“Uh, sure. I work for Dr. Jerry Mott-you know, the mobile vet? I guess you can reach me there. If not, he’ll know how to get in touch with me.” She gave him the number and watched him jot it carefully down in his notebook before returning it to his pocket. She cleared her throat. “Can I go now?”
“Sure.” He stepped back, offering her his hand. She ignored it, instead levering herself out of the patrol car under her own power. Except that she felt it wasn’t really her own power, but something outside herself, some unseen puppet master manipulating the nerves, tendons and muscles that operated her body, made it stand erect and begin walking down the sloping, grass-furred driveway. Told it to step carefully around the bare patches where the water from the fire hoses had turned the red clay to sticky, slippery muck. Surely it must have been some other guidance system-automatic pilot?-that told her to stop at the bottom of the driveway and open the mailbox and look inside, just as she did every day when she came home from work. Her own consciousness was still encased in its soft, safe place.
She walked back up the road to where she’d parked the green Oldsmobile, her feet finding their way on the uneven verge while she shuffled through the day’s maiclass="underline" mostly junk, maybe a couple of bills, a plain envelope with Mrs. Robey printed on it, several catalogs…her mind registered none of it. Just ahead on the opposite side of the road, her children’s faces hung in the car windows like two pale, not-quite-full moons. And there was another car parked behind the Olds now, a tan sedan that for some reason seemed vaguely familiar. A tan sedan…
“You got any reason you can think of why somebody might want to do this?”
Something clicked on in her brain, shattering her bubble and restoring full power and function. She looked down at the pile of mail in her hands, then shuffled rapidly through it until she came to the plain envelope with her name printed on it. Something about it felt wrong. It just felt wrong. She slid trembling fingers under the flap and lifted it, drew out the single sheet of paper, folded in thirds. She stared at it, her mind registering the sound of a car door slamming as the stack of mail slipped from her nerveless hands and hit the ground with a soft, slithery thud. Catalogs and envelopes fanned out unnoticed across her feet. She unfolded the paper and stared at the words printed there in block letters, hand-printed letters that matched her name on the envelope.
SORRY WE MISSED YOU NEXT TIME WE’LL BE SURE AND STOP BY WHEN YOU AND THE KIDDIES ARE HOME.
She felt cold. She wanted to throw up.
“Mrs. Robey?”
Her head came up slowly and she gazed into the melancholy brown eyes of the man from the FBI. She remembered his name: Special Agent Jake Redfield.
“May I?” He reached toward her cautiously, as if he feared either she or the objects she held in her hands might explode if mishandled. She surrendered them, both the note and the envelope it had come in, and watched with silent revulsion as, touching them gingerly only on their edges, he first read them, then tucked them away in an inside pocket of his suit jacket. Taking her elbow in a firm grip, he said tersely, “Get your kids. I think it’s a good idea if all three of you come with us.”
Summer made a small, sucking sound, her mouth and throat felt sticky, as if from long disuse. “My car-I can’t just-”
“Agent Poole here’ll bring it.” Redfield made a gesture toward the car, in response to which a stocky, middle-aged man with what was left of his gray hair cut in a 1950s-style buzz emerged from the passenger side and slammed the door behind him He came toward them with a purposeful stride, at the same time sweeping his surroundings with narrow-eyed glances the way Summer had seen make-believe cops do on TV shows. Redfield, too, kept looking around him and making small, fidgety adjustments to his clothing, as if he was preparing for the possibility of some sort of action. And in the process, revealing the presence of a holster nestled in the small of his back. The sight of that gun cleared the fog from Summer’s mind like windshield wipers in a drizzle.
“I don’t want my children frightened,” she said in a low, growling voice she hardly recognized as her own. “They’re going to be upset enough as it is.”
“Gotcha.” Redfield shrugged, and his jacket settled once more into lean and innocent lines.
He released her elbow and reached around her to pull open the Oldsmobile’s rear door. The two children shrank away from the opening like wild creatures retreating into their burrows. Before Summer could move to intervene, the FBI man was squatting down to peer into the car and saying in a voice he probably imagined to be cajoling, “Hey, kids, how’d you like to come for a ride with me?”
“Oh, great,” Summer muttered as two pairs of blue eyes widened in alarm. She knew exactly what was going to happen next. Now, children, what do you say if a stranger asks you to go for a ride with him? You just…say…
“No!” shrieked Helen, shaking her head wildly. “No, no, no, no!”
Agent Redfield threw Summer a beseeching look over his shoulder. Arms folded, she glared back at him. His brows drew together, and he turned back to the children with what he probably imagined was a reassuring smile. It made Summer think of Snidely Whiplash. “Look, kids, it’s okay-your mom’s coming, too.”
“Mom?” David said on a rising note of alarm, his eyes zooming in on Summer’s. Her little champion.
“You sure do have a way with children,” she said under her breath as she elbowed the FBI man aside and gathered her daughter into her arms just in time to head off a full-blown case of hysterics. Behind her she could hear Agent Poole snickering, and Agent Redfield’s muttered response, “Hey, just because you’ve got kids…”
“Honey,” Summer crooned, “it’s okay. Helen, David, this is Mr. Redfield. He’s uh…” The FBI? Why did that sound so sinister, so unexplainable? She couldn’t say it. “He’s a policeman. He needs us to go with him so he can ask me some questions, okay?”
“What kinda questions?” Helen demanded to know, still sullen and suspicious.
“Well, honey, it’s about our…house I’m afraid…”
“Is our house burned up?” David asked, scrambling after her as she backed out of the stuffy car with Helen’s arms in a stranglehold around her neck.
“Yes,” said Summer on a long exhalation. “I’m afraid so.”
“Is everything burned? Everything?” Her son’s eyes searched hers, liquid with hopelessness.
“Yes, honey. I’m sorry.” She put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him against her side. Her throat felt parched… charred. Honey, I’m so sorry…Mr. Bunny, after nine years only tattered blue remnants, but I know how much that blanket meant to you. And all your books, your games… Gone.
“It’s a good thing Beatle and Cleo and Peggy Sue are at Jason’s house, huh, Mom?” said Helen. “Or they’d be burned up, too.”
Summer gulped a breath as if it were a drink of water. “Yes, sweetheart, it’s a very good thing.” She was conscious of the two men, one on either side of her, hemming her in. Protecting her, she realized. But she felt crowded, suffocated. Suddenly she wanted, more than anything in the world, to be alone. Just to be alone. So she could think about this. So she could realize this. So she could go ahead and be frightened. So she could cry, if she wanted to.
“Mom? Where will we sleep?”
Summer gave David’s shoulders a squeeze. “You let me worry about that, okay?”
“Mrs. Robey,…” Agent Redfield was watching her with his dark, sorrowful eyes, the set of his shoulders telegraphing urgency. He jerked his head toward the tan sedan.