Little Girls(34)

“I have an e-mail address. Do people still use fax machines?”

Martinez laughed. “Good point. Go ahead with the e-mail addy when you’re ready.”

She recited her e-mail address for him.

“Give me fifteen minutes or so, okay?” Martinez said.

“Sounds good.”

“Also, sorry about your dad.”

“Thank you,” she said and hung up.

Hungry, she made herself a sandwich with the lunch meat and bread Dora had stocked in the fridge. It looked nice and warm out, so Laurie opened the windows in the kitchen, then set her sandwich down on the table. She had already pulled out a container of orange juice when she remembered the liquor cabinet in the parlor. Somewhat giddy—and feeling foolish because of her giddiness—she shuffled through the dusty old bottles in the cabinet until she came across an unopened bottle of amontillado sherry. She returned to the kitchen with the bottle, where she pried the stubborn cork out of the neck with a corkscrew she discovered in one of the kitchen drawers. She filled a wineglass and took it to the table, then sat down to lunch.

She was just finishing up her sandwich and on her second glass of sherry when she saw Abigail come out from behind the fence between the two properties. Laurie paused, the corner of her mouth stuffed with food. The girl moved out onto the lawn, looked up over the crest of the hill, then retreated back toward the fence. She disappeared behind a congregation of dense foliage, though her thin little shadow lingered on the lawn. It was the insubstantial shadow of a scarecrow.

Laurie spat the last bite of her sandwich into her napkin, then stood up. The girl’s shadow receded slowly into the trees . . . then appeared again, long and distorted now along the gradual incline of the lawn.

Laurie went out the screen door and broke a sweat hustling across the backyard toward the place where the girl had vanished behind the trees. On the other side of the fence, the woods were lush, verdant, and alive with a chorus of birds and insects. As she approached, the girl’s shadow withdrew completely into the trees. Laurie came up to the fence, but she couldn’t see anyone on the other side. Again, she thought of her dream, and tried to remember how it had ended. Had Abigail withdrawn into the darkness only to vanish? Had her pale face simply dematerialized before her eyes? She couldn’t remember.

In a low voice, as if she did not actually want to be heard, Laurie said, “Abigail?”

The girl emerged just a few feet away, from behind a vibrant blind of magnolias. She hadn’t been on the other side of the fence after all, but right here in the yard. The girl’s proximity startled her.

“Hello,” Abigail said. She wore a red-and-white checkerboard skirt that hung just past her knees and a crimson blouse with short, scalloped sleeves. An embroidered pink rose was pinned over her heart. Abigail’s face was pale and grimy and her eyes looked like they were spaced just a bit too far apart. The only thing luxurious about the girl was her hair—thick and healthy-looking, it cascaded down her shoulders in reddish-mocha waves.

“If you were looking for Susan, she’s not home,” Laurie said despite the dryness of her mouth. “She went out with her father for the day.”

“I was just playing.”

“What’s your last name, Abigail?”

“Evans,” said the girl.

“And you live in the house next door?”

Abigail looked over the fence, through the trees, and across the yard at the house next door. Laurie looked, too, and saw that the driveway was empty and the two cars were not in the street. Despite the fine weather, none of the windows were open.

When she looked back at Abigail, the young girl’s dark black eyes reminded her of the onyx stones in the cuff links. A sudden thought shook her. “Did you tell my daughter to steal her grandfather’s cuff links?” The question was out of her mouth before she even knew what she was saying.

Abigail stared up at her, the girl’s thin black eyebrows slowly knitting together. Gradually, she shook her head. It seemed she shook her head because she did not know what else to do, not because she was actually answering Laurie’s question.

“How old are you?”

“I’m ten and a half.”

“Were you the one who put the cuff link in the hole?”

“I don’t understand you.”

Laurie pointed to where the hole had been in the yard before Susan had filled it back up. “The hole,” she said. “The one you and Susan were digging.”

“There’s no hole there.”

“There was before.”

“We were looking for pirate treasure,” said the girl.

“Yes. In that hole where you were looking for pirate treasure—did you put a cuff link in there?”

“I don’t understand you. There’s a bee near your head.”

Indeed, a honeybee buzzed by the left side of Laurie’s face. Laurie jerked backwards away from it and swatted blindly at the air. The bee trundled toward a magnolia bush, having lost interest in her.

“You didn’t answer my question about the cuff link.”

“What’s a cuff link?”

Laurie chewed on the inside of her cheek while Abigail looked down at her own shadow. Then she looked at Laurie’s shadow, which stretched up toward the crest of the hill. When she looked back up at Laurie, the girl’s face was expressionless.