formed around the cut.
Saw the battered, swollen tissue that had kept her hidden in the house for days, days that, until this moment, she had forgotten about.
What had happened during those days when the swelling and the bruises kept her from leaving the house?
What had caused the pain that now — years later — was throbbing in her arms and legs, making her feel as if she’d been tied up for hours?
Hours, or even days?
Was it possible? Could her mother have done such a thing? No! No, of course not! She’d been just a little girl!
Another question rose in her mind: What did she tell her friends when her mother finally let her outside again? Did she tell them she was sick? Or had the story of the tricycle already been invented?
As Joan gazed into the mirror — gazed with the strange, shocked detachment of a bystander at the scene of a terrible accident — tears began to stream down the face of the child she had once been.
Tears she could not remember having shed.
Then, through the blur of the tears, she saw her sister and her mother standing behind her, close together. Cynthia’s arm was curled protectively around Emily’s waist. They were looking at each other, smiling at each other, and even in the mirror Joan could see that they shared some kind of secret, one that she was not a part of.
As she watched, first her sister and then her mother turned to look at her and laugh.
The laughter tore at her, and Joan whirled around to face them.
There was no one there; the room was as empty as when she’d come into it. For a few seconds she felt disoriented, but then her mind slowly cleared. Of course they weren’t there: Cynthia was dead, and her mother had vanished.
It had all been an illusion. But an illusion so real that she could still feel the pain she must have felt as a child, still recoil from the cruel laughter she had heard in the empty room. “Why?” she whispered, though there was no one there to hear her. Rising from the vanity, she gazed at the portrait of Cynthia. “Why didn’t you tell her the truth?” she asked, her voice strangling on the pain of the memory that had only tonight emerged from the depths of her subconscious, escaping from the grave where she had kept it buried for so many years. “Why did you let her do that to me?”
Her sister stared coldly back at her.
“I’m glad you’re dead,” Joan whispered. “I’m glad you’re dead, and I hope you’re burning in hell.”
The sound of the back door slamming jerked Joan out of her reverie, and she turned her back on the image of her sister. But as she left Cynthia’s room, she heard the whispered sound of her sister’s voice.
* * *
“MATT?” JOAN CALLED as she hurried down the stairs. “Matt, is that you? Where have you — ” The words died abruptly on her lips when she saw her son standing in the door to the kitchen. For a moment she felt what seemed like a wave of deja vu break over her, but then she realized that it wasn’t deja vu at all — although Matt’s clothes were once again smeared with blood, this time his left eye was badly swollen and starting to turn an ugly purplish color. “Dear God,” she breathed, steering him into the kitchen. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
“It’s not that bad,” Matt replied. “It’s no big deal — just a little blood. I’ve been hurt a lot worse at football practice.”
Joan had wet a dishcloth — the closest thing available — and begun to gently wipe the blood from his face. “For heaven’s sake,” she said, “don’t try to tell me you were at practice.”
“I was looking for Kelly.”
“Kelly?” Joan echoed.
“I thought I knew where she might be,” Matt went on, wincing as his mother touched his bruised eye. “I figured she might have gone down by the falls — that’s where we always go when we just want to talk about something. So I thought if something was wrong, maybe that’s where she went.”
“But surely Kelly didn’t — ”
“I didn’t find her. But Pete and Eric found me.”
“Pete Arneson and Eric Holmes?”
Matt jerked his head away as the dishcloth touched a small cut below his eye. “They said they were looking for Kelly too.”
When the phone buzzed, Joan almost dropped the dishcloth, and when it sounded again, she handed the dishcloth to Matt. “Rinse it out, wrap it around some ice, and — ”
“ — hold it against my eye,” Matt finished for her as she picked up the phone. “It’s not like I’ve never had a black eye before.”
“Yes, he’s here,” he heard his mother say. She was silent for a moment, then: “I really don’t understand why — ” Another pause, and then, “Of course he’ll be here. We both will.” She hung up as Matt was opening the freezer to get some ice cubes. “That was Dan Pullman,” she said, and there was something in her voice that made Matt turn to look at her. The color had drained from her face, and her eyes seemed to bore into him. “He wants to talk to you.”
* * *
A PAIR OF headlights swept across the kitchen window. A moment later Joan opened the back door and the chief of police stepped into the mud room. “Matt’s still here?” he asked without preamble.
“Of course he is,” Joan replied, her voice cold. “Aside from the fact that you called only two minutes ago, where would he go?”
The color rose in Pullman’s cheeks, but when he spoke, there was no hint of anger in his voice. “Cell phone. I was only a quarter of a mile away when I called.” His eyes shifted to Matt, who was still standing at the sink, the dishcloth and ice pressed to his left eye. “You get in a fight tonight?” he asked.
For a moment Matt said nothing, but then he lowered the dishcloth to reveal the cut and the bruise. “I didn’t exactly get it in the fight,” he said. “Pete tackled me, and my face hit the ground hard when I went down. And I’ll bet he’s hurting a lot more than I am. Did I break his nose?”
Joan’s eyes widened in shock. “Matt!” she gasped. “You didn’t tell me — ”
Matt wheeled on his mother. “What was I supposed to do?” he demanded. “Just lie there and let him beat the shit out of me?”
Joan recoiled from her son’s anger, her eyes flicking toward Dan Pullman, who seemed to be studying Matt carefully. “Matt! Don’t talk like — ”
Pullman didn’t let her finish. “Why don’t you just try to tell me what happened?” he said. As Matt hesitated, glancing at his mother as if seeking her permission to speak, he sighed heavily. It seemed as if everything in Granite Falls had changed. Up until a few days ago, he thought he had the perfect job — for the most part, all he’d ever been called upon to do was supervise a couple of deputies whose main duty was to keep tourists from speeding through town. Now he had one man dead, two people missing, and no idea of what might be going on, except that he’d known everyone involved almost all his life. As Matt recounted what had happened, Pullman wondered if he shouldn’t try to get some help up from Manchester tomorrow. At least a stranger would be able to look at everything objectively.
“Pete’s a lot bigger than I am,” Matt finished. “I got lucky, or he would have really pounded me.” His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. “He said he was going to kill me.” He spoke the last words so softly they were almost inaudible, but they weren’t lost on Pullman.
“Why would he want to kill you, Matt?” the chief asked, his voice reflecting doubt that Pete Arneson would say such a thing. Pullman’s eyes held Matt’s gaze, and he hoped that when the boy answered — if he answered — his expression might reveal the truth of his words.
A curtain seemed to drop behind Matt’s eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was flat. “He said if I didn’t tell him what I did with Kelly Conroe, he was going to kill me.”
Pullman’s gaze didn’t waver. “That’s not what the Arneson boy says,” he countered, his frustration evident.
