Locust Lane(33)

Her birdlike body was suddenly shaking with rage. The emotion was contagious, at least to Danielle. The anger she’d felt earlier returned. This was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

“Well,” Bill said, daunted by what he now found himself in the middle of.

As if sensing that intervention was necessary, the woman of the house appeared in the doorway, something on her mind that couldn’t wait. She gestured for Bill to come have a word. The dog accompanied him to the door, then returned after he was gone. Danielle once again noticed it was favoring a hind leg.

“He’s hurt.”

“Yes,” Betsy said.

“So I guess he was there when it happened.”

“Thor was the one who alerted people. The oil man came for a delivery and heard him barking.”

“So he was in there with her the whole time.”

Betsy nodded woefully—the thought had occurred to her as well. Danielle looked into the animal’s murky eyes. Tell us, she thought. Come on. Fess up. Bill came back into the room, frowning and rubbing his hands on his khakis.

“What?” Danielle asked.

“There’s a rumor going around that you should probably know about.” He frowned and nodded. “It appears that they’ve made an arrest.”



* * *



There were reporters at the station when she returned. She donned her big sunglasses and walked right through them. They sensed who she was but she was inside before they could start braying. The officer on duty told her she’d have to wait. She sat beneath a poster that told you what to do if someone was choking. The door opened after a few minutes. Gates emerged, accompanied by a man. He was very good looking, dressed in an expensive suit, not a strand of his wavy brown hair out of place. Danielle wondered if he might be the mayor or a big lawyer but then she noticed that there was something about him. The way he carried himself, in his eyes. The gut-punched expression of so many men she’d known. She met his gaze as he passed. Wondering who he has, what he had to do with this. What he knew.

“Ms. Perry,” Gates said, unable to mask her unhappy surprise. “What can I do for you?”

Evidently they’d be having this conversation in the lobby.

“I heard there’s been an arrest?”

“No, we haven’t arrested anyone. But we’re making progress.”

“Well, people out there are saying there’s been an arrest.”

“Okay, look,” Gates said, lowering her voice even though it was just the two of them. “We’re talking to a person of interest.”

“Was that him?” Danielle asked, pointing over her shoulder.

“No.”

“Then who is it?”

“I can’t really talk about that.”

“You know about the parties, right?”

Gates twisted her head, like she did.

“What do you know about that?”

“Nothing. I just spoke to the Bondurants.”

“We’re on top of all that. Believe me.”

“But you think this person of interest, he’s the one?”

“We simply don’t know at this point,” Gates said. “To be honest, what would be most helpful to me right now is if you were to leave. I know that sounds harsh, but we’re going to have a bunch of people coming in here any minute and it makes no sense for you to mix with them. In fact, it might even be harmful.”

“I’m not going to cause trouble.”

“I know that, Danielle. You’re just going to have to trust us on this. We are making progress. Let us do our job. This will be difficult for you to understand or accept, but we’re looking after Eden now.”

Danielle nodded. She’d go. She’d trust the smart woman with the gentle manner and the Glock on her hip. She had no choice. But Gates was wrong about one thing. They weren’t the ones looking after Eden. Danielle was. It had always been her, and only her. Just because the silly girl had gone and gotten herself killed didn’t change that. Not for one minute.





Wednesday Night





CELIA


From the back of the Mercedes, Oliver and Jack seemed very far away. Even though she could have reached out and touched them, their words sounded as if they came from a distant room. She understood perfectly well that the car was moving swiftly along well-paved streets, but when she closed her eyes, it felt as if they were drifting away on some deep, slow tide.

It reminded her of how she’d felt just after Jack was born, when she’d been gripped by that mystery fever. For three days, she’d run a temperature; at one point it had shot up to 103. A fever of unknown origin, they called it. Part of her understood that she should be worried. She could see the concern on Oliver’s face and the grim expressions of the looming doctors.

Her newborn son seemed especially strange and distant. Jack wouldn’t stay on her nipple. Nor would he take the bottle. He’d just wail. After a day of this, he began to feel like somebody else’s child, and then not a child at all, but some shrieking creature she’d been condemned to carry around for the rest of her life. There was talk of putting him on a feeding tube. A sense of panic began to pervade the birth suite, even as she continued to dwell so serenely in her feverish neverland.