the flame flickered to life the room seemed to warm slightly, and Robby and Missy began to calm down.
“Robby, I want you to take Missy into your bedroom. Put some clean clothes in a bag. For both of you. Can you do that?”
Robby nodded gravely.
“All right. Then wait for me. In the bedroom. Don’t come out until I come for you, all right?”
“Are you going somewhere?” Missy asked, her eyes wide and her mouth quivering.
“No, darling, of course not. I’ll be right here.”
Missy started to ask another question, but Robby grabbed her hand and began pulling her toward their tiny bedroom. “Come on,” he said.
“Stop pulling,” Missy cried. “Daddy, make him stop.”
“Don’t pull her, Robby,” Glen said. “And you stay in there with your brother,” he instructed Missy.
As soon as the door separating their room from the main part of the cabin was closed, Glen opened the sofa bed he and Rebecca had shared and pulled one of the blankets off it. Then he carefully reclosed the bed and went back to the front porch.
He moved Rebecca to the end of the porch farthest from the door and carefully wrapped her in the blanket. When he was finished he went back to the front door, then turned to survey his work. If he got the children across the porch fast enough, they wouldn’t notice that something was lying there only a few feet away. Struggling to maintain his self-control, Glen went back into the cabin.
Robby and Missy were sitting quietly on the edge of the lower bunk, their faces serious, their hands folded in their laps. Between them was a brown bag stuffed with clothing.
“Mommy’s dead, isn’t she?” Robby asked.
“Yes, she is,” Glen said steadily.
“Why?” It was Missy, and her face looked more curious than anything else. Glen realized for the first time that Rebecca’s death had no meaning for them yet. While it was painful beyond bearing for him, for his children it was still an abstract event.
“I don’t know,” he said gently. “Sometimes things like this happen.”
“Do we have to go away?” Robby asked.
“Go away?”
“Is that why I put our clothes in the bag? Because we have to go away?”
“I’m going to take you down to stay with Brad and Elaine tonight,” Glen said. “I’ll stay there too, but I have to do some things tonight and I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“Are we going now?” Missy asked.
“Right now,” Glen replied, forcing himself to smile. “Now it’s pouring rain outside, so I want you two to see who can get to the car first, all right?”
The two children nodded eagerly.
“I’ll open the door, and you two race. The first one to the car gets a surprise.”
“What is it?” Robby demanded.
“If I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise anymore, would it?”
He led them into the other room and made them stay back from the door while he opened it. Tears were streaming down his face.
“On your mark. Get set. Go!” he cried, and the children, intent only on the race, streaked through the door and across the porch, vying to be the first to reach the ancient VW van. Glen picked up their bag of clothing, closed the door, and followed them.
“Oh, Jesus,” Brad Randall moaned as he opened the door for Glen Palmer and the children. The look in Glen’s eyes and the tear-streaked faces of the children told him something terrible had happened. He could guess what.
Hearing his words from the living room, Elaine hurried in to find out what had gone wrong.
“Glen? Is something wrong?” She looked first at Glen, then at the children, and she too knew immediately. She knelt down and gathered the children into her arms. They clung to her, almost tentatively, then Missy, followed by Robby, broke into tears and buried their faces against her. As she held the children she looked up into Glen Palmer’s drained face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry …”
Glen swallowed and forced himself to stay coherent. “Can you … can you …?” He couldn’t finish the sentence, but Elaine understood.
“I’ll take care of them. Brad, go with him. Help him.”
Brad had been silently standing by but he suddenly came to life, grabbing for his coat. A moment later the two men disappeared into the night.
Elaine steered the children into the living room and settled them on the sofa. Then, before she did anything else, she quickly went through the house, checking all the windows, making sure they were closed and locked. Finally she bolted the doors, rattling each to be sure it was secure.
When she returned to the living room Missy was staring into the fire, lost in some small world of her own devising. But as Elaine sank down beside her the little girl took one of her hands, squeezed it, and smiled up at her.
“It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Really it is.”
For some reason that Elaine never understood, Missy’s words made her cry.
Glen and Brad carried Rebecca into the cabin and laid her on the floor. While Glen poked at the dying fire, wishing he could bring life back to Rebecca as easily as he could the coals, Brad began a quick examination.
It didn’t take him long. By the time the fire was blazing he had finished.
“She was strangled,” he said. “And her neck’s broken.”
“Oh, God,” Glen said, shuddering. “It must have been terrible for her.”
“That’s something we don’t know,” Brad replied quietly. “I like to think the body has ways of dealing with things like this. We know we go into shock immediately when something happens to us suddenly and unexpectedly. I should think it would be the same with dying. Some automatic mechanism takes over and makes us comfortable. Anyway, that’s the way it should be. But we’ll never know, will we?”
“How long has she been dead?” Glen asked.
“Not long. An hour. Maybe two at the most.”
“If only I hadn’t stayed so long,” Glen said. “If only I’d left a little earlier. Just a few minutes maybe—”
“Don’t,” Brad said. “Don’t start that or you’ll wind up blaming yourself for what happened. And you aren’t to blame.”
“I brought her here,” Glen said.
“And it could as easily have been you out there tonight,” Brad said roughly. “Now come on. We’d better get into town.”
Glen looked around the little room.
“I hate to leave her here, all alone …”
“No. You’re coming with me. I’m not leaving you with her. Not tonight, not here. Put on your coat.”
They were about to leave when they suddenly heard a sound from the children’s room.
A small sound, barely a whimper.
Then, as they were about to investigate, Scooter, his small tail tucked between his legs, crept out into the living room.
He stopped, peered vacantly up at the two of them; then his tail began to wag and he stumbled clumsily toward Glen. Glen stooped, picked the puppy up, and scratched its belly. By the time they were in the car Scooter was fast asleep.
Chip Connor was alone in the police station when Brad and Glen arrived.
“It’s Rebecca,” Brad said.
The muscles in Chip’s face tightened and he sank back into the chair behind Harney Whalen’s desk.
“Is she dead?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“On the beach.”
