The night wrapped itself around the old house. Anne leaned back, making herself as comfortable as possible on the sprung and lumpy Chippendale-style sofa that Ellie Hansom's estate had left in the downstairs sitting room.
The glow from the remains of a fire in her newly cleaned fireplace mingled with the soft, rose-colored circles of light from two fringed and beaded floor lamps, and a Chopin étude whispered from her portable tape player set up on the library table across the room.
The day had been almost perfect, in spite of its rocky beginnings, but now all her guests were gone, Margaret and her desperado who had been so remarkably gentle, Nellie and her delightful daughter, Lilly, who had begged hugs and good-bye sugars from everyone, including an astonished Wayne Samuels. Only David remained—and the man in the closet—to keep her company in the echoing, suddenly lonely rooms.
She knew she ought to be helping David as he made his rounds checking to see that all the doors and windows were locked and secure, but for the moment contentment held her quiet and still. This was why she had returned to Allegro. This sense of belonging. This sense of family that might be only an illusion but seemed so real. This sense of safety, in spite of Joe's continuing feud, that told her that only David's cop persona saw any real need for his double-checking the locks. Here there were no muggers lurking on every corner, no drug dealers invading the school or clinic, no danger waiting to jump out in ambush.
She heard footsteps on the pine floor and slanted her head to look at David as he entered the room. He stopped by the French doors leading out to the rear porch and tried the handle, then glanced warily at the old draperies that obviously were meant to frame but never to cover the doors.
The remains of the last log in the fireplace dissolved in a sparkle of glowing embers, sending a few errant flames dancing across the grate before they faded away. David secured the screen in front of the firebox and leaned back, resting his arm on the oak mantel. "I believe your first dinner party was a success, Dr. Locke."
Anne grinned lazily. "Yeah. Which of us did it surprise more? You? Or me?"
He returned her grin before turning serious. "Are you up to trying again to reach your mom?"
A little of her contentment faded, and she sighed, knowing that when she left this room, when she returned to the brightly lighted kitchen and the questions that still had to be answered, the rest of it would, too. She patted the couch beside her. "Sit with me just a while longer?"
David nodded, acknowledging her need to remain cocooned in the peace of this room for at least a few more minutes. He sat on the other end of the sofa, extended his long legs toward the fireplace, and stretched his arm along the back of the sofa, toward her.
"What a mixed bag of people we were to have come together so well," she said softly, remembering how they had at first faced each other warily and then had reached some sort of uncertain truce as the afternoon wore on.
"Not so strange," he said on a sigh and a stretch. "Considering we all had something in common."
She turned her head to look at him and found that he had shifted closer to her. "What?"
His hand dropped to her neck and began kneading muscles she hadn't known were so tight. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the massage, vaguely wondering why the touch of a man she had not known a week ago felt so natural, so familiar, so right.
"What?" Both his voice and his touch remained gentle, but she heard an underlying tension in his words. "Surely you noticed, Annie, that with the exception of Lilly, everyone at your table today was hiding from something."
How had he known?
She gave him the smile that had fooled everyone but Karen and her mother. "Surely not everyone," she said.
He wasn't fooled; she could see that in the speculation in his eyes. "Oh, yes," he said. "Everyone."
And then she realized that not only had he included her in that statement, he had included himself.
"And what are you hiding from, David Huerra?"
"I suspect from the same thing you are, Anne Locke."
No. He couldn't be. He couldn't have the memories she had. Or could he? His hand had stilled on her neck. She leaned against it, needing, wanting his support but not able to take more than this. "Maybe—" she said, groping for a way to deny his words. "Maybe we're not hiding from something so much as we're looking for something."
"Maybe," he said, giving her that much as he moved and at the same time pulled her toward him until she found herself held tight against his side with his arm around her. "That's better," he said.
Better? For whom? And in what way? Because the comfort she had felt only moments ago had fled. Now her awareness of him was much more primal, much more demanding, and even though she might have told herself she could handle a flirtation with this man, right now she wasn't so sure.
"David," she said, putting her hand against his chest to push away but finding and being trapped by the beat of his heart beneath her palm. "This isn't a good— This isn't wise."
"Don't you think I know that, Annie?"
When he'd kissed her before, she'd been too surprised to savor the touch of his lips and the hard strength of his body. She'd had no warning, no time to anticipate. Now she did. He tightened his arm around her shoulder and lifted his other hand to her cheek, holding her still as he looked down at her in the dim light, searching her eyes for answers, for permission. The music swirled through the room, accenting the moment. "Nothing about this is wise," he said. "We'd both be making a mistake, a big mistake, to get involved with each other. It can't go anywhere, Annie. You know that. In less than a month, I'll leave; you'll stay."
She wanted to deny his words, but she couldn't. She would stay. Allegro was her haven, her safe place. And no matter what demons had brought David here, he would leave. He would have to leave.
"I know," she said.
"Damn, Annie, you're supposed to tell me not to do this."
"I can't."
The music ended, leaving the room in silence as David stared down at her, as she felt his heart racing beneath her palm.
"Stop me, Annie," he said, bending toward her. "Before we both get hurt."
A sound as sharp as a shot cracked through the hushed room. David jerked away from her and twisted in a warrior's stance, searching the room as he thrust her behind him, protected between his body and the sofa.
For a moment, even Anne didn't recognize the sound. For a moment the adrenaline pumping through her had nothing to do with pheromones and hormones and attraction and fledgling affection and everything to do with fear and blood and the sound of screaming that never seemed to stop. For a moment she was trapped in the nightmare that had brought her back to Allegro and would never let her leave.
For a moment. Then sanity returned and she recognized the sound as the faulty shut-off mechanism on her ancient tape player. "Oh, God," she moaned, sagging back against the sofa. "It's nothing," she told him, gesturing toward the tape player. "It's—nothing."
The tension drained from David as rapidly as it had from her. He glared at the tape player. But he stood, the moment lost, the mood broken, and after a moment he held his hand to her. "Let's go make that call," he said.
She nodded. What else could she do? She couldn't very well drag him back down on the sofa with her; that wouldn't be smart. That wouldn't be wise. That could very possibly be emotional suicide. But she didn't take his hand. Instead, she offered him a tentative smile, one acknowledging her own withdrawal from him, and managed to get herself to her feet.
"Wait," David said as she left the room. When she looked at him questioningly, he again checked the lock on the French doors, went to each of the lamps and turned them off, and as they left the room, he closed and tested the door behind them. "Is there a key for this door?" he asked.
She raised an eyebrow. "There's a whole box of keys in a kitchen drawer," she told him. "Is there a reason to search for one?"
He shrugged, grimaced, and finally gave her a wry smile. "A cop's paranoia?" he offered.
She didn't return the smile. He might be joking about a cop's paranoia, but his request and his words had activated her own, and she didn't like it one bit. Not here in her house. Damn it, until he'd come along she'd seldom worried about keys for the outside doors, let alone for interior ones.
"Good enough for me," she told him. "But I'll let you go through the box."
He dropped his hand onto her once again tense shoulders. "Annie, I'm sorry. There's probably no reason in the world to lock that door."
"But you'd feel better if I did?"
He nodded.
"Are you going to tell me why? Who do you think might try to come through it?"
"Not who," he said. "What. Samuels saw what he thinks were a couple of mountain lions near here last night. All the glass in that room would make easy access. I'd just feel better if you had some solid wood between you and it."
Mountain lions? This close to town? Surely not. And yet— And yet she remembered the sound, so like a growl, that she had heard when they were in the secret room, the sound she had hastily, gratefully attributed to the wind, and shuddered. "Well, hell, David." Once again she threw the words she had heard him mutter under his breath as he worked in the house back at him and laughed weakly. "What else is going to happen? What else can happen?"
He pulled her to him, and she went easily into his arms. Yes, the sensation fluttered through her again—Natural. Familiar. Right.
He hugged her quickly, tightly, and released her. "We're going to call your mom for some answers about your uncle," he told her. "Then I'm going to check the locks on all the doors and windows one more time, I'm going to look around outside just to make sure nothing and no one is or has been lurking around out there, and then I'm going back to my cold, drafty cabin, while you get some much needed rest. Okay?"
It wasn't, but she supposed it was what had to be done. "Okay," she said.
"Anne?"
Her mother's voice carried clearly over the long distance lines, and in its soft drawl Anne heard all the sounds of home, though now tinged with the flavor of down under. "Honey, what's wrong? Are you— Oh, gosh, it's Thanksgiving Day in the States, isn't it. I'm so sorry. We're in such a rush getting ready to go to the ranch— I mean station—I forgot. Are you all right? Did you have a good day? Did any of the family come through with an invitation for you?"
"I love you, too, Mother," Anne said when her mother paused for breath. "And, yes, I'm all right, and no, no one came through with an invitation, so I invited friends to the house and had dinner here."
"You did? In that wonderful old dining room? I just knew that would be a great house for entertaining. I always wondered why Aunt Ellie didn't do more of it. Of course, Marian was a pretty heavy burden on her time, and she was just about as grim as they come, but anybody who would paint a house purple had to have a sense of humor, even if it was dry—"
"Mom?" Anne hated to break in on her mother's enthusiasm—for too many years Katherine Locke had had no time or energy for enthusiasm, only for the fight she waged daily to raise her daughter alone and in a home that Anne would never have reason to be ashamed of. But she wasn't single mother Katherine Locke any longer; she was Katherine Hudson. And she no longer balanced precariously on the edge of poverty. Tom Hudson had seen to that. Sometimes Anne resented Tom for taking her mother so far away, for making the long visits they had once shared impossible, but when she heard the life in Katherine's voice, she knew that the missed visits were small enough payment for the happiness her mother so richly deserved and had at long last found.
"Yes, dear?"
Anne glanced at David, who had pulled his chair close to hers at the kitchen table, and tilted the receiver slightly, wordlessly inviting him to listen in on the conversation. "What do you know about Uncle Ralph?"
"Oh." A faint crackling sound filled the silence. "Is it important?" Her mother laughed abruptly. "Of course it is, or you wouldn't have called. What's happened, Anne? My God, I didn't get you into any trouble, did I? I really thought Allegro would be a safe place for you to recover. Is it Joe? He always was a mean little brat, but I thought surely by now he would have grown out of it."
"No. I'm not in any trouble. At least none that I can't handle, I think. And it's not Joe, not really, although he still is a mean little brat. But there's— We— I need to know what— I need to know everything you know about Uncle Ralph. Do you . . . Do you remember him?"
"No. He died when I was still real small. We? Who is we, Anne?"
Anne sighed. She loved her mother; she really did. But sometimes she wanted to shake her. Fortunately Katherine was well out of her reach. She looked at David and saw him fighting both a smile and a serious case of frustration.
"Mom, please. Uncle Ralph? What did he do for a living? How did he lose his money? And when?"
"And this is really important to you?"
"Yes."
Anne heard the clink of ice in a glass thousands of miles away while her mother took a sip of her inevitable strong southern sweet tea. "Marian would be the one to talk to about what happened to Ralph's money," Katherine said slowly. "Of course, she's always been crazier than a bessie bug. At least since her accident. And depending on her mood, she might blame it either on the curse or the cats—"
"Mom!"
"But according to the letter I got from Harriet—you know, my cousin who lives in Kansas City—Joe's had her in a nursing home in—where? Jeez—Texarkana, I think, since Christmas. But he may have moved her again. He does that, you know."
"No," Anne said. "I'm afraid I don't know very much about his side of the family."
"Well, honey, they're not family. Not really. Well, maybe . . ."
"Thank God for small favors," David whispered. "But ask her what she meant—"
Anne shook her head and cupped her hand over the telephone speaker but removed it when he gave her a quick, reassuring smile.
"I need answers, Mom, please. And if you don't have facts, would you please let me have the gossip?"
Katherine laughed. "What on earth have you gotten yourself into now?"
"A purple house, remember? You put the bid in for me."
"Yes. I did. Are you sorry?"
"Only when Joe hires another work crew away from me."
"He's done that? Why?"
"He wants the house, Mom. Or the land. I'm not sure which."
"Damn. So did his grandmother. But she wasn't entitled to it, either."
"Because even though she was Ralph's sister, the house belonged to Ellie?"
"Yes. At least that was what the grownups said when there were any outsiders around. But there were a lot of us kids around—at least for a while, before everyone started moving away to find work—and we heard things. So bear in mind that what I can tell you is filtered through a child's perception of cryptic conversations. Except for the things Marian actually said. And God knows how that's been filtered."
Anne could only shake her head. Maybe this meant her mother accepted that she had finally grown up. Amazing. David's hand clamped on hers where she held the receiver and his other caught her chin, stilling her.
"I never knew exactly what he did for a living. Not much at the last, I remember hearing that."
"Did he go broke in the Crash?"
"Oh, no, honey. He came through that like a champ. And he made money hand over fist all during the depression. I remember hearing that said, time after time, and not with any admiration. It seems he had cash—lots of cash that no one really knew where it came from—so he was able to buy up forfeited tax lands and even some delinquent mortgages before the government put the brakes on foreclosures."
"Then what happened?"
"Marian said it was a curse."
"Yeah, right."
"No, just listen, my young skeptic. Ralph dealt in antiquities. Of course, no one I overheard called them that back then. They simply referred to his 'treasures.' But he apparently had quite a little network of sources and markets for archaeological items. Probably a black market network, but a lucrative one just the same. Until he got greedy.
"The story is that he was involved in those excavations at Spiro, on the sly of course, and that he bought a load of contraband that wiped out all his resources and then couldn't get rid of it."
David's hand once again tightened on hers, and he leaned closer. Anne felt her throat go dry. "Why?"
"Why did he buy it? Or why couldn't he get rid of it? Or does it really matter? He bought it because he thought he could make a dollar. And if he couldn't get rid of it, it was probably because somebody finally pulled one on him and unloaded a bunch of fakes. Fitting justice, I say."
"Spiro?" Anne asked. "As in LeFlore County, just north of here?"
"Yes. There was a big discovery made there in the thirties. Didn't you study that in— Oh. We were in Tennessee by the time you got to state history in school. Anyway, I think he just got caught in a scam and never got over the blow to his ego or his pocketbook. Marian insisted that he had infuriated some ancient god.
"In fact, she insisted that same god, in the guise of giant yellow cats that just happened to be roaming around the upstairs hallway, killed two of his suppliers as well as causing the fall that broke her back."
Anne heard the humor in Katherine's voice. She knew there was not a malicious bone in her mother's body, not even after the hellacious time she'd gone through as a young woman surrounded by these people she now discussed. She glanced at David. He wasn't smiling.
"Cats?" Samuels saw what he thinks were a couple of mountain lions near here last night. Coincidence, surely. She felt her hand slide on the receiver.
"Yeah." Katherine's voice lost its laughter. "Cats. Forgive me, darlin'. I'm sorry Marian broke her back. I'm sorry Ralph died, but Ralph treated Aunt Ellie like dirt. And after he died, Marian kept it up, propped up in that room upstairs, expecting Ellie to wait on her hand and foot—which Ellie did—expecting her to care for her young son—which Ellie did until she just couldn't handle it anymore and sent him to stay with a cousin—refusing even to sell the car that Ralph had bought her, not his wife, to help with the expenses of her care. These things I do know.
"And I know that when Ralph died Marian tried real hard to take Ellie's home away from her, but never produced so much as a birth or baptism or confirmation certificate to prove she was really his sister, and that Joseph, her son, as nice a kid as I could hope to meet when I was growing up, looked a hell of a lot like that framed picture of Ralph that used to dominate the mantel in your living room. I am so damn glad that we're on Ellie's side of the family." Katherine paused to draw in a deep breath and remained silent a moment. "And I am off my soapbox as of now. I'm sorry, Anne. I thought I was over all the hard feelings. I guess I'm not."
From laughter to bleak despair in the space of a heartbeat. So her mother's memories were as sneaky about ambush as Anne's were. "No, Mom. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dragged you into the past."
"And why not, darlin'? Every family has a skeleton or two in the closet."
Anne turned to David. This was her mother for God's sake. If she couldn't trust her, who could she trust? Slowly, almost reluctantly, he nodded his head.
"That's just it, Mom," Anne said. She took a deep breath. "This family—We—It wasn't actually in the closet; it was behind a false wall in an upstairs sitting room."
She heard an abrupt clank—her Mom's glass hitting the ceramic tile of her kitchen counter—and a sharp, indrawn breath. "Lucy?" Katherine whispered. "Did you find Lucy? She didn't run away with that Briggs boy? Oh, God, no one really believed she'd go off and leave her mother, even if Marian was doing her best to make her life holy hell, but there wasn't any other answer . . . Have the police identified her? Oh, God. Oh, God. In the house all this time?"
"Mom? Mom, back up a minute. Who is Lucy?"
"Lucy Hansom. Ellie and Ralph's daughter. You found a skeleton? A human skeleton? In Marian's room?"
"No!" Anne shouted the word to break through her mother's frantic questions. "Well, yes. But not—Mom, what we found was probably the contraband you said Ralph got stung with. Not a—not a woman, not anyone we have to call the police about. At least I don't think so. I've asked Karen to give me her opinion so we can be sure. And asked a collector in Dallas for an opinion on one of the items with it. But other than that, I'd just as soon no one else knew about it. At least not yet."
"Oh." Again, only a faint crackle filled the silence for one second, two, three. "Oh. It was true then? He did get stuck with what he thought was treasure? Someone did pull a fast one on Ralph Hansom?"
Again Anne looked at David. He shrugged.
"I don't know, Mom," she said. "I don't know. It sure looks real to me, but I won't know until sometime next week." And then, to keep any more of her mother's questions unspoken, Anne asked one of her own. "That was Marian's room? The art deco one?"
Katherine laughed softly. "Ellie didn't change it? Good. It has to be pretty worn by now, but when I was growing up, I used to peek in the door when Ellie had Marian out for her bath or for some other reason, and I thought that must be the most sophisticated room ever designed.
"You're all right with this, Anne?" she asked abruptly. "Finding it wasn't too much for you so soon after . . ."
"I'm fine, Mom. How are the boys?"
Again Katherine laughed. "They are holy terrors. Tom has them out now for some last minute 'manly' shopping before we take off. They'll be sorry they missed your call."
"I'm sorry, too. How long will you be gone?"
"About a month. You do have the emergency numbers in case you need to contact us?"
"Yes. Yes, I do. But don't worry. Everything here will be fine."
"I just hate it that you're all alone there with this mystery to solve."
"Face it, Mom." Now Anne laughed. "You're just sorry you aren't in the middle of it with me."
"Maybe" Katherine admitted.
"And besides . . ." Again Anne looked toward David. Hesitating only slightly, he nodded. "I'm not alone."
"Ah hah! The we that kept slipping out when you were talking to me? Who? 'Fess up, Anne."
God! She felt about ten years old. And David's grin didn't make things one bit better. She felt her face turning red and every one of her freckles glowing. "He's a Dallas police officer on vacation, and he's helping me with the house."
"Good. You tell him hello for me. And you tell him to take good care of my little girl."
He'd moved away slightly, she hoped to give her privacy for the rest of her conversation, but she was pretty sure he'd heard that last bit, anyway. She glared at him, even as she softened her words to say good-bye to her mother.
"What else can happen?"
At David's question, she looked up from her studied inspection of the telephone after she had replaced the receiver.
"I believe you asked me that just a few minutes ago," he said.
Sighing, she leaned her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands.
"Anne?"
She couldn't answer his question; she couldn't answer her own. And she couldn't sit there pretending that those questions weren't racing through her. She jerked to her feet and paced to the kitchen sink where she gripped the edge and stared out the window. David must have turned off the porch light while making his rounds, because blackness pressed in, capturing the lighted kitchen like a mirror, throwing her image back at her. Throwing the image of David standing behind her back at her.
He dropped his hands to her shoulders, then traced them along her arms, before enfolding her.
"I don't need this," she told him. But she wasn't sure whether she was talking about the complications her mom had just brought up, or the complications that her reaction to his embrace could cause. "I came back because I wanted a slow, uncomplicated life. Not a mystery, not a—"
"Not an involvement?" he asked.
She stared at his image in the window and found him just as intently watching hers. "Not an involvement," she admitted as she released her grip on the sink and raised her hands to capture his arms as they held her.
He didn't comment, not on her words, not that she held him locked in the embrace he had initiated, not that she had leaned back against him, absorbing his warmth. He didn't comment about her crazy aunt, her greedy uncle, her missing cousin, incest, or adultery. He just held her as the two of them stared at their reflections against the midnight black backdrop of the kitchen window. He just held her, until she felt the comfort he offered her turning to something warmer, something more intense. Until she felt the changes in his body signaling that he, too, had taken a step beyond comfort.
No, she definitely didn't need this, she thought, even as she canted her head to one side, exposing her neck as David lowered his head toward her. She felt his breath on her cheek, on her throat, as his arms tightened around her. "David . . ." she murmured in protest.
"I know," he told her. "I know, Annie. I don't want this either. Help me out, here, lady. Tell me to get lost. Tell me that all you want from me is someone to hang drywall. Tell me . . ."
If only she could. Slowly she turned in his arms.
"Tell me why you're running," he persisted on a groan of need. "Tell me what brought you back to Allegro."
And that was all it took. She still stood within his embrace. And she still needed his warmth. But now it was to protect her from the chill that shuddered through her.
"Annie?"
"What makes you think anything happened?"
"Maybe because your best friend and your mother have both been concerned about your recovery? Maybe because when I asked, you tensed up like a rubber band about to snap? Maybe because I sometimes see the weight of the world in your expression? What happened, Annie? Is it so bad that sharing won't make it easier?"
Nothing would ever make it easier. But maybe it was time to share. "I got shot," she said.
She felt his arms tighten around her, felt the protest he wouldn't let himself utter.
"I was lucky," she told him in a soft monotone. "I only lost my spleen. Anthony—the man I had been engaged to—two mothers and four children at the clinic, and eventually two cops, and one of the six young men who were convinced we had to have drugs at the free clinic we staffed twice a week, died."
She heard him moan—for her—and let herself accept that small comfort.
"Sounds to me like you lost a hell of a lot more than your spleen," he said, restraining her when she would have pulled away.
Yes, she had. But only those closest to her had given more than lip service to the fact that much more than the physical trauma needed healing. How had David? And just how perceptive was he? "Such as?"
"Such as your innocence. A dear friend. Your career, maybe. The lifestyle you had chosen and cultivated. Those are part of the losses. I imagine you also picked up a trailer load of guilt, too, didn't you? Because you'd worked hard to convince people to take advantage of your clinic?"
He was too damned perceptive. Anne tilted her head back so that she could look into his eyes. They were clouded with pain—for her. And she didn't have to admit anything, because she saw in them his knowledge of just how much of that guilt she carried.
"Yeah."
"So you came home, to lick your wounds, to recover, to assuage your guilt by providing medical care where it hadn't been available before, maybe even to recapture your courage, and ran straight into Cousin Joe and a half-century-old mystery?"
She couldn't have put it more succinctly; she wouldn't have, because she couldn't have been that honest with herself. But she could admit the truth when it was slammed down in front of her. She nodded once, a mere jerk of her head.
"And a man who is no more sure of his future than you are."
When she looked up, the pain she saw in his eyes was now his own.
"No, you definitely do not need this, Annie," he said, using his hands on her arms to hold her still while he stepped away from her. "Unfortunately, I don't know how to back up and take the mystery away. And I don't know how to change Joe's attitude. But I can keep from adding myself to the load of stuff piling up on you."
She wanted to argue with him—God it was lonely without his arms around her—but she knew he was right. And she also knew that he didn't need any more of her problems than he had already shouldered; he had his own to work through. That was why he was in Allegro.
"I want you to lock the door when I leave. And stay inside. I don't know how much stock to put in Samuels's story about the mountain lions, but it's just too much of a coincidence that your crazy aunt claims they crippled her.
"Tomorrow we'll talk about what your mother said. And we'll try to figure out the what and why of the man upstairs. You'll be all right until then, won't you, Annie?"
Of course she would be. She was strong. Didn't he realized that? Otherwise she would have already broken. Otherwise she would have given in to the demand she felt rising within her to beg him to stay.
"Of course," she said, and even managed to dredge up a small smile. "And you be careful."
He caught her face in his hands and looked steadily into her eyes. Was he convinced? She wasn't sure. But eventually he nodded and released her.
"I'll be back first thing in the morning."
Anne watched from the locked screen until the Blazer's taillights disappeared down the drive, then closed and locked the back door and leaned against it.
She hadn't wanted him to leave. But until she was sure why she wanted him to stay—for protection, for comfort in the lonely hours of the night, for physical gratification, or for some reason that was all of those, and more—she couldn't ask him to stay. Wouldn't ask him to stay.
Slowly she crossed the kitchen, turned out the light, and started toward her room. She was at the top of the stairs before she realized it, and then, drawn, she found herself in the upstairs sitting room, opening the closet, stepping into it. She caught the edge of the strip that bordered the drywall insert. Boxes blocked the way. Boxes that she could easily have moved but which provided enough deterrent to bring her to a halt.
She pressed her hands flat and leaned her head against the wall. Why was she doing this? She didn't want to look on what lay beyond this fragile barrier. She never again wanted to see what lay on the cedar litter.
But it seemed that she couldn't raise her head, or move her hands, or leave the chill darkness of the closet. Not yet. But maybe soon . . . soon, she could leave him alone in the dark.