Comes the Blind Fury

herself. But Michelle was shaking her head.

“It’s Daddy,” she said finally.

“Daddy? What about him?”

“He’s — he’s changed,” Michelle said softly, so softly June had to strain to hear her.

“Changed?” June echoed. “How?” But even as she asked the question, she knew the answer.

“Ever since I fell,” Michelle began, but then another storm of tears broke over her. “He doesn’t love me anymore,” she wailed. “Ever since I fell, he doesn’t love me!”

June rocked her gently, trying to comfort her. “No, darling, that isn’t true. You know that isn’t true. He loves you very much. Very, very much.”

“Well, he doesn’t act like it,” Michelle sobbed. “He — he never plays with me anymore, and he doesn’t talk to me, and when I try to talk to him he — he goes somewhere else.”

“Oh, now that isn’t true,” June said, though she knew it was. She had been afraid of this moment, sure that sooner or later Michelle was going to realize that something had happened to Cal, and that it had to do with her. She could feel Michelle shivering in her arms, though the studio was warm.

“It is true,” Michelle was saying, her voice muffled in the folds of June’s blouse. “This morning I asked him if I could go to the office with him. I only wanted to sit in the waiting room and read the magazines! But he wouldn’t let me.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that he didn’t want you with him,” June lied. “He probably had a busy day, and didn’t think he’d have much time for you.”

“He never has time for me. Not anymore!”

June pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, and dried Michelle’s eyes. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ll have a talk with him tonight, and explain to him that it’s important for you to get out of the house. Then maybe he’ll take you along tomorrow. Okay?”

Michelle sniffled a little, blew her nose into the handkerchief, and shrugged. “I guess,” she replied, straightening up and trying to smile. “He does still love me, doesn’t he?”

“Of course he does,” June assured her once again. “I’m sure there’s nothing wrong at all. Now, let’s talk about something else.” She cast about in her mind quickly. “like school, for instance. Don’t you think it’s about time you thought about going back?”

Michelle shook her head uncertainly. “I don’t want to go back to school. Everybody will laugh at me. They always laugh at cripples.”

“Maybe they will at first,” June conceded. “But you just turn the other cheek, and ignore it. Besides, you’re not crippled. You just limp a little. And soon you won’t even limp anymore.”

“Yes, I will,” Michelle said evenly. “I’ll limp for the rest of my life.”

“No,” June protested. “You’ll get well. You’ll be fine.”

Michelle shook her head. “No I won’t. I’ll get used to it, but I won’t be fine.” Painfully, she got to her feet. “Is it all right if I go for a walk?”

“A walk?” June asked doubtfully. “Where?”

“Along the bluff. I won’t go very far.” Her eyes searched her mother’s face. “If I’m going to go back to school, I’d better practice, hadn’t I?”

Go back to school? A minute ago she said she didn’t want to go back to school. In confusion, June nodded her agreement. “Of course. But be careful, sweetheart. And please, don’t try to go down to the beach, all right?”

“I won’t,” Michelle promised. She started toward the studio door but suddenly stopped, her eyes fixed on the stain on the floor. “I thought that was gone.”

June shook her head. “We tried, but it wouldn’t come out. Maybe if I knew what it was …”

“Why don’t you ask Dr. Carson? He probably knows.”

“Maybe I will,” June said. Then: “How long will you be gone?”

“However long it takes,” Michelle said. Leaning on her cane, she slowly went out into the sunlight.

Josiah Carson stared up at the ceiling, ran one hand through his thick mane of nearly white hair, and drummed the fingers of his other hand on the desk top in front of him. As always when he was alone, he was thinking about Alan Hanley. Things had been going well until that day when Alan had fallen from the roof. Or had he fallen?

Josiah was sure he hadn’t. Over the years, too many things had happened in his house, too many people had died.

His mind drifted back to his wife, Sarah, and the days when life had seemed to him to be perfect. He and Sarah were going to have a family — a big family — but it hadn’t worked out that way. Sarah had died giving birth to his daughter. She shouldn’t have died — there was no reason for it. She had been healthy, the pregnancy had been easy, but as his daughter was born, Sarah had died. Josiah had survived the loss, pouring his love out to his daughter, little Sarah.

And then, when Sarah was just twelve, it had happened.

He still didn’t know how it had happened.

He came downstairs one morning and opened the huge walk-in refrigerator in the kitchen.

On the floor, holding a doll that Josiah had never seen before, he found his daughter, dead.

Why had she gone into the refrigerator? Josiah never knew.

He buried little Sarah and with her, he buried the doll.

After that, he had lived alone, and as the years, more than forty of them, passed, he had begun to believe that he was safe, that nothing more was going to happen.

And then, Alan Hanley had fallen.

In his own mind he was convinced that Alan hadn’t simply lost his footing. No, there was more to it than that, and the doll was the proof.

The doll he had buried with his daughter.

The doll he had found under Alan’s broken body.

The doll Michelle Pendleton had shown him.

Josiah had wanted to talk to Alan about the doll, but the boy had never regained consciousness: Cal Pendleton had let him die.

Had killed him, really.

If Cal hadn’t killed him, Josiah could have found out what had actually happened on the roof that day — what Alan had seen, and felt, and heard. He could have found out what was happening in his house, what had happened to his family. Now he’d never know. Cal Pendleton had ruined it for him.

But he’d get even.

He was already starting to get even.

It had been so easy, once he’d found out how guilty Cal felt about Alan. From there it was easy. Sell him the practice. Sell him the house. It had worked.

He’d gotten Cal into the house, and the doll was back.

Cal’s daughter had the doll now.

And whatever was happening, it was no longer happening to the Carsons.

Now it was happening to the Pendletons.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices from the examining room next to the office, where Cal was examining Lisa Hartwick.

Cal had tried to beg off examining Lisa, but Josiah hadn’t let him. He knew how frightened Cal was of children now, how he had a feeling — reasonable or not — that whatever he did with a child, it was going to be wrong, and he was going to hurt the child.

Josiah Carson understood those feelings.

In the examining room, Lisa Hartwick stared at Cal, her light brown bangs nearly hiding her suspicious eyes. When he asked her to open her mouth, she pouted.

“Why should I?”

“So I can look at your throat,” Cal told her. “If I can’t see it, I can’t tell you why it’s sore, can I?”

“It isn’t sore. I just told Daddy that so I wouldn’t have to go to school.”

Cal put down his tongue depressor, a feeling of relief flooding through him. With this child, at least, there