The Fall of Never(25)

And the almost forgotten words to a child’s song:



Little Baby Roundabout,

Someone let the Baby out,

And now, sweet Babe, it’s time for bed,

So close your eyes and rest your head.



“Shit,” she muttered, grinning softly to herself.

“Well,” said a woman’s voice behind her.

Startled, Kelly swung her head around and saw her mother standing in the kitchen doorway. A tall, thin, pointed woman, Marlene Kellow stood with her bony arms at her hips and her face occupied with an unreadable expression. Her nearly lipless mouth was pressed tightly together and her eyes were sharp yet somehow vacant, the way space is vacant. The woman’s barrage of thoughts were practically surface level, nearly there and ripe for Kelly to pluck them out of the air. Mother and daughter—and the lumbering passage of so many years.

“Mom,” she said, and her voice hitched. She quickly pushed herself away from the table and stood.

“Kelly,” her mother said and made a move as if to step closer to her, then perhaps changed her mind at the last second. Instead, Marlene Kellow moved around the kitchen table, a strained smile quickly adopted. “You’re looking well, dear. Are you well?”

“I’m fine, mom.”

“I apologize for not being here when you came in last night.” She sighed, fidgeting with her fingers, twisting her hands. “Your father and I…you know, with Becky and everything…”

“No, it’s all right. It’s good to see you.”

Her mother nodded. “Yes.” And in the silence that followed, they both examined each other. Not like mathematicians to a textbook of equations; rather, like two children meeting for the first time in the sandbox.

Little Baby Roundabout, Kelly thought, head spinning. Someone let the Baby out.

“How’s Dad?”

“Occupied,” her mother said. “Gets up early, has his eggs, goes for walks around the compound. He’s crushed, this whole thing with your sister…”

“How is she? Becky?”

“Oh,” said her mother. Kelly had to hand it to her—the woman was doing one hell of a job sporting that smile. “Well, the doctors have been in and out, in and out. A madhouse, really. And the police too. This whole thing has been so trying. On everyone.”

“But she’ll be all right?”

“We’re just waiting for her to wake up now.”

“How come she isn’t at a hospital?” And she almost asked why the girl’s bedroom door was locked half the time, but decided she’d save some tinder for future fires.

“She was,” said her mother, “but we insisted she come home.”

“Why?”

“Why not? There isn’t anything a hospital can do that we can’t pay good doctors good money to do it here, am I right?” She dropped her voice. “Anyway, I wouldn’t want that poor girl waking up in some institutional white room, stinking of antiseptic.”

You didn’t have a problem with that when it was me, Kelly thought.

Her mother quickly waved her hand. “But no—don’t worry about your sister, she’ll be fine.”

“Then why did you call me? Or, should I say, request that Mr. Kildare call me? Who is he, anyway?”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit. Apparently, she was being frugal with her tinder as well. “Are you making some sort of statement by that?”

“By what?” But she knew.

“Why we didn’t call you ourselves. Or perhaps call you sooner. Or whatever it is you meant.”

“Yes and no,” she said coldly. “But it was an honest question. Why did you and Dad ask for me to come home?”

“Because of the police, dear,” her mother said and, as if rehearsed, three sharp knocks echoed down the corridor from the foyer.

The police had arrived.




Two officers stood in the living room, DeVonn Rotley beneath the doorway, his face expressionless. The officers themselves looked like a comic relief from some Sherlock Holmes paperback—one short, one tall; one mustachioed, one clean-shaven; one stout with an ample gut and short arms, the other slender with arms that practically allowed his fingertips to reach his knees when fully relaxed.

Kelly entered the room, her mother leading the way. Marlene Kellow greeted the officers in a way that made Kelly assume this was not the first visit these two had made to the Kellow compound.

“Thank you, Rotley,” Marlene Kellow said. Rotley nodded once and disappeared back into the hallway, closing the double-doors as he went.

“Kelly,” said the tall, clean-shaven officer. He removed his crumpled fedora and set it on a mahogany end table. “I’m Detective Raintree. This is my partner, Detective Sturgess.”

Sturgess, the pudgy, mustachioed cop nodded. “Ma’am.”

“Please have a seat,” Raintree said. He spoke with a velvet voice. “We just have a few questions to ask you.”

Kelly sat on the sofa. Raintree remained standing, but both Sturgess and Kelly’s mother sat down on either side of her.

“I’m a little confused,” Kelly said. “This has to do with Becky? With what happened to her?”

“Her diary,” Raintree said. “Were you aware Becky kept a diary? A journal?”