CHAPTER 52
Wednesday, May 3
9:30 A.M.
SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS
GENIE had fed the boys breakfast an hour ago and was now trying to get them to settle down enough to get their jackets and mittens on. Dad and Cleo had come downstairs just as the boys finished eating, and had a not- so-quiet argument about the TV, which had been settled with a compromise. The compromise was that the kids could go outside with Dad while Cleo watched TV. The boys wanted to stay inside and watch TV, too, of course, but Dad snapped at them and they gave up on the idea. They were always full of energy after breakfast, and now they were being little devils. It would be good to get them outside and let them run around a little.
Genie tried not to show how excited she was about going outside. She had addressed and stamped the letter, and now she had it tucked inside her jacket pocket.
The air was cold, but most of the snow was gone. A few patches could be found under the shadiest trees or near the biggest rocks. The little snowman they had built yesterday was already a lump of ice and dirt and sticks. She was glad she had used Carrie’s camera to take a picture of him before he melted.
Dad didn’t come outside right away, and so she took her chance. “Race you to the road!” she called to the boys.
They took the challenge and headed up the drive.
They had not reached the first bend when she heard Dad yell, “Kids, no!”
The boys stopped immediately, but Genie pretended she didn’t hear him. She kept on going.
“You two stay right there!” she heard Dad yell at the boys. “Genie! Genie!”
She kept running, turning up the bend, now out of sight of the cabin.
But Dad’s legs were long and it didn’t take even a minute for him to catch up to her. He grabbed hold of her arm, clutching it hard. It hurt, and something about that grip made her go crazy. All her worry, all her fears about Carrie and Mom and their family came boiling up inside her, and she did something she had never done before in her life-she tried to hurt Dad.
He was not quite on balance as he took hold of her, or it never would have worked, but she twisted and kicked and thrashed, and the combination of her movements made him stumble and fall. She fell, too, but got up faster and ran.
He quickly caught up with her again, and this time he grabbed her and completely overpowered her, pushing her to the ground, pinning her. His face, looming over hers, was red with anger.
Now she was frightened in an entirely different way.
He stood up and pulled her up by the shoulders. He shook her. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”
She looked at him, wide-eyed. She nearly began to cry. This man wasn’t Dad, not the Dad she loved. At this thought, her anger rose up again and she shouted back at him, “What happened to my father?”
His face went pale.
“You aren’t my dad! You act like someone I don’t know!”
He set her down but kept his hands on her shoulders. His hands were trembling. He looked awful. Suddenly she felt bad about yelling at him.
He glanced at the ground and frowned, then bent to pick up the envelope, which had fallen out of her pocket. “My God…Genie…”
She didn’t say anything.
“Genie…Genie, sit here with me for a minute, okay?”
She nodded, and they moved over to a big rock. He called to the boys, who were standing still in shock. “Genie and I are going to talk for a minute. Why don’t you build another little snowman out of the snow over there?”
“We could make a snowboy,” Troy suggested.
“Yes, that would be good.”
Despite the coolness of the air, Dad’s face was sweating. Genie tried to catch her breath. Now that she had yelled at him, and all the rest, she felt shaky, too. Although they were sitting close to each other, it seemed to her that Dad was far away, that something important had changed between them. She wasn’t sure she wanted it, and even as she wished that it was a week ago and she and Carrie had never talked about rememberings or called Irene Kelly, she could hear one of Grandfather’s sayings, “What’s done is done, even though we might wish and wish to change it. So when there is no going back, you must go forward.” Until now, that had only been something she thought when she broke a plate or a glass while doing dishes. Now she had broken her whole family.
“Did I hurt you?” Dad asked.
He had, but she shook her head.
“Good. I never, ever wanted to hurt you, Genie. Always remember that, okay?” He started crying. Although yesterday she had wondered once or twice if he had been crying, she had never seen him break down in front of her before. He brought his knees up and put his right arm over them, then rested his forehead on his arm, hiding his face.
Genie, on his left, moved closer to him. She took his free hand and held it tight. “I know, Daddy. I know. Please don’t cry.”
“I’ve ruined everything,” he said.
“We’ll be all right,” Genie said, patting his arm. She quickly glanced over to where the boys were playing and was relieved to see that they were engrossed in gathering snow for their snowboy.
Dad wiped at his face, took some big breaths, and sat up a little straighter. “I’m sorry,” he said again, but in a stronger voice. “It doesn’t help for me to fall apart, does it?” He pulled her closer and said, “Whatever happens, I want you to know that I love you and Troy and Aaron and Carrie.”
“I know, Dad. We love you, too. Don’t be sad.”
He took another big breath. “I don’t know how long Cleo is going to be inside, so I’m going to tell you some things, just in case-well, just in case.
“Genie, I made a big mistake-a lot of big mistakes. We’re here because I-I liked Cleo, and I believed that Cleo would keep us safe. But instead…instead, we’re all in danger here.”
“Why don’t we leave?”
“I want to, but we have to be careful. If we’re not careful, someone could get hurt. Cleo…Cleo has special skills.”
“All those guns-”
“She kills people, Genie. I’m being very serious about that.”
“She’s a murderer? All those guns-Dad-let’s get in the car and get away!”
“She has the keys to the car. Besides, I think she has some kind of alarm and God knows what else set up in the garage now, too. She warned me that it would be unhealthy to try to go in there. And one of the first things she did when she got here was to destroy my cell phone.”
Genie frowned.
“Even though she’s a little…out of control, she likes me, Genie. And she wanted to help us. But she’s not like other people. She doesn’t think like other people do. I don’t want her to hurt you or the boys. For now we have to make sure she stays calm and doesn’t feel threatened by us, all right? Sooner or later we’ll get a chance. Or she’ll figure out that she can do better on her own and leave us.”
Genie frowned. “Dad, she won’t want us to tell people about her. If she kills people…”
“That’s why we have to be cautious, Genie.”
“The guns. The booby trap-”
“You know about the booby trap?” He looked shocked.
“It’s under the house.”
“It’s…it’s like a bomb, Genie. She can easily go back under the house, hook it up again, and trap all of us
