Sam admired them. "Great! Now we need a lot of stones, so we can write out the uniform number."
Patrick went off again.
"That must have been pretty tough, your mother suddenly disappearing," Sam said, continuing our conversation.
I shrugged. "The tough part was having to raise my father alone."
He smiled a little, but his eyes were serious. "Do you know how to contact your mother?"
I looked out at the bay, at the cold blue-gray waves, their jagged glitter. "Yes, but I won't. Ever. Can we change the subject?"
He didn't answer right away. "Okay. What do you want to talk about?"
"Patrick." I watched him at the edge of the water, picking up stones. There were others on dryer land, but he wanted the wet ones, the shiny ones. "I am really worried about him."
"Has his loving family killed any more pets?" Sam asked.
"He doesn't have any other pets, unless you count November."
I told Sam about the strange reappearance of Ashley's cat and recounted the other odd events: the way Patrick had played the song Ashley had played, with the same incorrect note; the dare on the diving board-the same dare Ashley had made to me. Once I started, I couldn't stop and I told him everything, though I avoided using the word "ghost."
"Sam," I said, finding my nerve at last, "what if Patrick sees and hears something… something real?"
"Like what?"
I don't know-a force, a spirit, the mind of Ashley. I think you may be right about her being murdered. What if Ashley is seeking justice?" I rushed on. "Or what if she is lonely and wants Patrick with her, in her world, forever?"
"Get a grip, Kate!" Sam exclaimed.
I had one, till someone pushed me down the steps. Maybe it was someone in the family. Or maybe it was Ashley. I can feel Patrick resisting me now when I talk to him, closing his mind to me. What if Ashley is trying to separate us, so she can put him in a deadly situation?"
Sam bent down, picked up the shells that had slipped through my fingers, and put them back in my hand. "We don't need supernatural events to explain what is happening."
I had guessed he would say that.
"Patrick is lonely and hurting," Sam went on. "What do kids like that do? Create imaginary playmates for company and get attention however they can.
He's been very successful at getting it-his dares have rattled you, his talk of Ashley has rattled his family."
"That's what I thought at first," I said, "but too many eerie things have happened. Patrick knows too much about Ashley. He knows things I didn't think anyone else knew but Ashley and me."
"Kate, all little kids have secrets they think adults don't know. Not only do they know, but so do the brothers and sisters who spy on the kids-or, in this case, cousins, like Westbrook Caulfield." He said the name as haughtily as Brook had.
I shook my head, rejecting his suggestion.
"Okay, let's say you're right," he said. "Then you should be able to solve the mystery of Ashley's death pretty easily. Learn ghost talk and ask her who killed her."
I felt mocked. "That's what I get for trusting you."
He took a step back. "Excuse me! Trust doesn't mean you'll get the response you want from someone, but that you'll get an honest response, and that the other person will stick by you even when you can't agree."
Stick by you for how long, through how much? I wondered. What is the expiration date on trust?
I watched Patrick tiptoeing toward a gull, leaning forward, calling to it, trying to befriend it. He was a kid desperate for companions-people, animals, ghosts. I kicked at the stones beneath my feet, then crouched down. "I should collect some of these. Patrick has been distracted."
Sam crouched next to me. "I'm telling you again, Kate, you can trust me."
Saying no more, he quietly gathered stones with me till I called to Patrick.
We climbed the steps and found our snowman sweating, its surface shining in the warm afternoon sun. We pressed the shells in place, then worked on the number for his "jersey." Patrick chose 23.
"Twenty-three!" Sam exclaimed. "Are you saying my ears look like clamshells and my hair like dry seaweed?"
Patrick cackled. "Yup."
When our hockey player was complete, we went for a walk. Patrick wanted to show Sam and me his tricks on the monkey bars. As we passed the garage, November sauntered out of the bushes and followed us to the workers' cottages, where the old play set was. Sam glanced sideways at me, as if to ask if this was the cat I'd told him about.
When the play equipment was in sight, Patrick raced ahead.
"It's not exactly state-of-the-art," Sam remarked, observing the large metal structures.
"It was built by a groundskeeper from equipment he salvaged. Patrick has a new set beyond the pool, but the swings aren't half as tall, and the plastic slide is slow. He prefers this one."
I caught my breath as I watched Patrick swing himself around a bar and narrowly miss whacking his skull. "Don't forget where your head is."
I guess it's genetic," Sam remarked. "Guys just have to show off."
"Watch this! Is everybody watching?" Patrick shouted.
"We see you."
He leaped from a high bar to the ground.
"Good jump!"
"Want to see another?" he called, and didn't wait for our reply.
Sam leaned over and brushed snow off a bench, then gestured for me to sit down. "Which house did you live in?" he asked, turning to gaze at the cottages behind us.
I turned with him. "The one on the end with the green trim."
"And that's where your dad painted?"
"No, Adrian gave him part of the orangerie-the light was better there. Sam, since you mentioned Dad, there's something"-l swallowed in mid-sentence, still awkward with the truth-"something I need to tell you about. Yesterday I learned that Dad was the father of Ashley and that my mother discovered it two weeks before Ashley died. That doesn't mean she killed Ashley," I added quickly. "I'm telling you only because I said your father went after her without a motive. The truth is, your father had a good reason to chase us that night."
Sam nodded.
"You're not surprised."
"No, I knew about your father and Corinne."
"You what? Why didn't you tell me? How long have you known?"
He shrugged. "I guess I was eleven or twelve when I asked my mother to tell me everything she knew about the case. My father left behind some notes.
He always typed separate notes for the client-he never handed over his personal notebook. She had kept it and told me what was in it."
I was outraged. "You knew all along about my dad. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you correct me when I said my mother had no motive?"
"I didn't want to hurt you."
"I'm tired of people lying to me!"
"I didn't lie," he answered calmly. "I just didn't tell you everything I knew."
"Omitting important facts is the same as lying-it's the kind of lying my father specialized in."
"Maybe he didn't want to hurt you," Sam suggested.
"Or maybe he was ashamed," I said. "Tell me this: If you discovered my mother was guilty, would you go to the police with that information?"
He looked me steadily in the eye. "Yes."
"So if you would do it then, why save me the grief now?"
"Because I don't want to hurt you unnecessarily."
"Don't you understand? It hurts twice as much when you finally discover the truth."
He was silent for a moment. "I guess I never thought about that. I was trying to do the right thing for you."
"Stop trying. I don't need you to look out for me."
"Why does it bother you if I do, Kate?" he asked, his anger surfacing. "What's the big deal?"
The big deal was that it made me vulnerable, ripe for abandonment. But that was telling him too much. "You can't ask me to trust you and, at the same time-" A shout froze the words in my throat. Sam and I turned.