inside. If someone comes through the door while that thing’s hooked up, it will blow them-and all of us-to kingdom come.”
He took another shaky breath. “From this cabin, someone can look out and see down the slope, right?”
“Yes.”
“She can see people coming up the road. She even has perimeter alarms set. You know what those are?”
“I know what a perimeter is…”
“Those alarms go off if anyone comes close to the cabin. They won’t ring out or anything-they’re a set of lights near her bed and by her desk downstairs. She checks them all the time. If you had gone up the driveway, she would be able to tell.”
“Mom and Carrie will be worried. They’ll look for us.”
She saw the stricken look on his face.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Mom has been hurt. Very badly.”
Genie tried to take this in. “Did Cleo hurt her?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. She says she didn’t. She says Mom fell down the stairs before she got there. It’s my fault. It’s my fault…”
Because you gave Mom pills in her drink, Genie thought, remembering the mortar and pestle. Cleo lies, and you lie, too. She suddenly felt cold inside, and wanted to move away from him, but she stayed still. “Carrie…” she whispered.
“Carrie is safe.”
She looked up at him.
He held the letter up. “Did you and Carrie write to Ms. Kelly?”
“No,” she said.
“Tell me why Ms. Kelly came to our house, Genie. Tell me the truth. It’s really important. I mean it.”
So she told him everything she knew. When she came to the part about figuring out about the pills in the Bloody Mary, she skipped over that, but thinking of it helped her find some defiance. “And I remember someone named Mason. Who is he?”
He looked away. “Your brother. He’s in prison.”
Brother, yes! Her mental picture of him came more sharply into focus. Then the next words registered. “In prison!”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He hesitated, then said, “He was wrongly accused of a crime.” He took a deep breath and added, “If anything happens to me, Genie, try to get Aaron and Troy away from here. If you find someone to help you, tell them to call the police. If they won’t call the police, don’t go near them. A good person will call the police if you ask them to, okay?”
She nodded.
“Ask the police to take you to Grandfather and tell him that he must take you to your aunt Elisa-to her, and only to her.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s-she’s someone who will love you. I promise you that. She will know who you are. She’ll…she’ll help you to get your brother out of prison.” He paused. “You have another brother, too. His name is Caleb.”
Caleb. A face came to mind with that name, a face not so unlike her own. A dark-haired, teasing teenaged boy, a boy who helped her to learn to read.
She felt confused, unable to take in all he was telling her, to fit these half-remembered people into her own idea of herself. Mason and Caleb were her brothers, but Dad had never mentioned them before. Dad let Mason stay in prison, when he knew it was wrong. Why? An aunt she had never met would love her and take care of her… She knew Dad wasn’t telling her everything, but she couldn’t even manage to make sense of this much of it.
“Aunt Elisa will be good to you, I promise,” Dad said.
Genie decided she could straighten out the past later. She had bigger worries ahead of her. What was going to happen to her family? The boys…
“Will she love Aaron and Troy, too?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
“And Carrie?”
“Yes.”
Something about the way he said that single word tipped her off. “You know what happened to her!” she accused.
“Yes.” He seemed upset, and she feared the worst, but he said, “Carrie is fine, I think. But Uncle Giles tried to hurt her, because she surprised him when she came to the house with Ms. Kelly.” He became even more upset as he talked about it. “There was no excuse for it! None! He should have just let her go.” He paused, tried to calm down again. “Cleo rescued them-Ms. Kelly and Carrie. Unfortunately, Uncle Giles fought with her, and she killed him.”
“Killed him!” Cleo is a liar.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, this is too much to be laying on you. I shouldn’t have told you-”
“No, I want to know the truth. If he was trying to hurt Carrie…”
“He was,” he said angrily. “And he wanted to hurt us. That’s why Cleo brought us here, to protect us.”
“But if he’s dead now…” she began to ask reasonably.
“It’s all confusing, I know. I wish I could explain everything to you. But even though Cleo killed Uncle Giles for a very good reason, she…she doesn’t want to go to the police. She’s afraid of them.”
“So she told you she saved Carrie and Ms. Kelly from Uncle Giles?” And you believed her?
“Yes.”
“Carrie is safe?”
“Yes.”
He seemed sure. She wanted to be sure, too. “Carrie will tell other people about us. They’ll look for us.”
“Yes. But…but that might not be good, Genie. Not if Cleo gets upset or worried, and right now she is upset and worried. So please forgive me, but…” He tore up the letter. “If Cleo thinks you’re trying to contact Ms. Kelly, she might kill us all.”
“We have to get out of here!” Genie said.
“Daddy!” Aaron called. “Look at what we made!”
“I like it,” Dad said, and he stashed the torn pieces of paper into a crevice between the rocks.
“We’ll talk more later,” Dad promised.
They had just walked over to the little snow figure the boys had made when Cleo burst out of the cabin.
“Everybody inside! Right now!”
CHAPTER 53
Wednesday, May 3
11:30 A.M.
LAS PIERNAS
I SPENT the morning with Ben, Ethan, and Caleb-Caleb asked us to come with him to talk to his mom. I had hesitated to be there during what probably should have been a private reunion, but Caleb persuaded me that she’d want my reassurance about how the children were being treated, based on my encounter with Carrie. “Besides, you’ve heard Jenny’s voice,” he said. “On your voice mail.”
Elisa Delacroix Fletcher proved to be as smart and resilient as Caleb, although she was understandably having
