Out Of The Deep I Cry

and I can talk about this.”

“No.” She waved the gun toward Debba. “You don’t think I’d do it. But I will. I want to know what you did with Allan!”

“I didn’t do anything with him!” Debba shouted. Whitley started to cry, and Skylar, who had been staring at his mother, twisted out of his grandmother’s hold and pressed himself to the purple bus.

Whang! The boy beat his hands against the bus. Whang! Whang! The hollow metallic sounds were like a whale assaulting a submarine.

“What is that?” Renee said, her head swiveling between Skylar and Debba. “What’s he doing? What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s autistic, thanks to your husband!”

If Clare had had a gun, she would have shot Debba herself. Renee swung the gun straight at Debba’s face. “I ought to shoot you right now, you witch!” Debba squawked and ducked, covering her head with her arms. Renee pivoted, and the gun was now pointed at Whitley. “Or maybe it should be her first!”

Lilly cried out and turned, moving forward, one step, two, before the gun went off with a sound that filled up the valley like God’s handclap.

“Stop right there!” Renee ordered.

Clare clenched her teeth, forcing herself not to lunge forward. She realized the doctor’s wife had shot high. Lilly stood in the barnyard, trembling, holding Whitley to her front so that her body was between her granddaughter and the gun. The echo of the shot rolled off. Debba was sobbing now, still bent over, her son beating away the outside world; Whang! Whang! Whang!

Clare considered the distance between herself and Mrs. Rouse. If she rushed fast enough and hard enough, she might be able to knock the older woman over even with a bullet in her. Then Debba could get the gun. If she could keep it together. If she even thought of it. Clare wasn’t afraid. She was glad she wasn’t afraid. Just worried that Debba wouldn’t understand what to do, and that she’d die for nothing.

Hardball Wright stood behind her, draped his memory arms around her shoulders, and gave her a shake. There’s a better way. Misdirect. Feint. Delay. Reinforcements.

And she saw it, the whole thing laid out, what she had to do.

There’s hope for you yet, Fergusson. Hardball laughed in her ear.

“Mrs. Rouse,” she said, this time letting her nerves show in her voice. “Let me go. I don’t have anything to do with this. Please. Just let me go.”

Debba and Lilly both looked at her in disbelief.

“Please,” Clare said.

“You’ll just call 911,” Renee said.

“No. I swear to you, before God, on my priestly vows, I won’t call 911.”

“Clare!” Debba’s voice was outraged. Renee Rouse glanced at her. Clare could have kissed her.

“Okay,” the doctor’s wife said. “You may go.”

The walk across the road and up the gravel drive was one of the longest in her life. As soon as she slid into the Shelby, she yanked her bag off the floor and dumped its contents on the seat next to her. There it was. Her cell phone.

“Roll down your windows!” Renee had taken several steps closer to the drive. “I want you to roll down your windows so I can see you’re not calling anyone.”

People didn’t even trust priests anymore. What was the world coming to? She leaned over and cranked down the passenger window with one hand, hitting the last-call-list button on her phone with the other. She scrolled down to Russ’s cell phone number while unrolling her own window. She pressed the call button, dropped the phone in her lap, and shifted her car from park to first and back to park again. Then she turned the key and laid on the gas.

The screeching, coughing noise of the engine covered up the sound of Russ, saying “Hello?” She turned the key again. The car sounded as if it were dying. “Hello?” The tinny, unamplified voice sounded annoyed.

She leaned over toward the passenger window, making sure the phone’s mike was unobstructed. “Mrs. Rouse,” she shouted. “There’s something wrong with my car! It won’t start!”

Mrs. Rouse stood stock-still at that. Clare had pegged her as the sort of woman for whom any car emergency was man’s business. And there were no men around to help out here.

The small voice in her lap was swearing now. Clare went on. “I want to come back out of the car, but I’m afraid you’ll shoot me! Please lower your gun!”

Russ’s voice had fallen silent. She risked a glance down. The call was still in session. He was listening.

“I haven’t called 911,” she yelled to Mrs. Rouse. “I kept my promise. Can I get out of the car and go stand by Debba?”

“Clare, tell me where you are.” Russ’s small voice was hushed, as if he was afraid of being overheard.

“Or if you want, I could go into the Clows’ house!”

From her lap, she heard Russ telling someone to drive toward Powell’s Corners.

Renee finally came to a decision. “Come back out here,” she said. “Slowly. I don’t want to see anything in your hands.”

“I won’t have anything in my hands. Please don’t shoot me.”

“Clare, can you hide your phone? Snap two times for yes.”

She snapped twice.

“Keep the line open. I’m muting from my end, so no one will hear me saying anything. But I’ll hear you. This is Renee Rouse? With a gun?”

She snapped twice.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

“What’s keeping you?” Renee yelled. “I told you to get out of the car and get over here!”

Clare slipped the phone into one of her skirt pockets and opened the door. She walked slowly and carefully toward Debba. “Mrs. Rouse, you were going to let me go. Please, I beg you, let Debba’s mother and two children go.”

“I already told you no. That’s far enough.” She waved the gun at Clare, who stopped a few feet away from Debba. From across the roof of Mrs. Rouse’s car, she could see Lilly’s back, with Whitley’s skinny legs wrapped around her waist. One of the girl’s rain boots had fallen off. Renee’s attention was on Clare, and Lilly was moving, step by step, closer toward her grandson. Debba saw her, too, and in a moment, Renee was going to realize what was happening.

Clare began to walk toward the doctor’s wife. Renee frowned and trained the gun more decidedly on Clare. “Stop right there,” she said. Clare took another step. “I said stop!”

Clare raised her arms dramatically. “Jesus!” she said. Across the barnyard, Lilly was almost to Skylar. Lord only knew what sort of sound the kids might make when their grandmother took off running. She’d better turn up the volume. “Jesus, call down Your healing power on these Your servants!” she bawled.

“Stop that,” Renee said. Debba stopped staring at her mother and turned to look at Clare.

“Bring down the power of the Almighty and save these poor sinners!” She could do this. Her great-grandfather Avery had been a dirt-road preacher in Alabama a hundred years ago. “It is sin that fills our hearts with wrath and fear and pain! It is sin that separates us from our loved ones! It is sin that makes us turn our backs on Your loving aid!”

“Stop it! Stop it right now!” Renee advanced on Clare, her arm shaking.

Clare dropped to her knees, ignoring the gravel’s bite. “Pray with me, Sister Rouse! Pray with me, Sister Clow!” She launched into the loudest hymn she knew. “ ‘Wha-at a friend we have in Je-sus! All our sins and grief to bear!’ ”

The car blocked her view of Lilly and the children, but she knew when it happened. Debba let out a strangled cry of fear and relief, and Renee spun around. She screeched, an inarticulate sound of rage, and turned on Debba and Clare. “Get up!” she shouted. “Get up!”

Clare shut up and climbed to her feet. She didn’t see Lilly or the children. “Where are they?” she asked Debba.

“Behind the bus.” Debba started to weep. “Behind the bus.” She glared at Renee. “Shoot me if you want. You