Mine

Right? Well, here I am.' Didi forced her head to turn, and she stared at Laura. 'Mrs. Clayborne, I've killed people. I walked into a diner with three other Storm Fronters and shot four policemen who were guilty of nothing but wearing blue uniforms and badges. I helped plant a pipe bomb that blinded a fifteen-year-old girl. I cheered when Jack Gardiner cut a policeman's throat, and I helped lift up the corpse so Akitta Washington and Mary Terrell could nail his hands to a rafter. I'm the woman mothers warn their children not to grow up to be.' Didi offered a chilly smile, the shadows of bare tree branches slicing her face. 'Welcome to my house.'

'Mark didn't want to bring me. I kept at him until he did.'

'Is that supposed to make me feel better? Or safer?' She placed her fingertips together. 'Mrs. Clayborne, you don't know anything about the world I live in. I've killed people, yes; that's my crime. But no judge or jury had to give me a prison sentence. Every day of my life since 1972 I've been looking over my shoulder, scared to death of what might be coming up behind. I sleep maybe three hours a night, on good nights. Sometimes I open my eyes in the dark and I've jammed myself into a closet without knowing it. I walk down the street and think a dozen people see through this face to who I used to be. And with every breath I take I know that I stole the life from fellow human beings. Snuffed them out, and celebrated their murders with hits of acid by candlelight.' She nodded, her green eyes hazy with pain. 'I didn't need a prison cell. I carry one around with me. So if you're going to turn me over to the police, I'll tell you this: they can't do anything to me. I'm not here. I'm dead, and I've been dead for a very long time.'

'I'm not going to turn you over to the police,' Laura said. 'I just want to ask you some questions about Mary Terrell.'

'Mary Terror,' Didi corrected her. 'It was' – she'd almost said crazy – 'stupid of her to take your baby. Stupid.'

'The FBI lost her after she visited her mother in Richmond. Her mother told them she was headed for Canada. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?'

Here was the question, Didi thought. She stared at her hands.

Laura glanced at Mark for support, but he shrugged and sat down on the couch. 'Anything you can tell me about Mary Terrell might be important,' she told Didi. 'Can you think of anybody she might have gotten in touch with? Anybody from the past?'

'The past.' Didi sneered it. 'There's no such place. There's just a long damned road from there to here, and you die a little more with every mile.'

'Did Mary Terrell have any friends outside the Storm Front?'

'No. The Storm Front was her life. We were her family.' Didi drew a deep breath and looked out the window again, expecting a police car to pull up at any minute. If that happened, she wasn't going to fight. Her fighting days were over. She directed her attention to Laura again. 'You said you saw the man who broke into my house.'

Laura explained about the glint of the flashlight she'd seen that night. 'I came in, turned on the lights in the kitchen, and there he was. His face -' She shuddered to remember it. 'His face was screwed up. He was grinning; his face was scarred, and the grin was frozen on it. Dark eyes, either dark brown or black. And he had a thing in his throat like an electric socket. Right here.' She showed Didi by placing her fingers against her own throat.

'The dude across the road saw him, too,' Mark added. 'Said the guy had to plug a speaker into his throat and talk through it.'

'Wait.' Didi's inner alarm had reached a shriek. 'The man went to see Mr. Brewer?'

'That's right. He asked where you'd gone. Said he was a friend of yours.'

'He asked for me by name? Diane Daniells?' She hadn't returned the binoculars to Charles Brewer yet, so she hadn't heard this. When Mark nodded, Didi felt as if she'd taken a punch to the stomach. 'My God,' she said, and stood up. 'My God. Somebody else knows. You bastard, somebody must've followed you!'

'Hold on a minute! Nobody followed us. Anyway, the dude was asking about you before we even got to Ann Arbor.'

Didi felt her control slipping away. The man who'd broken in hadn't taken anything. He'd known her new name, and where she lived. Had asked Mr. Brewer where she'd gone. She sensed it like a noose tightening around her neck: someone else knew who she was.

'Please try to think,' Laura plowed on. 'Is there anyone Mary Terrell might have gone to for help?'

'No!' Didi's face contorted, her nerves about to snap. 'I said I can't help you! Get out and leave me alone!'

'I wish I could,' Laura said. 'I wish Mary Terrell hadn't taken my baby. I wish I knew if my son was alive or dead. I can't leave you alone because you're my last hope.'

Didi put her hands to her ears. 'No! I don't want to hear it!'

She knows something, Laura thought. She walked to Didi, grasped her wrists, and pulled her hands away from her ears. 'You will hear it!' Laura promised, her cheeks aflame with anger. 'Listen to me! If there's anything you know about Mary Terrell – anything – you've got to tell me! She's out of her mind, do you realize that? She could kill my child at any time, if she hasn't already!'

Didi shook her head. The image of Mary pressing the baby's face toward the burner was too close. 'Please, just leave me alone. All I want is to be left alone.'

'And all I want is what's mine,' Laura said, still grasping Didi's wrists. They stared at each other, inhabitants of different worlds on a collision course. 'Won't you help me save my child's life?'

'I… can't…' Didi began, but her voice faltered. She looked at Mark and then back to Laura, and she knew that if she didn't help this woman, the ghosts that feasted on her soul would grow sharper teeth. But she and Mary were sisters in arms! The Storm Front had been their family! She couldn't betray Mary!

But the Mary Terrell Didi had known long ago was gone. In her place was a savage animal who knew no cause but murder. Sooner or later Mary Terror would snap, and this woman's baby would die screaming.

Didi said, 'Please let me go.' Laura hesitated a few seconds, and then she released Didi's wrists. Didi walked to the window, where she stood looking out at the cold world. Click, click her Rubik's Cube was turning, but the answer was already in sight. 'She… calls the baby Drummer,' Didi said. Her heart hurt. In the electric silence that followed, Didi could hear Laura Clayborne breathing. 'I saw Mary and your baby yesterday.'

'Oh Jesus.' It was Mark speaking in a low, stunned voice.

'He was all right,' Didi went on. 'She's taking good care of him. But…' She trailed off, unable to say it.

A hand like an iron pincer grasped her shoulder. Didi looked into Laura's face, and caught a glimpse of hellfire. 'But what?' Laura demanded, barely able to speak.

'But… Mary's dangerous. Dangerous to herself, dangerous to your baby.'

'What's that mean? Tell me!'

'Mary said… if the police find them… she'll kill the baby first' – Didi saw Laura wince as if she'd been struck – 'and then she'll keep shooting until the police kill her. She's not going to give up. Never.'

Tears stung Laura's eyes. They were tears of relief, at knowing David was still alive, and tears of horror at knowing that what Bedelia Morse said was true.

The rest of it had to be told. Didi steeled herself, and continued. 'Mary's coming here. She and Edward Fordyce. He was part of the Storm Front, too. They're on the way now, from New York. They should get here sometime tomorrow.'

'Whoa,' Mark whispered, his eyes wide behind his glasses. 'Far out.'

Laura felt off balance, as if the room had suddenly begun to slowly spin around her. 'Why are they coming here?'

It seemed to Didi that once unleashed, betrayal was like a swarm of locusts. It kept consuming until everything was gone. 'I'll show you,' she said, and she took her key chain from its wall peg beside the front door.

Laura and Mark followed Didi out behind the cottage, to the stone structure which was Didi's workshop. She unsnapped the padlock, drew out the chain, and opened the door. A thick, earthy aroma wafted from the chill darkness. Didi switched on the overhead lights, revealing a neatly swept workshop with two pottery wheels, shelves of glaze and paint, and various clay-shaping tools in their places on a pegboard. Another shelf held examples of Didi's labors in various stages of completion: graceful vases and planters, dishware, mugs, and ashtrays. On the floor beside one of the wheels was a huge urn, its surface patterned to resemble treebark. Didi paused to turn on a space heater, and she said, 'This is what I sell. Back there is what I make for myself.' She nodded toward a drawn curtain at the rear of the workshop.