it was so difficult. Memories long buried were beating on the doors of her mind, demanding recognition.
Sleet rattled sharply against the window, and the wind moaned sorrowfully. A draft snaked across the floor and wrapped around her ankles, causing her to shiver. She needed to change. She needed to get into something warm and comfortable, and make herself some dinner. She needed to get busy so she could take control again and push the memories away. And she needed to figure out what she was going to do about Lorna.
It was going to be a long night.
In the morning, the world was covered with a clear, sparkling glaze of ice. Anna looked out her window and wondered how she was going to get to work or to the sheriff’s office. Not only did she not have a car, but it looked too treacherous even to walk.
She’d spent a disturbed night, sleeping fitfully, almost as if she were a child again, afraid that the bedroom door might open at any moment. Afraid that another night of fear and humiliation was about to begin.
She wondered if Lorna had slept any better at the sheriff’s house. She hoped so.
Jazz was startled by the ice out back, slipping and sliding and looking at Anna with confused dismay. She finally managed to find purchase on some blades of grass that were poking up, and made a little puddle and a little pile. Anna praised her extravagantly, causing the puppy’s tail to wag like a racing metronome.
While Jazz ate breakfast, Anna made herself some coffee and poached an egg. She was just getting ready to sit down when the phone rang.
“Anna? It’s Dan. Listen, the roads are really bad this morning, so don’t even try to come to work, okay? If it melts off later, we’ll talk about whether it’s worth going in, but for now, just stay put.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.”
“Enjoy the break,” he added. “I intend to. I’ve got this new computer game I’ve been dying to try. Talk to you later.”
Anna ate her egg and a piece of whole wheat toast and wondered how she would fill her day, since she couldn’t go anywhere. Plus there was the problem of Lorna, and she was really reluctant to let matters ride another day. What the child needed more than anything in the world right now was to know that someone was on her side and would protect her. She didn’t need to spend even one more day alone in hell.
Making up her mind at last how she was going to handle the matter, she called the sheriff’s office and was put straight through to Nate Tate.
“Lovely day, isn’t it, sweet pea?” he asked in his deep, gravelly voice. “We’ve had a three-car pileup on the state highway, reports of cars in ditches all over the county, and half my men can’t get to work. Velma managed to make it in, though, and she’s teaching Lorna how to work the dispatch desk.”
The image of wizened, chain-smoking, blunt-talking Velma Jansen working with a soft-spoken thirteen-year-old made Anna feel like smiling for the first time that day.
“What’s
