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Do you have an alarm, Doctor? How about a dog?

So where to turn? Shoshana Yaroslav might conceivably be a source of wisdom, but two years ago she’d married an Israeli high-tech whiz and moved to Tel Aviv.

Delaware could hook her up with his police contact but the guy worked West L.A. homicide and would regard her tale as an out-of-jurisdiction annoyance.

The big question: What could anyone do for her?

The answer: What it had always been.

She was on her own. The way she liked it.

The way it had been before Malcolm came into her life.

The so-called formative years.

Chapter 20

Two months into Grace’s stay at Stagecoach Ranch, Ramona said, “He’s coming today.”

“Who?”

“Professor Bluestone.”

They’d just sat down for breakfast, which was usually just Grace and Ramona because they got up earlier than everyone else.

Rollo and DeShawn were leaving in a few days, some aunt had agreed to adopt them, and a new ward, a five-year-old girl named Amber, had moved in but she cried at everything and didn’t like to get out of bed. Bobby needed Ramona’s help to get downstairs and sometimes he needed to stay on his oxygen all day, so Grace rarely saw him at all.

As she spread strawberry preserves on a piece of flat-tasting toast, Ramona repeated, “Professor Bluestone.” As if Grace had been expected to react.

Grace ate.

“You don’t remember? That psychologist I told you about? I know it’s been a while since I mentioned it, he’s been off in Europe delivering lectures. Teaching other professors.”

Grace reached for the jam jar, found a whole strawberry, soggy and sure to be juicy-sweet, and impaled it on her knife.

Ramona said, “Anyway, he’s coming today. Hopefully that’ll enrich your education.”

During the two months, Grace had sped through the public school curriculum materials Ramona provided in weekly packets, finding everything super easy and pretty much boring but liking the fact that she could finish early and walk around the ranch and do her favorite thing, which was being by herself.

There was lots of land on the ranch, more than she’d ever seen, and if you squinted and blocked out the wire fences you could imagine you owned everything all the way to the mountains.

The fence didn’t stop small animals from getting through and bugs were all around, including gnats and spiders and sometimes mosquitoes in Grace’s room. Even when Ed came and sprayed horrible-smelling stuff, they stuck around. But she supposed the poison did a pretty good job of blocking larger animals like coyotes and the occasional mean-looking stray dog, which she only spotted prowling in the distance before sundown.

Once Ramona came out while she was watching a big male coyote and stood beside her and the two of them watched the creature slink along, slipping in and out of some gray bushes, before disappearing into the big black pointy shadows east by the mountains.

“Know why he’s out now, Grace?”

“For food.”

“You bet, this is their dinnertime, they got a schedule just like us only they don’t need a watch or a clock. Also, nobody serves them, they’ve got to earn everything that goes into their mouths. It makes them smart.”

Grace said, “I know.” Edging a few feet away from Ramona’s still-working lips, she tried to crawl back into her private thoughts.

Sometimes Grace read books from the living room bookcase, mostly paperbacks about crimes and detectives and people falling in love then breaking up then falling in love again. Most of the new words she came upon she could figure out. Those she couldn’t, she looked up in Ramona’s big Webster’s dictionary. Sometimes she read the dictionary just to read it and discovered totally new words there. There was also TV. She could ask permission to watch but she rarely did because TV was almost as boring as the curriculum packets.

Outside, off to the left side of the big house, was a dry-dirt area with a wooden swing set, a slide, a seesaw, everything set on rubber mats under a huge tree that scattered leaves all the time.

Often Grace swung until Ramona called her in for a meal or something else, imagining she could fly. Occasionally she thought about letting go when she was at the top of her swing, wondering what it would feel like to fly and then crash, but she knew that was stupid so she forced herself to stop those ideas.

Farther back from the play set, behind what used to be the goat corral, gates still in place, was a big rectangular swimming pool that changed color with the heat, clotting with green slime when the temperatures rose no matter how many chemicals Ramona poured into it, muttering and turning grumpy.

Green water meant it was warm enough to swim and one day, when the desert had turned shiny with heat, almost like metal, Grace asked Ramona if she could go in.

“That pea soup? You kidding?”

Grace said, “No.”

“Yeah, right. I let you do that, the county could claim I endangered your health.”

“There’s germs?”

“Well,” said Ramona, “probably not, just that gooky stuff, that’s called algae, who knows what critters are breeding there.”

“Algae’s a plant, ma’am.”

“So?”

“If it’s not poisonous it can’t hurt me.”

“It could be poisonous.”

“The poisonous ones are out in the ocean, they smell bad and they’re red.”

Ramona stared at her. “You’re an expert on algae?”

“It was in two-weeks-ago’s packet. One-Celled Organisms.”

Ramona stared at her. “Good Lord, child.”

“So can I?”

“What?”

“Swim.”

“No way, not a chance. Take a look, it’s got that skin on top, you can’t see under the surface, something happens to you, I’d never know.”

Grace walked away.

Ramona called out, “You mad at me? I’m just doing my job, taking care of you.”

Grace stopped and turned, knowing she had to keep Ramona happy because this was the best place she’d ever been fostered at. No one bothered her, she could spend so much time alone. She said, “Of course not, Mrs. Stage. I understand.”

Ramona squinted at her, finally forced a smile. “Appreciate your understanding, Ms. Blades.”

The following day, Ramona caught Grace as she was leaving the house after study-time. “You still want to swim? I did some research and you’re right, there’s no danger, it’s just disgusting so if it doesn’t bother you and you stay in the shallow end with me right there...”

“It doesn’t.”

“Make no mistake, Grace, I’ll have to watch you like a hawk and you’ll have to stay on the surface every single second, I mean every. No deep-sea diving, no head under, not even for a second. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Ramona shrugged. “Fine, I don’t get why you want to do it but it’s your choice. Also, you’re going to use an old rough towel with holes in it, no way I’m getting that gook on my good towels.”

Grace said, “The gray one?”

“Pardon?”

“The gray towel you keep in the linen closet and never use?”

“Matter of fact, yes,” said Ramona. “Gawd, you notice everything, don’t you?”

“No.”

“What don’t you notice?”

“If I don’t notice it, I can’t know.”

Ramona stared at her, toying with her long white hair. “A lawyer,” she said. “Things could get interesting around here.”

The professor didn’t arrive that day, or the next. Or the next twenty.

Ramona said, “Sorry if I got your hopes up, he got called to do more travel.”