Fleet laughed softly. "No, you won't. Your mama knows when to open her mouth, and when to close it. That's what I'm gonna teach you."
Lacy began trembling. "You know what good pupils do?" Fleet inquired. "They get down on their knees, and say please. That be how the teacher knows it's time."
She felt his hands on her shoulders. Half-staggering, she fell to her knees and saw his shorts around his ankles.
Her eyes filled with tears. Gently, he cradled her chin in his hands, gazing down at her. "Know what?" he said with a ruminative smile. "You got eyes just like your daddy's."
Mute, Lacy stared up at him, scared and desperate. He took her hand and put it on his most intimate place. "You don't know your daddy, do you?"
She shook her head, eyes closing. The last thing she remembered him saying was, "Name was Payton. The one your mama turned to for con-so-lation. Just like what I've got for you."
* * *
Stunned, Terri faced Betty Sims.
She sat away from her daughter, at the other end of her couch, a figure of abject shame. Terri waited until Sims could look at her.
"You wanted to know," Sims said in a voice shot through with misery. "You wanted to know everything."
Terri struggled with her own disbelief. "You were with Payton."
Briefly, Betty shut her eyes. "Just one or two times, a few days before those two got arrested. I wanted him to stop Eddie from beating up on me."
"Did he?"
Sims shrugged. "Couldn't do nothing from jail."
Suddenly, the logic of events long past struck Terri so hard that she felt herself inhale with a shudder. Softly, she asked. "When did you tell Eddie about Payton?"
Sims turned away. "Day or two after it happened. Eddie beat it out of me."
Silent, Terri absorbed this. Whatever the other reasons for all that Eddie Fleet had done, the sexual abuse of this child was a last act of reprisal. "And you told no one."
"No."
Terri turned to Lacy. "Will you? Will you go to the police?"
Wearily, Sims gazed at her daughter.
"Yes," the girl told Terri. "Let Mama's boyfriend be afraid of me."
* * *
"We need to file a third petition," Terri urged Chris by telephone. "Not only is Fleet a pedophile but turning in the brothers was more than just an act of survival. Taking Payton down felt extra good to him."
Chris was silent. "Of course," he said at last, "Pell will say that Betty has it in for Fleet, and that stories of childhood abuse are notoriously unreliable. He may even claim that Lacy's trying to save the uncle she never knew she had."
In her excitement and exhaustion, the warped logic of such an argument had not occurred to Terri. "Rennell's an uncle," she said softly, unable to define the sadness this made her feel.
"Anyhow, Terri, come home soon. We've got a new petition to work on, and Johnny Moore's got something else for you. For whatever finding Tasha Bramwell turns out to be worth."
Before calling Johnny, Terri tracked down Charles Monk, to tell him what had happened to Lacy Sims. Still no one knew where Fleet might be.
* * *
At last, after staring for sleepless hours at the red-illuminated numbers of a hotel room clock radio, Terri drifted off to sleep. The dream which came to her was Elena's, except that Terri had taken her daughter's place.
She was alone in a darkened bedroom, and there was banging on the door.
Elena's father was coming.
The door opened. Terri hugged herself, and saw his shadow coming toward her. She prayed it was her mother, and then a man's face came into the light.
"Both of you," Eddie Fleet said in her husband's perfect English. "First your mother, and then you."
Terri woke up sobbing.
SEVENTEEN
IN THE MORNING, HAVING SLEPT LITTLE, TERRI FLEW TO BIRMINGHAM, Alabama, where Tasha Bramwell Harding, a mother of two preschoolers, worked as an accountant for a health care company.
Unlike her approach to Betty Sims, Terri did not attempt surprise—other than to place a call which, from Tasha's first reaction, was deeply unsettling. But her voice recovered its businesslike reserve, and with a note of resignation, Tasha agreed to meet Terri after work on the patio of a local restaurant.
From the plane, Birmingham had not been what Terri had expected. Though squat steel mills jutted from the valley which contained the center city, they were dwarfed by the sleek glass towers of a city on the rise, their windows glinting in the afternoon sun. The summer air was hot and moist, and a lush garden surrounded the patio where Tasha—still the slender, pretty woman of Monk's description—awaited with a look of unease.
She was in her mid-thirties now, with straightened hair, a lineless face whose oldest features were her dark, watchful eyes, and the well-tailored veneer of a professional woman. Her husband, Johnny Moore had told Terri, was a buyer for the region's largest sporting goods store, and they had found a life for themselves in a city which, while bounded by white suburbs, was controlled by a black electorate led by a thriving middle class. The place, and the woman, seemed far away from the Bayview.
Terri extended her hand. "Teresa Paget," she said.
The woman's gaze, like her hand, was cool. "Tasha Harding."
Terri detected an emphasis on the surname, as if to signal that Tasha Bramwell had existed in some other life. They ordered two glasses of iced tea, saying little, Tasha clearly sizing up the woman who had dropped into her new life, dragging the past with her. When the waitress left, Terri said bluntly, "I guess you know Payton's dead."
"Yes." Tasha's voice quivered briefly, then became toneless. "I also know he confessed."
Terri could feel a wall drop, sealing off Tasha Harding from the woman who had loved, and lied for, Payton Price. "According to Payton," Terri said, "the second man was Eddie Fleet."
A look of disquiet, its cause indecipherable, flashed in Tasha's eyes. "And you're wondering if I know what really happened. Maybe something Payton told me."
"Maybe. But not just that. Anything—anything at all—which suggests that Fleet might have been guilty, and lied to save himself."
Tasha appraised her. "Well," she said, "I'd know about lying, wouldn't I."
"That was then, Tasha. Now Rennell's scheduled to die."
Tasha was silent. Eyes hooded, she took a long sip of tea. "I don't know what happened," she said at last. "Rennell was slow, Payton's shadow. I didn't see any meanness in him. But get him on crack, and Payton wanting to do something, and who knows. Rennell might have been dumb, but he came with a man's equipment."
This stark assessment, etched with sexual disdain, brought Terri up short. "You told Monk you'd never known Rennell to have sex with anyone. And according to Flora Lewis, it was the other man she saw—not Payton—who pulled Thuy Sen off the street. Does that sound like Rennell to you?"
Tasha weighed her answer—less, Terri sensed, out of uncertainty than out of doubt as to whether she should answer at all. "No," she said tersely. "I still have a hard time seeing him do that."
"What about Eddie Fleet?"
Tasha gave her a long, silent look. "What's the point of this?" she asked. "I don't know what happened. I lied because Payton asked me to. Now you're asking me to guess about what I lied about. What good will that do anyone—me and my family included?"
For Terri, the last phrase sounded a bell of warning, suggesting a reluctance deeper than Tasha had acknowledged. "Look," Terri said evenly, "they're about to execute Rennell. I know in my bones he's innocent. But unless I can piece together a compelling case—any way I can—I'll have to watch him die.
"Your 'lies' didn't just help Lou Mauriani convict a guilty man, they may have helped condemn an innocent one. I'll take anything you've got to give me—any impressions or scraps of information that might help me save Rennell. I don't care what it is, and for the sake of your own conscience, you shouldn't either. No matter how you try to escape it, his death will be part of your life."