Little Girls(30)

It was when she turned around to head back to the house that she stepped right into a large hole in the ground. She twisted her ankle and dropped to her knees in the cool, damp grass.

“Goddamn it!”

She dug her fingernails into the soil. The pain was sudden and intense. Gritting her teeth, she managed to roll onto her buttocks and extract her injured limb from the shallow hole. It was the goddamned hole Susan and her new friend Abigail had been digging earlier that evening, looking for pirate treasure. Bringing her knee up to her chest, Laurie could already feel the throbbing stiffness in her ankle and the quick tightening of the skin. She had lost the flip-flop in the hole to boot.

“Shit.” Her ankle was already beginning to swell. Rocking back and forth in the grass, she massaged her injury as her ankle ballooned up within her hands. The flesh felt hot. Also, she was sweating. I’m lucky. I could have broken it.

It was not lost on her that this hole that had hurt her had been dug—partially, at least—by a girl who so closely resembled Sadie Russ. The notion caused her skepticism to temporarily solidify into certainty regarding the girl’s identity and, for a moment, she was paralyzed by fear at the prospect of what such a thing meant. But fear is a fleeting thing, and her common sense quickly filtered coolly over the smoldering red coals of her terror.

First thing tomorrow morning, Susan would be out here filling in that damned hole. Laurie would have some other chores for her to do as well, like dragging all the trash bags full of clothes down from the upstairs landing. Oh, yes, she would put the kid to work, all right.

Once the pain subsided, Laurie managed to rise and put some weight down on her foot. Fresh pain caused her to wince and she quickly lifted her foot off the ground. I must look like a flamingo out here. After nearly a full minute, she settled back down on her injured ankle, more carefully this time. When she found she could support herself, she managed to bend and dig her flip-flop out of that hole—put that girlie to work tomorrow, you know it—and that was when she noticed something else in there with her flip-flop. Catching the moonlight in just the right way, it glittered like a jewel. Laurie picked it up and examined it closely.

It was a cuff link. Gold with a black onyx at its center. The tiny object was heavy in her hand.

How the— Her mind did the quick math. Temper rising, she hobbled back to the house and let the screen door slam.

“What happened to you?” Ted asked as she limped into the parlor. He sat up straighter on the sofa and shut the laptop’s screen. Beside him on the sofa, Susan whirled around to face her.

“I twisted my ankle in a hole in the yard.” She looked at Susan. “That hole you were digging earlier with your little friend from next door.”

Ted set the laptop on the coffee table, got up, and went to her. “Are you okay? Let me see your foot.”

“It’s just sprained.”

“Let me help you.” He assisted her over to the loveseat, then snatched one of the decorative pillows off the sofa and set it on the coffee table. “Go on, put your foot up.”

“It hurts.”

“Here.” He took her calf and gently raised her foot to the table. Carefully, he settled her foot down on the pillow. “Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

“It’s already starting to swell,” he said. “I should get you some ice.”

Susan stared at Laurie from the sofa. Her daughter’s eyes were large and she was sucking on her lower lip, something she did unconsciously when she was upset about something. She looked very young just then, and Laurie was reminded of the fears she’d had for the girl throughout certain milestones in her life, such as when she was gone all day on her first day of school, or the first time she spent the night over at a friend’s house.

“What were you doing bumbling around in the yard at night, anyway?” Ted asked. There was a hint of joviality to his tone, as if he was trying to use it to mitigate Laurie’s irritation.

Laurie opened her palm and extended it toward Susan. The cuff link winked, reflecting the soft lamplight.

“Would you like to explain to me why this was in the yard?” Laurie said.

“What’s that?” Ted asked.

“Why don’t you tell your father what it is, Susan.”

The girl looked at the cuff link, then back up at her mother. She said nothing.

“Go on,” Laurie urged.

In a voice that was barely audible, Susan said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t? Are you sure?”

Susan continued to stare at her.

Ted took the item out of Laurie’s hand and examined it. The look on his face was one of utter confusion, as if he was looking at a tooth that had just fallen from his mouth.

“It’s okay,” Laurie said to her daughter. “I won’t be mad. Just tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“Then forget what it is. Why did you take it? You know better than to go through someone else’s things and to take stuff that doesn’t belong to you,” Laurie said.

“I didn’t take anything,” Susan said.

“Where did it come from?” Ted asked, still scrutinizing the cuff link. His question seemed to be directed to no one in particular.

“It was in a box with some of my father’s stuff,” Laurie said.