"You'd be surprised how many people either don't want to get involved at all or want the protection of anonymity." She'd reached the telephone ahead of him. She grabbed the receiver and held it in what looked like protective custody while she met his furious stare. "I know who to talk to," she told him gently, and began to dial. Zack expelled a frustrated breath and combed his hair back with his fingers.
" Family Crisis Center -Dr. Larry Whitlaw, please," Maddy said into the phone, still watching him with a worried frown.
Zack took two agitated paces to the left, four back to the right, and then, muttering under his breath, pivoted and stalked into the men's dressing rooms. He took his time showering and dressing, and even wasted some more time trying to instill discipline in his hair. That effort failed, but in the process some of the discipline must have managed to penetrate to his brain. He was calm when he went back out into the office.
She was sitting on the corner of his desk, waiting for him. She was wearing a white sundress with a full skirt, and her long legs were crossed at the knee. She looked like the original snow queen. Incredible, he thought. The other day she'd been Marilyn at her sexiest and most vulnerable; today she was Grace Kelly. Who the hell was she really? And why did he want to know?
"What happens now?" he asked harshly, jamming his hands into his pockets.
Maddy took a deep breath. "The home environment will be thoroughly checked out. Counseling and other assistance services will be made available to the family-"
"Family!" she sounded as if she were reading an information booklet aloud! "What about that poor little kid? Won't they get her out of there? Lock up whoever did that to her?"
"They may remove her from the home temporarily, if the situation warrants," Maddy said carefully. "But permanent separation is usually a last resort."
"Last resort? Whose?" He wanted to grab her and shake her out of that maddening professional calm. "What, does somebody have to get killed first?"
"Zack." Her voice was very low and unusually hoarse. She had to clear her throat before she could go on. "These children love their parents, in spite of… everything. Breaking up a home is… well, it's very traumatic for the child. We try to help, not make things worse."
Zack took a deep breath, held it while he glared helplessly at the ceiling, then released it in a long sigh. "I'm sorry. I just feel so… so damn…"
She stood up and laid a hand on his arm. "You did the right thing. The right people are moving on it now. Something will be done, I promise you."
But would it be the right thing? he wondered. And would it be enough? He took another deep breath, then realized his chest was aching in a way it hadn't in a very long time. He stared down at the hand on his arm, and she snatched it away. He reached out and caught it. "Hey, listen, are you doing anything right this minute?"
She'd made a startled little gasp when he'd grabbed her hand, and was staring at him as if she thought he might explode. "N-now?"
"Yeah. How about a cup of coffee or something? I don't know about you, but I need to get out of here. I'd like to talk about this a little more." He hesitated, then added, "Preferably someplace quiet."
She was biting her lip, looking more like Marilyn now than Grace. After a moment she said, "Okay. How about my place?"
It was unexpected, to say the least, but he didn't show how startled he was. He stood up and said crisply, "Your place it is. I'll follow you."
As he drove behind her nondescript white sedan down a long, creepy lane completely overhung with avocado trees, it occurred to him to wonder, and not for the first time, just what kind of woman he was dealing with. The trouble was, she gave off contradictory signals. She looked like a showgirl. That was the only way to put it. She was leggy and statuesque and blond, the kind of blond whom gentlemen are said to prefer. And what was she? A social worker, for Pete's sake! A social worker who dealt with mistreated kids. Zack still had trouble believing it. It had him feeling strangely out-of-step. It would be interesting to see her place. Maybe there he'd find the clues that would help him fit her pieces together.
And then he wondered again why it mattered. He felt guilty for thinking about her, when he should have been thinking about that little girl. But dammit, Theresa was there all the time anyway, in the back of his mind, and had been for days. And now it was out of his hands. He'd done what he could, and the rest was up to the people who knew how to deal with that kind of sickness. He had to get the kid out of his mind. Forget her. He had a feeling Maddy Gordon could help him forget.
It was quiet in the grove. He could hear the rustle of dry leaves under his tires, the call of a crow somewhere in the treetops. Ahead, fingers of sunlight slanted through openings in the trees, spotlighting an oddly-shaped weathered gray building with no windows. It looked like an enchanted cottage, isolated in a sunlit glade in the middle of a dark and mysterious forest. He kept expecting an ugly little old lady to come around the corner croaking, "Nibble, nibble like a mouse, who's been nibbling at my house?" Or seven fat little men to come marching down the lane singing, "Hi ho, hi ho, it's home from work we go!"
But when Maddy unlocked the front door and stood aside to invite him inside the cottage, he realized he'd had the wrong story. "My Lord," he breathed after a moment's stunned silence. "It's Geppetto's workshop!"
From every shelf and chair and tabletop, faces peered at him; purple faces, blue faces, green faces, bright orange and yellow faces; faces with big sad eyes, faces with bright shoe-button eyes, faces with sleeping eyes, long curling lashes lying against fuzzy cheeks; animal faces, people faces, and faces born of pure imagination; faces with ears, faces with horns, faces with tufts and billows of iridescent hair. Each face was attached to a body, and most of the bodies had arms. But except for the ones suspended by wires from the ceiling, very few of the bodies had legs.
"Puppets," he said in wonder. "They're all… puppets." And then, with horrified disbelief, "My Lord-one's alive!''
For in one particularly furry, gray-blue face a pair of round green eyes had, unmistakably and oh, so slowly, blinked.
Maddy gave a delighted gurgle of laughter. "Incorrigible, you rascal, can the act and come down from there."
The green eyes closed and a pink mouth opened in a wide, insolent feline yawn.
Geez, Zack thought, is she a witch? It was becoming a matter of pride with him to appear unflappable around her, not to let her see how much she could surprise him. And so, to cover his shock and give himself a few seconds to regain his poise, he reached out and gathered up the big gray cat from his perch on a shelf full of puppets. The cat seemed momentarily nonplussed. It reared back its head to stare at him, then flattened its ears and squinted and sniffed at Zack's chin. And finally the cat went completely boneless in his arms, paws in the air, and began to purr.
"That was a test, you know," Maddy said. She was standing beside a small table that held a phone and message machine. It seemed to be the only surface in the place that wasn't covered with puppets or puppet parts.
Zack lifted one eyebrow. "Do I pass?"
"Oh, with flying colors. You're the first, I think." She smiled wryly. "Most people tend to… freak out, as a friend of mine would say, when Corry goes into his act."
"His act?"
"Corry likes to impersonate a puppet, and then frighten people out of their wits by coming to life. He's a born showman, and has faultless timing. He only does it for first-time visitors, and always when they're still in shock just from seeing the place. After that, I guess he figures they've got his number."
"Amazing," Zack murmured, and set the cat on the floor, much to its disgust. After a perfunctory wash designed to save face, Corry made his proud, unhurried exit.