by Bree Despain
“I don’t mean to bust up this little reunion,” the sheriff said, “but I’ll need to get your statement.” He looked at Daniel.
“There’s not much to state.” Daniel shrugged. “I found him wandering in the woods, and I brought him home. He must have knocked over his playpen and decided to go on a little adventure.”
I stared at him. That’s it? I guess I didn’t expect him to tell the truth—he followed the baby’s scent through the forest, caught James midair when he fell off a thirty-foot cliff, and then used his very own superhuman powers to get us out of the ravine—but he sounded so nonchalant. No drama at all.
“That’s not all that happened!” I practically shouted. Daniel shot me a wide-eyed look, like he was afraid that I’d tell everyone his secrets—which I totally wouldn’t. My mind latched on to the first plausible, but furthest from the real scenario, lie I could think of. “He stopped James from falling in the creek!”
Mom cried and pulled James out of Dad’s arms.
I was glad it was too dark for anyone to see the “lie marks” spreading up my cheeks. “Daniel’s a hero. He saved James’s life.” I wanted people to know that truth, even if Daniel didn’t want them to hear the real story.
“And the baby was alone? Uninjured?” The sheriff raised his eyebrows and motioned to the bloody tear in Daniel’s makeshift shirt-sling. Daniel and I nodded.
“So how do you explain the blood on the porch?” Daniel’s face went blank.
“That’s not his job to explain,” said Dad. “It could have been anything—probably one of the neighborhood cats. Don’t you have a forensics lab to tell you for sure?”
The sheriff snorted. “The Rose Crest Sheriff’s Department is a trailer behind the Gas ‘n’ Go. I’ll have Deputy Marsh take a sample and send it to a lab in the city. It’ll take a while before we hear anything.” He looked at me. “And there’s nothing more you’d like to add? Nothing else you can remember?”
“Daniel saved my brother’s life,” I said. “That’s all there is to it.”
A car whipped into the driveway, scattering a gaggle of spectators onto the lawn.
“Mom. Dad.” Jude jumped out of the minivan and pushed through the crowd. Not even the deputy could stop him. “I’ve brought the cavalry! I’ve got half the volunteers from the shelter coming to help us—” He stopped. The look of triumph on his face shifted into stony nothingness. I followed his hardened glare from James in my mother’s arms to the sight of Dad holding Daniel in a fatherly embrace.
“James is safe,” Mom said.
“Thanks to Daniel.” Dad squeezed Daniel’s shoulder. “James would have been lost without him.”
The sheriff extended his hand toward Daniel. Daniel flinched—then stared back in disbelief as the sheriff gave him a hearty handshake.
“Well done,” the sheriff said. He shined his flashlight along the back fence. “You should get that fixed,” he said to Dad. “You’re lucky this case turned out for the best. If it hadn’t been for your son here …” At first I thought he was talking about Jude, but then I realized he was smiling at Daniel.
Dad did not correct him.
“We’ll wrap up a few things here and then get out of your hair.” The sheriff clapped Daniel on the back. “My wife had a conniption when I left dinner early. Her parents are in town…. They wanted her to marry an accountant.”
“We’ll get to work on that fence right away,” Dad said, and shook hands with the sheriff. “Daniel, you’re handy, aren’t you?”
Daniel nodded.
“I’m going to take James inside.” Mom smiled slightly and squeezed Daniel’s arm. I think it was her way of saying thank you.
I couldn’t help smiling. It may have taken some twisting of the truth, but my plan to help Daniel get his life back was working—the lifeline I’d offered seemed to be reeling him in.
But then I heard a deep rumbling coming from the direction of my older brother. He was positively shaking.
“Ju—”
Jude lunged at Daniel. “You did this!” he shrieked, and smashed his fist into Daniel’s face.
Daniel fell back, knocking me to the ground with him. Jude went in for another blow, practically stepping on me to get to Daniel. But then the sheriff was on top of him. He pulled Jude back. Mom shouted.
Jude flailed and screamed, “He did this! He did this! Don’t you see?”
Daniel scrambled up from the grass. “Jude?” He reached for his former best friend. “I swear I didn’t do this.”
Jude wrenched out of the sheriff’s grasp and tried to fly at Daniel again. Dad stepped between them. The sheriff grabbed Jude from behind.
“Calm down,” Dad said.
“He did this. He stole James.” Jude looked up the sheriff. “Arrest him. Get him before he runs away!”
Daniel stepped back. I knew he could be a quarter of a mile away by now, but he made no attempt to escape. He let Deputy Marsh seize his arm.
“Stop it,” I yelled at Jude, and tried to stand on my aching legs. “Stop lying. Daniel saved James. He saved him from drowning in the creek.”
“You stop lying!” Jude’s face looked twisted like it had the night he found Maryanne’s body and then couldn’t find me. I was afraid he was going to punch me, too—even though I hadn’t known he was capable of hitting anyone until just now. “The creek’s dried up and you know it,” he said.
Mom gasped. The noise was echoed by the bystanders who’d edged closer to us when the deputy left his post. The sheriff must have loosened his grasp because Jude pulled away.
“Arrest him,” Jude said. “Arrest that monster.” He lunged at Daniel.
“Stop!” Dad grabbed Jude’s arm and swung him away.
Jude stumbled back on his heels and fell to the ground.
Dad stood over him, one foot planted on each side of Jude’s prostrate body. I’d never seen Dad look so domineering. “Back down!” he commanded. “Stop these lies now.”
Jude moaned and rolled onto his side. It was like hitting the ground had knocked some sense into him. His face and fists relaxed.
“What do you want us to do?” Deputy Marsh asked. He still had Daniel by the arm. “We can take this one down to the station if you want.”
“On what charges?” Dad turned to the crowd, his voice raised. “The baby simply wandered away. Daniel brought him back to us. That’s all there is to it.” He inclined his head to the deputy, telling him to release Daniel. “Thank you, everyone, for helping us in our time of need,” he said in his best pastor voice. “I’m sure you all have festivities waiting for you. And if you don’t mind, my family has a few things to attend to.”
Dad turned to my mom. “Meredith, take James inside. I’m going to see what I can do about the fence. Daniel, Jude, come with me.”
Jude was standing now, but he cowered from Dad’s touch. He shook his head and then jogged into the house. April appeared from the crowd and padded after him.
“Daniel?” Dad asked.
Something was very wrong with the look in my father’s eyes.
Daniel gave a slight nod and went with him.
Dad must have sensed my longing to follow. “Gracie, go help your mother,” he said. His voice was so strained it sounded like he was holding his breath as he spoke.
I stood in the grass and watched them go around behind the house. The deputy and sheriff grumbled and trudged over to their car. Our friends and neighbors trickled away—just like my hope for fixing Daniel and Jude.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Questions Unanswered
IN THE HOUSE, ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES LATER
My mother flipped into full Florence Nightingale mode. She refused to let the sheriff take James to the hospital in Oak Park, insisting that she and Dr. Connors were quite capable of looking him over. After a very thorough examination by the doctor, she finally let James out of her arms and ordered Charity to get started on a bath to warm him up. Then she put Superman Band-Aids on the scratches Don Mo
oney had somehow gotten up his arm, and sent the last of our lingering guests home with leftovers from our abandoned dinner. I was about to sneak out the back door to try to find Daniel when Mom called me over to the kitchen table.
“Let’s take a look at your hand.”
I winced as she picked a few rocks out of the cut.
She clucked her tongue. “You’re lucky you don’t need stitches.”
I let her clean my hand and tried not to squirm. I figured the less I protested, the faster I could get to Daniel. He’d promised to explain things to me. But what if he decided to slip away? I’d seen the things he could do, and with Jude’s false accusations, Daniel could be out of the state before I could even start looking for him.
Mom placed my hand in a bowl of hydrogen peroxide. “Just relax for a minute,” she said, and unpacked the gauze and tape from her first-aid kit.
Little bubbles tingled up from all over my skin. My mind wandered, replaying the things Daniel had done in the woods—and how it felt to run with him in the dark. I barely noticed as Mom dried my hand and wrapped it with gauze.
“All done.” She patted down the last piece of medical tape and held my hand for a moment. “Gracie,” she said without looking up at me. “Please do not invite that boy into our home again.” She laid my hand on the table between us and busied herself packing everything back into her kit.
I nodded even though she probably couldn’t see.
“Mom,” Charity called down the stairs. “James refuses to get out of the bath until he has his blanket.”
“I’ll get it,” I said, glad for the momentary distraction.
Mom nodded. “I’ll be up in a minute,” she called back to Charity.
I checked James’s room first, but Aunt Carol was asleep in the guest bed in his room. She’d excused herself with a headache as soon as Dr. Connors announced that James was in perfect health. I remembered that James’s blanket was probably still in the study.
The doors were slightly ajar when I slipped inside. James’s Portacrib was still on its side. I tipped it upright and found the blankie. I picked it up and was about to dash off to the upstairs bath when a sudden thought stopped me. If James had really wandered off, wouldn’t he have taken this with him? That blue rag of a crocheted blanket went everywhere my little brother did. He never left it behind.
Daniel’s words when I said that James couldn’t have gone so far into the woods echoed in my ears: On his own, no.
Was it a mistake to send the sheriff away? It seemed like they had just arrived when Daniel and I returned with James. Had they taken pictures or looked for any clues? Jude had accused Daniel, but that couldn’t be. My father insisted that it was just an accident. But Daniel—he had been afraid of something.
I looked around the study, really noticing things for the first time since I entered. Dad’s books and papers were strewn across the floor. His lamp was tipped over, and the drawer of his desk was open. It looked like a small earthquake had erupted inside of it. Had an intruder been in here looking for something? But wouldn’t we have heard any of this commotion in the dining room? Maybe Mom had started throwing things while she was so distraught? Several books were missing from the bookcase. The bookcase!
I lunged over to it and stretched up on my toes. I fingered along the top shelf, back and forth. The black velvet case—the one that held Don’s silver dagger—was gone.
UPSTAIRS
My first instinct was to tell Dad about his study. But then I realized that he’d been in there with Mom. Wouldn’t he have seen all this mess already? And still, he was the one who sent the sheriff away. He was the one who insisted that nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Perhaps it was my mother who had made the mess, and he wanted to spare her any questioning by the police. It would not have bode well with her OCD tendencies to have Deputy Marsh poking through our things or tearing up the house. But why was that knife missing? Did Dad even know? I hadn’t told him I’d moved it.
“Grace. We need that blanket,” Charity yelled down the stairs.
I shut the study doors behind me and dashed up to the bathroom. “Here.” I handed the blanket to Mom.
“Banket!” James stood up in the bath. Bubbles ran down his little body.
“Finally,” Charity said, and pulled him out of the tub. She wrapped him in a towel and handed him to Mom.
He nuzzled his blanket to his face. Mom held him tight.
I decided not to mention anything about the study to her. I didn’t know what mode she’d flip into if I said anything to worry her. I’d question Dad later.
But the person I really wanted to talk to was Daniel. What did he know about all this? Why had he seemed so afraid? Was it somehow related to the things he could do?
“Bathroom’s all yours,” Mom said to me. “Clean up before you do anything else.” She shook her head at my mud-caked sweater and slacks.
“You smell like a dog that’s been running in the cold.” Charity made a gagging face.
“Howy shwit,” James cooed.
Mom blinked at me. “What did he just say?”
“No idea,” I said, and shooed them out of the bathroom.
I took a quick shower—at least as fast as I could without getting my bandaged hand wet.
What if I couldn’t get to Daniel before he was done helping my dad?
I wrapped up in a towel and wiped the steam from the bathroom window. I peered out through the filmy glass. All I could see was the narrow gap in the white outline of the fence. I flipped off the bathroom light and made out what looked like my dad, kneeling in the grass near the decaying rosebushes. It looked like he was praying—perhaps giving thanks for James’s safe return. But then he rocked forward and back on his knees, and his hands flew up to his face. His shoulders bounced up and down in a weird jerking way.
I grabbed my bathrobe. Dad needed me with him. But someone else stepped out of the shadows near the fence. He knelt next to my father, hesitated for a moment, and then wrapped his long, lean arms around Dad’s quaking shoulders. I stepped back and blinked, and the window fogged over with steam.
I pulled tight the tie on my terry-cloth robe, bounded down the stairs, and ran smack into my mother.
“Where do you think you are going in that, young lady?” She scoffed at my robe and pointed to the dining room, where Don was telling Charity a story about his grandfather. “We still have guests in this house.”
“But Da—” I saw the annoyed look on her face and remembered the way she’d sarcastically yelled at Dad for blaming himself for Maryanne’s death. He didn’t need that now. “I just have to do something real quick.”
“Go put something decent on.”
I grumbled under my breath and started up the stairs for a quick change of clothing.
“And did you take your muddy clothes down to the laundry or dump them on the bathroom floor?”
“I’ll do it later. I need to—”
“What you need to do is get dressed and then get your dirty clothes in the wash before they’re ruined. Money doesn’t appear like manna around here.”
“But—”
“Now.” And I swear she gave me this look like she thought I was up to something she wouldn’t approve of.
“Fine.”
My legs ached and protested as I staggered up to my bedroom. All that running in the woods had taken its toll. I pulled on the first clothes I could find—a long-sleeved tee and a pair of paint-splattered overalls my mother particularly hated. I grabbed my dirty laundry from the bathroom and hobbled all the way down to the basement.
I was busy blaming Mom in my head for potentially ruining my chances to talk to Daniel and my father, when I heard low voices coming from Jude’s bedroom. I could make out Jude’s somber voice and April’s cocker spaniel–like yips of reassurance. I clutched my bundle to my chest and inched toward Jude’s door.
“It’s not fair,” I heard him say.
“Why?” April asked.
“You don�
�t understand. They don’t understand.” Jude’s voice went lower. “How can they not see what he’s doing?”
April said something I couldn’t make out.
“It’s wrong. He’s wrong. Everything about him is wrong,” Jude said. “I’m the good one. I’m the one who does everything this family needs. I’m the one who is here every day for them, and now he’s back for a few hours, and they believe him over me. Dad and Grace act like he’s some kind of hero.” His voice twanged. “How can Dad believe him, after what he did?”
“What?” April asked. “What did he do?”
Jude sighed.
Any pang of guilt I felt for eavesdropping was overpowered by my desire to hear the answer to that question—and by burning jealousy that he might tell April the thing he’d refused tell me for three years.
Jude whispered something, and I leaned in closer to hear.
“Grace!” Mom shouted down the stairs. “Make sure you use stain spray.”
I jumped back from the door and dropped my bundle. Jude’s voice cut off, followed by shifting noises behind his door. I gathered up my clothes and hurried off to the laundry room.
LATER THAT NIGHT
Daniel was gone by the time I made it outside. He wasn’t in the back or the front yard. Neither was Dad. It had been only about fifteen minutes since I’d seen them through the bathroom window, so I decided to take a car and track Daniel down at his apartment—catch him with my questions before he could skip town—but no keys were on the hooks. Dad kept the truck at the parish, and Jude must have still had the van keys. But strangely, the Corolla was not in the garage.
I resigned myself to the fact that any more searching would be futile, and decided to help Mom and Don Mooney clean up the dining room.
I wasn’t surprised Don had stuck around. He’d probably ask to move into Jude’s room when my brother went off to college next year. However, Don’s idea of “cleaning” involved eating the food off of people’s forgotten plates.
