Cold Springs(102)

“I'm not mad,” Mallory said softly. “Not anymore.”

“That's good. I was worried about you, Mal. I'm glad you're all right.”

It sounded like cheap throwaway sympathy, the kind anybody could say, but Mallory could tell Olsen meant it. She remembered that tenuous thread of understanding that had seemed to link her to Olsen during counseling sessions—that closeness that she'd been so afraid of.

“Whatever happened?” Mallory asked. “I mean . . . about your stepdad?”

Olsen stared at her for a moment, as if translating her question from a different language. “My stepdad?”

“The story you were telling us. That day in counseling.”

Olsen bent down and picked up Mallory's knife. She looked at the blade, picked a tuft of splinters off the tip. “When I searched for my stepdad, I found out he was in jail, Mallory. He got a new girlfriend when he left my mom, and he was in jail for molesting a young girl, his girlfriend's seven-year-old daughter.”

Mallory blushed. In a way, she was sorry she had asked. But also, she was awed that Olsen would tell her. It wasn't the kind of thing you told someone . . . unless you really trusted her.

“You didn't want to tell your mom that?” she asked.

“No,” Olsen answered. “She would've gotten mad at me, refused to believe it. People like my stepdad, they don't become that way overnight. They repeat their pattern. Over and over. I didn't want my mother to know.”

“Because . . . Oh.”

“Not me,” Olsen said. “Not me. But I have a little sister . . .”

She paused, weighing the blade just as Mallory had. “I had a little sister about your age, Mallory.”

Mallory was silent, thinking about the story, liking Olsen sharing it with her.

“I need to tell you something,” Mallory said. “A dream I had.”

Olsen examined the knife absently. “Oh?”

Then Leyland's boots crunched in the leaves. “Time's wasting, counselor. Come on, Zedman—move! Long day ahead of you.”

Hunter and Leyland were both standing over her. The moment for secrets was gone.

Olsen rose, gave her one last look of encouragement. “I'll see you on the other side, kiddo.”

She turned the knife handle-out, and offered it to Mallory. Her hand was trembling, and Mallory knew it was from anger.

31

Ann Zedman didn't arrive on the noon plane from San Francisco.

When she finally appeared in the airport terminal, a little after one, she walked up from the wrong direction—from the ground transportation exit, trailing a small overnight bag on wheels. Her caramel hair was swept back in a ponytail, no makeup. Denim jacket. Green T-shirt tucked into faded jeans. She might've passed for a college student.

She stopped a few feet away, took off her glasses and folded them into the pocket of her T-shirt.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “They sent me to the other terminal.”

“The other terminal?”

Her eyes were puffy, hay-fever red. “I told you the wrong airline. It took me a while to figure out what had happened. I'm not thinking straight.”

Chadwick had planned on being reserved when he saw her. He had prepared himself all the way into town, rehearsing how he would be. But he reached out his hand, and she took it, laced her fingers in his.

He told her the news about Mallory—that she was safe, that Pérez had only meant to take her back to her father. He left out the parts where Pérez tried to kill him, and Chadwick released him without bringing him to the police.

The good news seemed to kindle some light in her eyes, but she still looked shaken, more than ever like a kid who'd gone through Cold Springs—as if she'd been forced to reevaluate everything, deconstruct her life, put the pieces back together according to someone else's outline.

“Thank God you found her,” she said. “But where . . . ?” Her eyes scanned the gate area.

“She's back in the program. She wanted to go straight to the school.”

“I want to see her.”

“That's not possible now.”

Ann unlaced her hand from his. “She's my daughter. You brought me all this way . . .”

“She's on Survival Week. Out in the woods.”

“Are you insane?”

“They have her under surveillance. Most of the staff will be out patrolling the perimeter all night. She'll be safe.”

“After what happened, you can promise me that?”

“Asa Hunter is on this personally. I've never known him to fail a kid.”

Ann's cheeks colored.

Chadwick realized he'd sounded as if he were drawing some kind of comparison.

“So what am I supposed to do,” she said. “Get back on the plane? I haven't taken a hotel room yet . . .”

She let the statement hang in the air.

Chadwick was suddenly ashamed of the plan he'd made—a reservation for her at the Hill Country Sheraton. Hunter had an account there, held admissions events in the ballroom, sometimes put his more important visitors up in the suites. Chadwick had booked a night for one, in Ann's name, figuring it was the least Cold Springs could do to compensate her.

He told himself he would not go up to the room with her. He would take no chance that his intentions would be misconstrued. But his right hand knew damn well what his left hand was doing. He had told Kindra about the hotel room, suggested that in case of an emergency, that's where Mrs. Zedman might be found. Implying that he might be there.