red truck pulled up to a two-story house with tall white columns. Two long brick planters filled with scrawny, dripping oleanders bordered the white steps. Fred Trinket had done nothing overt to upset Stella, but now they were at his house.
“It’s about lunchtime,” Trinket said. “The others will be eating. Mother feeds them about now. I eat later. It’s my digestion. None too good.”
“You eat oatmeal,” Stella said.
Trinket beamed. “That is right, young lady. I eat oatmeal for breakfast. Sometimes a single slice of bacon. What else?”
“You like garlic.”
“For dinner, I have spaghetti with garlic, that’s right.” Trinket shook his head happily. “Marvelous. You smell all that.”
He opened his door and came around. Stella got out and he pointed up the porch steps to the house. A big white door stood there, solid and patient, flanked by two tall, skinny windows. The paint was new. The doorknob reeked of Brasso, a smell she did not like. She did not touch the door. Trinket opened it for her. The door was not locked.
“We trust people,” Trinket said. “Mother!” he called. “We have a guest.”
Mitch pulled into the dirt driveway beneath a sodden gray sky. Kaye was not in the house when he arrived. She honked at him from the road as he came out after searching the empty house. His long legs took him in five quick strides to the old truck.
“How long?” Mitch asked, leaning in. He touched her wet cheeks through the driver’s side window.
“Three or four hours,” Kaye said. “I took a nap and she was gone.”
He got in beside her. Just as she put the truck in gear, Mitch held up his hand. “Phone,” he said. She cut the engine and they both listened. From the house came a faint ringing.
Mitch ran to the house. The screen door slammed behind him and he picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Is this Mr. Bailey?” a man asked.
That was the name they had told Stella to use.
“Yeah,” Mitch said, wiping rain from his brow and eyes. “Who’s this?”
“My name is Fred Trinket. I did not know you were living so near, Mr. Bailey.”
“I’m in a hurry, Mr. Trinket. Where’s my daughter?”
“Please don’t be upset. She’s in my house right now, and she’s very worried about you.”
“We’re worried about her. Where are you?”
“She’s fine, Mr. Rafelson. We’d like you to come and see something we think is interesting and important. Something you may very well find fascinating.” The man who called himself Trinket gave directions.
Mitch rejoined Kaye in the truck. “Someone has Stella,” he said.
“Emergency Action?”
“A teacher, a crank, somebody,” Mitch said. No time now to mention the man knew his real name. He did not think Stella would have told anyone that. “About ten miles from here.”
Kaye was already spinning the truck around on the road.
“There,” Trinket said, putting away the phone and drying his short hair with a towel. “Have you ever met with more than one or two of the children at a time?”
Stella did not answer for a moment, it was such an odd question. She wanted to think it over, even though she knew what he meant. She looked around the living room of the big house. The furniture was colonial, she knew from reading catalogs and magazines: maple with antique print fabric—butter churns, horse tack, plows. It was really ugly. The wallpaper was dark green flocked velvet with floral patterns that looked like sad faces. The entire room smelled of a citronella candle burning on a small side table, too sweet even for Stella’s tastes. There had been chicken cooking in the past hour, and broccoli.
“No,” she finally said.
“That is sad, isn’t it?”
The old woman, the same as in the photos, entered the room and looked at Stella with little interest. She walked in rubber-soled slippers with hardly any sound and held out a long-necked bottle of Nehi strawberry soda, brilliant red in the room’s warm glow.
Trinket was at least fifty. Stella guessed his mother might be seventy, plump, with strong-looking, corded arms, peach-colored skin with only a few wrinkles, and thin white hair arranged neatly on a pallid, taut scalp, like the worn head of a much-loved doll.
Stella was thirsty, but she did not take the bottle.
“Mother,” Trinket said, “I’ve called Stella’s parents.”
“No need,” the woman said, her tone flat. “We have groceries.”
Trinket winked at Stella. “We do indeed,” he said. “And chicken for lunch. What else, Stella?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“What else do we have to eat?”
“It’s not a game,” Stella said huffily.
“Broccoli, I’d guess,” Trinket answered for her, his lips forming a little bow. “Mother is a good cook, but predictable. Still, she helps me with the children.”
“I do,” the woman said.
“Where are they?” Stella asked.
“Mother does her best, but my wife was a better cook.”
“She died,” the old woman said, touching her hair with her free hand.
Stella looked at the floor in frustration. She heard someone talking, far off in the back.
“Is that them?” she asked, fascinated despite herself. She made a move toward the long, picture-lined hall on the right, following the sound of voices.
“Yes,” Trinket said. He shot a quick glance at the book in her hands. “Your parents kept you secluded, didn’t they? How selfish. Don’t we know, Mother, how selfish that would be for someone like Stella?”
“Alone,” his mother said, and abruptly turned and set the bottle down on the small table beside the candle. She rubbed her hands on her apron and waddled down the hallway. The combined sweetness of candle and Nehi threatened to make Stella dizzy. She had seen dogs whining to be with other dogs, to sniff them and exchange doggy greetings. That memory
