Deeper Than the Dead

He shook his head. “You never get used to it. You learn to close a door on it emotionally, but it’s never easy. I don’t want it to ever be easy.”

Something rustled in the dead leaves that covered the floor of the woods. Anne strained to see into the gathering gloom on the far side of the grave. She thought she could almost make out a shape half-hidden by a tree trunk.

“Somebody’s watching us,” she murmured. Probably Franny, she thought, though the feeling that crawled over her skin was creepy, and that wasn’t right.

The somebody must have felt their stares as well. There was another rustling sound and a figure darted from behind one tree to behind another. A smallish figure. A child.

“Dennis?” she called out, walking toward the grave. “Dennis, is that you?”

More rustling, and the figure streaked behind another tree. Anne started to jog, Vince’s jacket slipping off her shoulders.

“Dennis, come out! It’s all right. Come out!”

Another flash of movement. She was picking up speed, dodging branches. Her heart was pounding out of proportion to her effort. She wanted to catch him—needed to catch him—figuratively, literally, before he got away.

“Dennis!”

She caught a glimpse of him, never more. He kept running. She ran harder.

“Anne!” Vince called, gaining ground on her. “Anne, let him go!”

It seemed everyone had let Dennis go, not for the good of Dennis, but because it was too hard to deal with him. Someone needed to hang on to him or he would truly be lost.

“Anne!”

The toe of her loafer stubbed an exposed root, and she found herself falling. Losing him. She hit the ground.

“Anne!”

Vince was beside her instantly. “Are you all right?”

No, she thought. She began to tremble as the weight of it all settled hard on her shoulders—a rotten week culminating with the suspension of the one child in her class who needed the most help. And that child was now running in the woods like a wild animal, haunting a gravesite where he had somehow managed to steal the finger of a dead woman.

“Hey,” Vince said, his hands cupping her shoulders as he helped her up. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” she murmured.

She was fine, but tears rose in her eyes and she wished to God it was too dark for him to see them.

“Let me take you home, honey,” he said softly, brushing leaves and twigs from her hair. “You’re exhausted.”

His kindness was her undoing. She could be as tough as she had to be, but kindness . . . she couldn’t manage that. No matter how hard she squeezed her eyes shut, the tears still came.

“Come here,” Vince whispered. He slipped his arms around her and drew her close as carefully as if she were made of fine porcelain. “It’s all right. This shoulder has been cried on before.”

For the first time that week Anne let go. She let the fraying ends of control slip through her fingers, and let loose the pressure that had been building and building inside her.

She let Vince Leone hold her and cradle her head against his chest and tell her she would be all right, that she would make it through this. She took the comfort of a stranger and somehow she didn’t feel like she was free- falling. She felt . . . protected, safe. It took a moment for her to even realize what the feeling was.

Vince came up with a pristine white handkerchief and dabbed gently at the tears on her cheeks, but he seemed in no hurry to let her go. And Anne felt in no hurry to leave.

She tilted her chin up and looked at him, no longer caring what he saw in her eyes—sadness, vulnerability, longing. He settled his mouth on hers for a kiss that was long and deep. And when it was finished, she pressed her ear to his chest and listened to his heart beat for a long while.

43

“Are you and Mom getting divorced?”

The question just came out, like a hiccup or a cough. Wendy opened her mouth and the words just tumbled out. They were in the backyard, beyond the swimming pool, away from the house where her mother was fixing dinner. Her father had picked her up at school and suggested a game of catch because they hadn’t played in a long time.

“Because you’re never home,” she had said.

She was tired and in a bad mood. It seemed like life was never going to be the same again since they had found the body in the park. School wasn’t the same. Tommy wasn’t the same. Nobody treated her the same. Her parents weren’t the same. It sucked.

Her dad stopped his throwing motion as her question hit him. He looked shocked, which just went to show how oblivious adults were. Like they didn’t think their kids could hear, or that they didn’t live in the same house, or had no clue what was going on around them.

“No,” he said, coming over to her. He tried to laugh it off—as if that question could ever have been part of a joke. “No. What would make you think that, Wendy?”

Wendy rolled her eyes. “Dad, I’m not a baby. I know what goes on.”

“What goes on?” he asked, sitting down on a stone bench. He pulled his fielder’s glove off and set it aside. Wendy did the same.

“People have affairs,” she said. “I know all about it.”

Of course, she didn’t. Not exactly. It made no sense to her. You only married someone if you loved them, and then why bother with having an affair? From what she’d seen on television it was never worth it, and everyone involved was just miserable.

Her father scratched his head, trying to think of what to say. “Did your mother say something to you?”

“No, because all she does anymore is cry and try not to let me know it.”

“Honey, your mom is upset about the things that have happened this week: you finding that body, and what that Farman kid did to you—”

“I heard you fighting,” she said, playing her big card. He couldn’t know exactly what or how much she had heard.

He closed his eyes and sighed, leaning his forearms on his thighs and letting his hands dangle between his knees. He looked tired and maybe a little angry.

“There are things your mom just doesn’t understand,” he said, his tone of voice short, almost businesslike. “Things I need to do. Sometimes I have to be away. That’s just how it is. She should be used to it by now, but this week has been difficult. It’s not something you need to worry about, honey. All right?”

Wendy wanted to say no, but she had the feeling he would get mad at her. Besides, her mother had come onto the patio to call them in for dinner.

Tommy wandered into the small office down the hall from the family room. He liked being in this room with his father’s desk and the leather chairs. The bookshelves were full of all kinds of books. He liked to climb up and pull them out at random just to see what was inside.

His favorite was the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Page after page, volume after volume with all the knowledge in the world practically. He would pick a letter at random and sit in the big fat leather chair in the corner and examine every page.

His father sat at his desk now, going through the newspaper, sipping on a drink, while his mother worked in the kitchen fixing dinner.