pursued the truth, because she didn't want to know one way or another. Some things were better off as questions without answers. She could remember, though, the times when she'd watched Tresa and Jen Bone together as teenagers. The two girls were best friends, inseparable, almost like sisters. She'd tried to see the likeness in their faces.
She'd tried to decipher whether Harris was father to both of them.
The affair with Harris had been an on-again, off-again thing over the years, but when she'd become pregnant with Tresa, it was during a period when they were sleeping together regularly. Delia had never thought of sex with Harris as cheating. After her own rape, she had disconnected sex from her emotions. She'd never really loved her husband in a romantic way; he'd been convenient, a provider, sweet and reliable. When they had sex, it was to fill his needs, not hers. Harris was different. She'd understood him as a man, or she'd thought she had, until the fire. He'd spent his whole life under a woman's thumb, first with his mother, Katherine, and then with a wife who was just as controlling. The only person to whom he ever confided his frustrations was Delia. She'd enjoyed being his confidante, not realizing that there were emotional strings attached to his secrets. Their relationship had spilled over from soul-sharing to bed-sharing in no time at all, and for years, they had used each other in bad times for physical and spiritual release.
People wondered how she'd been able to forgive Harris for the accident in which her husband died. The truth was that his death had been an economic loss more than an emotional loss. She'd felt sorrow but not devastation. In the aftermath, she'd relied on Harris even more for all of her needs. So had the girls. Glory and Tresa loved him, and he loved them back. Delia knew the sacrifices Harris made every day, going on the road for a job he hated, coming home to a wife and sons who despised him. He did it without complaint, and that was what made the end so shocking. In all the time they'd spent together, sharing secrets and having sex, he'd never given her a hint of what he was planning. She hadn't seen how close he was to the breaking point.
She hated Harris now, not just for what he had done, but for leaving her alone in the process. And Tresa and Glory, too. He'd abandoned them, just as he'd abandoned his own daughter. All Delia wanted to do was forget him. She'd never breathed a word about the affair to anyone. She'd never given Tresa any reason to wonder who her father really was or to fear that she had bad blood in her. No one needed to know, especially not Peter Hoffman. If he had known the truth, he never would have been so generous with her and the girls. He would have blamed and resented Delia, rather than using her to massage his guilt and grief.
Now even that source of security had been taken away. Peter was dead. He'd written his last check to her. She wondered how she would break the news to Tresa that she no longer had money to send her back to school. It was one more body blow in a lifetime of disappointments and betrayals.
Delia removed the magnifier from her eyes as she saw an old Grand Am turn from the road into the bumps of their driveway. Troy Geier got out like a plump clown and jogged for the house. The wooden steps, which needed repairs, groaned under his weight. He was breathing hard, gulping down air. She could tell, looking at Troy, that the boy was scared.
'What do you want?' Delia asked impatiently. She wasn't in the mood to deal with his naive gallantry today.
Troy peered through the screen door into the house, is Tresa here?'
'No, she went to the grocery store. Why?'
'I don't want her to hear this. You know how she is about Bradley.'
Delia's eyes narrowed. 'What's going on?'
The boy gestured to the house. 'Let's go inside, OK?'
Delia sighed and handed her jewelry tray to Troy as she pushed herself out of the rocker. Smokey scampered between her legs and disappeared through the cat door into the house. 'Take off your shoes,' she snapped. 'I don't want you tracking dirt on the carpet.'
Troy kicked off his shoes on the mat. He followed Delia inside, and she led him back to the kitchen. She needed to get dinner started. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out an egg and a package of ground beef and dumped it into a metal bowl, where she separated the meat with her fingers. She cracked the egg into the bowl and poured in breadcrumbs.
'So what do you want?' she asked Troy again.
Troy sat at the kitchen table and fidgeted. 'You heard about Peter Hoffman?'
'Of course.'
'The word is Bradley did it.'
'I heard about the fight. So?'
'We have to do something,' Troy said.
Delia shot him a look of disdain. She didn't need false hope now. 'Troy, do you really think you're some kind of hero? You? Let it go. Leave this for the men.'
'I can do this,' Troy insisted. 'Bradley has to be stopped.'
'And you're the one to stop him?'
'Yes.'
'Oh, quit kidding yourself and go home,' Delia said.
Troy shook his head. 'I'm going to do this, and it has to be tonight.'
Delia stopped kneading the beef. 'What are you saying?'
'My friend Keith called. He saw Bradley's wife leaving the island on the four o'clock ferry. He's going to be alone.'
Delia realized that something was different about Troy. He was older. Determined. She'd assumed all along that the boy was puffing out his chest with his threats, but now he'd gone from talk to action.
'Troy, you don't know what you're saying,' Delia said, hesitating. 'This isn't a game. It's serious business.'
Troy reached inside his coat and laid his gun on the table. It was the same gun he'd shown her at the lake, a silver revolver with a fat black grip that must have been thirty years old. 'I am serious.'
'All you're going to do is get yourself killed. That gun looks like it would blow up in your face if you pull the trigger.'
'It's old, but it works fine. Look, I know where I can steal a boat from a summer house, and I can get to the island myself. I'll stay overnight at Keith's and go back in the morning.'
'Why are you telling me this? Do you want me to talk you out of it?'
'No, I want you to get rid of Tresa tonight. Send her to a friend's house for a few hours. Whatever it takes. That way, you can say I was here with you. We were talking about Glory, looking at pictures. If anyone tries to point a finger at me, you can back me up.'
Delia's fingers were thick with raw meat. She pulled them out of the bowl and ran them under hot water in the sink. When they were clean and damp, she wiped them with a towel. She studied Troy, who was watching her intently, his face hungry and mean. He was still just a boy, but he was also big and strong enough to go up against a man. She'd known him since he was a baby, and she knew his father had never stopped treating him like a kid in diapers. He'd always been desperate for approval. Desperate to prove himself. He was going to do this whether she said yes or no.
She spotted Smokey in his cat bed on the floor. The cat was curled into a ball, but its eyes were open, watching the two of them like a co-conspirator. It was as if he knew. It was as if he understood. This was about justice for Glory. That was what they all wanted.
'OK, Troy,' Delia told him in a quiet voice, if you think you can do this, then you go do it. Go get that son of a bitch.'
Tresa backed down the hallway in silent horror. Her blue eyes grew huge. She was careful not to make a sound so her mother and Troy didn't realize she was there. She let herself out through the screen door and closed it quietly behind her. She pulled up the hood on her sweatshirt and hurried down the steps. Her mother's car was next to Troy's Grand Am, where she'd parked it moments earlier. She got inside, threw the plastic grocery bags on the passenger seat, and veered backward on to the road.
Her heart was clear; she had to get to Mark right now. She had to warn him.
She sped down Highway E where the bridge crossed over Kangaroo
