“Thanks for the background.” She added a last line to her notes and looked up, dark eyes penetrating. I hoped I didn’t have the word sneak tattooed on my forehead. “You think it’s a case of Stockholm syndrome?” Carmella asked. It had turned victims into willing helpers in the past.

  “I don’t know. Could be, I guess. Maybe she thinks she’s in love with her kidnapper. Maybe the FBI got her on the list and she doesn’t belong there. Maybe she just fit the profile of the missing girls and got lumped in with them.”

  “Okay.” She gathered up her paperwork and shoved it back into the large canvas satchel she always carried. It had to weigh a ton. “Let’s do this, then.”

  Over her shoulder, I spotted the surgeon entering Mari’s room and knew I could relax. “I still need to open the rape kit and collect the evidence we need to take to trial,” I said, “but I wanted you present when I did it. You ready for this?”

  “Chica, I’m up for anything. Pass along my thanks to everyone for protecting the girl and getting her away from the guy. You did good.” Carmella patted my arm. “I’ll handle the feds and the locals once we get her into surgery. She can talk to them tomorrow or the day after if she’s off pain medication.”

  “Good,” I said, feeling guilty, but hoping Julie was finished. “She’s this way.”

  As the surgeon swished past, we entered the room where Maggie and Julie were standing, wearing paper coats. Both looked like medical professionals. Julie smiled and said, “I’ll be by later,” and left, likely to update Emma. I introduced Maggie and Mari to Carmella and peeled open the sexual-assault evidence-collection kit.

  Later, I leaned against the wall, rocked my head back, closed my eyes and took a deep breath of ED air. It was scented with dirty bodies, sweat, urine and old gym socks; the astringent smell of cleansers, rubbing alcohol and Clorox; and pizza from someone’s supper. A wonderful mixture of smells. Hospital. A scent I loved. I’d be able to continue working here, if Mari’s parents didn’t make a stink about anything a judge would have to interpret, like their daughter’s privacy rights.

  And if they did? Well, I figured Macon would love arguing my case all the way to the Supreme Court. And my cousin would win. I didn’t doubt a Chadwick.

  My patient was in surgery and I had collected all the evidence I could in the rape kit. DSS was standing by; FBI was out checking leads with local law enforcement and Agent Schwartz was in the OR to collect samples from the fetus for genetic testing, so they could ID the father when he was caught. I was done for the night. I could go home. Instead I decided to wash up and wait.

  I stepped back as Dr. Christopher rushed from the doctors’ lounge, his starched lab coat catching the air and lifting out to both sides like gull wings. His face shifted into a concerned smile when he saw me, and he caught the door, holding it open with one hand. “I’m sorry about the little girl,” he said. “I should have looked at the chart.”

  “Um, sure. No problem.”

  Christopher’s blue eyes crinkled. “Next time, stop me before I do something that stupid.” He pushed the door wide for me and walked off.

  My mouth fell open but he turned away before he saw my reaction. One-handed, I caught the doctors’ lounge door and watched him stride down the hall. I was pretty sure I had just witnessed a miracle. Doctors just didn’t apologize like that. Nor did they leave their precious sanctuary open for nurses to use.

  But…the lounge was open and empty, and I had been invited in. Sorta.

  I stepped inside and the door swooshed shut behind me. I stretched out on one of the matching leather couches. Leather was the only upholstery good enough for doctors, and these put the worn-out plaid couch in the nurses’ lounge to shame. A pillow under my neck, I watched the press conference on the wide-screen TV. An underling in the FBI told local and national media that law enforcement had a suspect in the Ballerina Doll Serial Murders and hoped to apprehend him at any minute.

  They had named the case already. What a sweet sounding name for such a heinous crime.

  The agent speaking to the press was the one who had watched me like a hawk in the conference room as I’d paged through the folders and studied the photographs. His knees were knocking, I was sure, as he fielded questions, answering carefully and giving nothing away. Must be part of FBI training.

  A still shot taken from the CHC security camera showed the man who had brought Mari Gabrielle Bascomb to the ER and vanished. He was bearded, in his twenties, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, a baseball hat.

  The man—Charlie or Tom Smith—kept his head turned away from every security camera, the hat brim shielding his face. He looked like an angry kid, not a thirty-to forty-five-year-old man with a knowledge of South Carolina state history and the intelligence to plan and carry out multiple kidnappings and murders. Not the kind of man who could have buried a child in the ancient and difficult-to-find Chadwick Farms family graveyard. So much for profiles.

  Or we had the wrong guy. I sat up slowly, leather squeaking under me as the video feed went past again, Charlie/Tom with his head down. Too young. Too country, in his boots and jeans. Nowhere near the profile. I didn’t like it at all. Something was wrong with this.

  The news guy was ecstatic and trying not to show it, spilling over with the urgency of the situation. Just in time for the wrap-up of evening news, this story was claiming all the public and cable news headlines. A manhunt for a child killer, and the local newscaster was making national footage. He’d combed his hair differently. He spoke with a deeper voice. Poor guy.

  And yet, Mari’s parents had not been found. DSS had taken Mari into custody until her family could be located. Something just wasn’t right about Mari’s story. I could feel it in my bones.

  Using the remote, I switched off the set, stood and walked away. I left the building with worry at my heels. Something was wrong. But I didn’t know what.

  He found the team at their usual ice-cream parlor, the one they always went to when they won. Purchasing a malted milk shake, he took a tiny table in the back of the small dining room and sat, a periodical open beside his malt. Night had fallen, the glare of the parking-lot lights bright in the windows. The girls cheered and squealed and ran around the building inside and out, shouting with excitement. She was fast, her feet like the huntress’s, swift and sure. Her face flushed with enthusiasm, her hair flying.

  He tried twice to get to her when she was alone but each time missed his chance, once because another girl ran between them, the last time when her mother called to her. Frustration burned in him. He checked his watch. He’d have to try at her mother’s house. This was entirely unacceptable. He had been near her too long without success.

  He left the parlor, his shake untouched on the table, sweating a thick ring on the Formica. The girls were gathered at the back, talking strategy for the Saturday game. It was a waste of time for her to stay, as she would be with him by Saturday but he couldn’t tell her that and spoil the surprise.

  Back in his car, he folded the black throw and started the engine. He’d take a different way to her mother’s house. But he’d get her back. Tonight was the night. He must have her tonight.

  It was way past sunset when I pulled up into the farmhouse parking area and Big Dog met my SUV. He stretched, dropping his front legs down along the earth, back legs remaining upright, pulling the muscles through his chest and abdomen. His jaw opened to expose long canines and his back molars, white in the headlights. The scar from an old gunshot wound mussed the flow of fur on one side and he limped, but he was still a monster, and my guard-dog protector. Jack had given the well-trained dog to me, worried about the safety of Jas and me when he was traveling. Of course, no guard dog is a match for a bullet, and Big Dog had been injured by the same guy who’d left a gunshot wound in my thigh. Jack’s poor—and illegal—business decisions had left his family open to danger no guard dog could protect against.

  I cut the lights and Big Dog trotted up to my truck, happy that the last member of the household was home. I opened the door and he came close, placing his huge nose against my thigh. I scratched his ears and above his tail in the spot he liked best, and he huffed dog breath in my face as thanks. Jas’s truck was parked next to mine, my niece’s car on the other side, and rap music blared out the house windows at top volume.

  My cell phone rang and I answered it, recognizing Nana’s number. Instead of hello, I said, “Yes, the music is too loud. I’ll have them cut the volume. My day stunk. How was yours?”

  “Smart-mouthed kid. My day was the pits,” Nana said. “More cops wandering the property while I tried to work. They wanted to talk.”

  “And?” As I stroked Big Dog’s head, the night wind reversed fitfully. He smelled of death and dog food. My stomach turned over. I had to remember to get Johnny Ray to bathe him so I could get the smell of the grave off him.

  “I told them they could ask anything they wanted as long as they worked. I wore out two city boys hauling hay bales and made a woman federal agent go cross-eyed with data from the Net.”

  “You’re an evil woman, Nana.”

  “Maybe so. I signed for your guns when the cops brought ’em back. They’re piled on the kitchen table. Load ’em and put ’em up. And tell the girls to shut it down. Sounds like hell out here on the porch.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Nana. I’ll tell them. Night.”

  The phone clicked off and I climbed the steps to the deck and into the house where I screamed up the stairs to turn the music down. Somehow the girls heard me. Young ears. I was too tired to think clearly, but safety came first. Country folk of a previous generation didn’t think a thing about leaving guns lying around. These days, it was illegal with minors in the house and I had no idea who was upstairs with Jasmine and Topaz. I inspected the guns, removing the official tags indicating they had been taken from the premises and returned. Satisfied, swearing I’d clean them soon, and pushing away the guilt at the half promise, I loaded them and put them away, most under lock and key.

  I hated guns, but I had needed one upon occasion. There were things I still didn’t like to think about. I locked one gun, the pearl-handled 9 mm that was a present from Jack in the early years of our marriage, in the glove box of the SUV. The .32 and the shotgun, loaded with double-ought buckshot, went in my closet, behind the raised-paneled doors. The rifle I put in Jack’s vault room, a tiny cubicle that once had held business papers safe from fire and casual observation but was now little more than a glorified closet off the L-shaped rec room.

  I was too tired to cook supper so I poured a glass of wine, stole a slice of cold pizza from the box on the kitchen counter and started a bath. Adding some bubble bath, I crawled into the tub, the wine bottle on the ledge, and ran the jets for five seconds to make some bubbles. I had once hated baths. Now they were heaven, pure heaven. I stretched out in the tub and sipped my wine.

  The small house was a pale blur in the streetlights, white paneled with real wood, not that ugly plastic stuff, blue-painted shutters on each window, a peaked roof and three steps to the front porch. The yard was neat but unimaginative, just like the woman he had married straight out of undergraduate school. Each hedge and shrub was trimmed to a rounded shape and uninspired flowers marched through the beds. Petunias. Mums. Shade-loving full-leaved plants. A straight concrete walkway to the street. Nothing creative, exciting or unusual. Just like her.

  Anger burned as he thought of her and of what she was teaching his daughter about life, about art. Mediocrity. Indifferent, unremarkable, pedestrian—that was how she would turn out if he didn’t intervene. And she would be taught to hate him. That could never happen. He would not allow it to happen.

  Alone in the dark, the car’s interior lights turned off and the door cracked open, he waited. A night breeze blew in, carrying with it a scent of ginger, delicate on the air. Ginger and vanilla, the scent of a bulb whose name he couldn’t recall just now. It was a soothing scent, serene, a balm to the disconcerting sense of failure the night had brought. Calming the low-level hostility that thoughts of his deceased wife always provoked. He checked his watch. Forty-seven minutes had passed.

  He had left once, to buy a burger from McDonald’s and Chicken McNuggets with two different sauces for his daughter. She liked variety. Always had. Now, the vanilla shake was melted and his sandwich was cold, the nuggets rubbery and unpalatable, and still she hadn’t come out to him. She always walked the dog. Always. He knew. He’d been watching.

  Tonight, of all nights, she was late. Still, he waited.

  At 10:54 the back door opened and she came through the side gate. At last!

  His heart thumped once, a hard beat, slamming through him with potent force, settling in his ears with an erratic rhythm, in his fingers with an electric tingle. She was coming!

  His hands slicked with sweat, his breath whistled once before he forced it under control. Even then it came in little pants, harsh and heavy, like the sounds of passion. The thought rocked him. No. No!

  This was not like that. He was not like that. Not some carnal grunting in the dark, but the passion of art, of great paintings and epic poetry, of the holy things in life. The thought calmed him somewhat. This was his daughter.

  Daughter.

  Daughter.

  The words were a muted refrain with each beat of his heart.

  The ugly little mutt pulled on its leash, its bandy legs treading a lazy, circuitous path down the sidewalk and the edge of lawn. It stopped and lifted a leg twice, once on one of the rounded shrubs, once on the garbage bin at the curb.

  His daughter spoke to the dog as if it could understand her, her tone conversational. The mutt’s tail wagged. It stopped to sniff at nothing on the ground.

  In the car, his hands clenched on the steering wheel. Sweaty. He wiped them down his pants leg, the gesture only half-effective, the sweat like heated sludge. He lifted the velvet throw she liked so much. Its softness comforted him enough that he could take a breath, though it burned in his chest.

  His daughter was coming.

  Hurry up, he wanted to shout. But if he did, it would ruin the surprise. She loved surprises.

  She was wearing satin pants and a tiny T-shirt, her feet in sneakers, the laces untied. Her hair was pulled back in a clip that caught the glint of the streetlight when she turned her head. She would be perfect when she washed that ugly color out of her hair and restored it to its usual blond. Her mother was a pig to dye it.

  The dog led the way to his usual tree, the oak on the corner. Near the car.

  He gripped the throw, taking a breath so fiery it ached. The satin of her pants caught the light, revealing a floral pattern.

  The pug lifted a leg and sprayed the bark, marking territory. Disgusting. The dog looked up at him, sitting in the dark. Black eyes glittered even as he urinated on the oak. Showing uneven teeth, the dog growled low in his throat.

  She looked over. Saw him. Alarm lit her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak. Or cry out.

  He lunged from the car. Cast the black throw over her. She screamed. The velvet folds enveloped the sound. The dog barked. Charged. His daughter fought, shrieking, the tone shrill. Muffled. Her foot connected with his groin. He gasped, falling to one knee. Agony lanced through his leg.

  “Be still. It’s me. I’ve come for you,” he said, his voice a whispered note of pain.

  The pug caught his ankle. He got a glimpse of crooked teeth as it bit down. He grunted and stood. The dog held on and shook, the leg a pure, wrenching pain. He kicked. The ugly mutt flew against the tree. Rolled into a heap. In the seconds it took the pug to rebound from the blow, he had the girl in the car. The dog attacked the door, scratching the finish, jumping high, yelping. A light came on in the house. His daughter ripped the throw from her head, reared back a fist.

  And hit him.

  Hit him! Him! After all he had done for—

  She screamed, hit him again, her fist connecting with his jaw. Unthinking, a reflex, he slammed his hand into her face. Her head rocked back. She gave a mewling moan and slumped to the floor.

  He cursed. His breath hissed the words. His testicles throbbed. His knee fairly sang with pain. His ankle pulsated. Warm wetness filled his shoe. He was bleeding!

  The door opened on the front porch.

  Feeling light-headed, a mild nausea rising high in his chest, he started the engine. Without turning on his lights, he drove from the neighborhood, passing the house, the woman running out into the dark, wearing a bathrobe. She screamed. The ugly little pug chased him all the way to the main road before being left behind.

  On the seat, his daughter moaned. He hoped she had learned her lesson.

  13

  I hadn’t planned for the girls—fourth cousins and best friends—to join me in the bathroom, hadn’t planned on the evening becoming a pj party, but it did. Two young women, one pale-skinned, one cocoa-skinned, blew into the master bath, informing me there were more friends on the way. “Class don’t start till noon tomorrow and we want to partay,” my daughter said. I turned on the jets again for another water-obscuring four-second cycle.

  “Mamash!” Topaz shouted over the jets’ roar as she draped herself across my tub and hugged my bare shoulders. “That bubble bath smell’s chou!”

  “And that’s good?”

  “The best!”

  “Move over, girl. Hey, Mama,” Jas said and hugged me, too.

  “If you two fall in, this tub will overflow, and I will not be the one to mop it up,” I threatened. I added bubble bath and turned on the jets one last time to preserve my privacy. The girls laughed at my modesty, high on life, college, youth and the latest gossip. Jas and Paz, friends for life. And, in the Dawkins County way of the Chadwicks, kin.

  Black or white, male or female, right or wrong, good or bad, the Chadwicks had stuck together for over two hundred, forty years, sharing land, food, fortunes and opportunity, ever since Growling Jim Chadwick had married his half-black cousin and former slave just after the Civil War had ended.