"Mrs. Wheeler," Claire Appleby said, startling Bonnie, who hadn't seen or heard her come in. "I'm so sorry this has happened." Claire Appleby was a tall, middle-aged woman with a flat chest and wide hips. She wore a simple powder blue shirtwaist dress that unfortunately emphasized both.

"What exactly is it that's happened?" Bonnie caught sight of something sticky coating a few of the hairs behind her daughter's left ear.

"Perhaps Sue could take Amanda outside," Claire Appleby suggested gently.

Amanda tightened her grip around Bonnie's neck, threatening to cut off her supply of air. Like a boa constrictor, Bonnie thought uneasily, gently loosening the child's arms. "It's okay, sweetie," she told her daughter, lowering her to the floor. "I'll only be a few minutes. Then we'll go get an ice cream."

"Strawberry?"

"If that's what you want."

"A bad person threw blood all over me."

"What?"

"Sue," Claire Appleby said, her hand lifting nervously to her blond hair, "please take Amanda into the playground."

"I want to go on the swings," Amanda directed.

"I'll race you," Sue said.

The playground was equipped with an enormous jungle gym, three slides of a.s.sorted shapes and sizes, a giant sandbox, and several sets of swings. Bonnie watched Sue as she harnessed her daughter inside one of the smaller swings, aware she was holding her breath, feeling it painful and tight against her chest. She wanted to demand answers to the hundreds of questions that were pummeling against the sides of her brain, but she was unable to find her voice. Tears were already falling the length of her face, disappearing down her neck and under the collar of her white blouse. Don't cry now, she admonished herself silently. Now is not the time for tears.

"It's not as bad as it sounds," Claire Appleby was quick to a.s.sure her.

"What exactly happened here?" Bonnie whispered, each word like a knife chipping at her throat.

"You know that we keep a very watchful eye on the children-"

"I know that. That's why I don't understand...."

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Wheeler. I can see how upset you are. I know this has been a terrible time for you. I've been following the papers-"

"Please tell me exactly what happened," Bonnie urged.

"The children were outside in the playground," Claire Appleby began immediately. "Sue and Darlene were with them. Apparently, Amanda wandered over to the alleyway. She told Sue later that someone called her name."

"Someone called her?"

"That's what she said."

"Did she say who it was?"

"She didn't know. Apparently, whoever it was was wearing a hood or something, and as soon as Amanda got close enough, he just emptied this pail over her head."

"A pail filled with...blood?" Bonnie asked, her voice incredulous.

"We think it was blood," Claire Appleby said quietly. "We're not sure. It was dark and red and at first we thought it might be paint, but..." Her voice drifted off.

"But...?"

"It wasn't paint. Sue said she almost fainted when she saw Amanda because she a.s.sumed she'd fallen and cracked open her head. We didn't realize she hadn't actually hurt herself until we'd washed most of it off. It was all over her face and clothes. We have her clothes for you in a plastic bag," Claire Appleby added.

"Wait a minute," Bonnie instructed, needing to get the facts straight in her mind. "You're telling me that there was a strange person in the alleyway wearing a hood and carrying a pail of blood, and n.o.body noticed him?"

"I'm afraid that's right," Claire Appleby admitted.

Bonnie felt her legs go weak, thought they might go out from under her, reached for something to grab on to. There was nothing. She stumbled, fell toward one of the tiny tables.

"Why don't you sit down?" Claire Appleby helped her into one of the tiny chairs, attempting to sit down beside her, her ample backside refusing to wedge itself into the small seat. "Amanda's all right," the woman said, as she had said earlier. "She was just frightened."

Bonnie looked helplessly around the room, casually absorbing the many imaginative mobiles that hung from the ceiling, the large paper letters of the alphabet that ran along the walls, the bright posters of wild animals, the boxes of toys, the series of bold fingerpaint sketches tacked to the far wall. "How long ago did this happen?"

Claire Appleby checked her watch. "Not long ago. Twenty minutes, maybe. Half an hour, tops. We cleaned her off and called you."

"Did you call the police?"

Claire Appleby hesitated. "We decided to contact you first. Naturally, we'll be filing a report."

"I think we should call the police," Bonnie stated, staring out the window at her daughter, who was laughing and shrieking with glee as she sailed high into the air, the ugly incident earthbound and forgotten.

"Do you have any idea who might have done this?" Captain Mahoney was asking. Behind him stood his friend, Detective Haver of the Weston police force. Since this latest incident had happened in Weston, and not Newton, Captain Mahoney had explained, it was technically out of his jurisdiction.

Bonnie shook her head. Why was he asking her that? How would she possibly have any idea who could have done such a horrible thing? "Should we take her to the hospital?" Bonnie asked. "Should she have an AIDS test?"

"Why don't we wait and have the blood a.n.a.lyzed first?" Captain Mahoney suggested, his voice kind. "The odds are it's not human blood."

"What do you mean?"

"There are a lot of farms in the area, Mrs. Wheeler," Detective Haver reminded her. He was a stout man of medium height, his skin the color of dark chocolate. "There are some farms over in Easton where they even slaughter their own cattle."

"Easton?" Bonnie repeated, numbly.

"Your father lives in Easton, doesn't he?" Captain Mahoney remarked casually.

Too casually, Bonnie thought, starting to tremble, recalling the sight of her brother lurking in the trees behind the school earlier in the day. "Have you spoken to him?" Bonnie asked.

"Briefly."

"And to my brother?"

"We spoke to him as well."

"And? Did he have anything interesting to say?"

"Why don't you ask your brother?"

Bonnie swallowed, looked at her daughter, who was now dangling upside down from one of the high bars of the jungle gym, the day care worker hovering anxiously nearby, her arms a safety net. "My brother and I aren't exactly on the best of terms, Captain," Bonnie told him.

"May I ask why not?"

"You saw Joan's sc.r.a.pbook," Bonnie reminded him. "I would think the answer is self-evident."

"Do you think he had something to do with Joan Wheeler's death?"

"Do you?"

"Your brother has an alibi for the time Mrs. Wheeler was murdered," the captain told her.

"He does?"

"You sound surprised."

"Nothing about my brother surprises me."

"Now you sound disappointed."

"I guess I better keep my mouth shut," Bonnie said, watching Captain Mahoney smile. He wants to like me, Bonnie thought. He wants to believe I had nothing to do with Joan's death.

"Any reason to think he might have been involved in what happened here this afternoon?"

"Why would Nick want to hurt my daughter? He's never even met her," Bonnie said, more to herself than to the officers. And yet, he'd been only a few blocks away this morning. Was he the danger Joan had been trying to warn her against?

What was keeping her from giving this information to the police? Could she still be trying to protect her younger brother?

You're a good girl, she heard her mother whisper. Bonnie shook the voice aside with a toss of her head.

"Do you think that what happened to Amanda could just be some silly teenage prank?" Bonnie asked hopefully, pushing logic roughly aside.

Captain Mahoney loosened his red-and-black-striped tie, pulled the collar of his white shirt away from his prominent Adam's apple. "I suppose someone might have read about you in the paper and decided to have a little sick fun," Captain Mahoney said, obviously thinking out loud. "There's a lot of wackos around, even in a supposedly safe haven like Weston."

Bonnie nodded. There was no denying the truth of his words. Nowhere was really safe anymore, even a "safe haven" like Weston, where they'd moved when she became pregnant. Boston probably wasn't the best place to raise a family, she and Rod had decided reluctantly, selecting Weston because, despite its proximity to the city, it felt more like the country. Each house rested on one and a half acres of land, and there was an abundance of trees and ponds and good clean air. The ideal place to raise a family. Just fifteen minutes away from downtown. Around the corner from their friends Diana and Greg. Far enough away from Newton and Joan. Even farther away from Easton and what was left of her family.

Except that Diana and Greg had divorced soon after Amanda was born, and Diana now spent most of her time in the city. And it appeared that nothing could be too far away from either her relatives or Rod's ex-wife. The past is always closer than you think, Bonnie thought.

"I'm sorry, did you ask me something?" Bonnie realized she hadn't been paying attention.

"I asked whether you're a popular teacher," he repeated.

"Popular?"

"Do your students like you, Mrs. Wheeler?"

"I think so," she stammered. "I like to think so," she immediately qualified, thinking of Haze, picturing him as he advanced toward her, stopping only inches from her face. Could he have been responsible for the attack on her daughter? Could he have had something to do with Joan's death? Could he be the danger Joan had been referring to? "There's one boy," she said. "Harold Gleason. Haze, everyone calls him. He's in my junior year English cla.s.s. He's been giving me a bit of trouble, and he knew Joan. He's a friend of Sam, my stepson," she added, the word feeling clumsy on her tongue. She told the captain exactly what Haze had said to her this morning, watching as he took note of this latest information, his face frustratingly void of all expression.

"Do you know where Harold Gleason lives?" he asked.

Bonnie closed her eyes, trying to picture the address written on the boy's student index card. "Eighteen Marsh Lane," she said finally, her breath catching in her lungs. "Easton."

11.

Bonnie had been driving for the better part of an hour through the wide, twisting streets of Easton. Many of the streets had the same names as streets in Weston: Glen Road, Beach Road, Country Lane, Concord Street, among others. She knew them all. They hadn't changed in the more than three years since she'd been up this way, had barely changed, in fact, since she was a child. What was she doing here? It would be getting dark soon. She should probably go home. What was she hoping to accomplish by coming out here?

The police had told her they would handle Haze, that she should take care of her daughter, get her that ice-cream cone she'd promised her. She'd done that, then promptly taken her to see their family physician, who'd examined her thoroughly and p.r.o.nounced her in perfect health, advising Bonnie to wait until after she got the results back from the police lab before subjecting Amanda to any blood tests. The child had seen enough blood for one day, the doctor advised.

So she'd taken her daughter home, feeling like an unwelcome intruder as she pushed open her front door, hostile rap music blasting at her from the upstairs bedrooms. She'd tried to call Rod, was told he was busy filming a promo and couldn't be disturbed, and so she'd busied Amanda at the kitchen table with some paper and a box of crayons, and tried to think about what Sam and Lauren might like for dinner, deciding on homemade macaroni and cheese. All kids loved macaroni and cheese, she thought, wondering if the way to a child's heart was as straightforward as the one to a man's.

Rod called just as they were sitting down to eat, saying he'd be late, that he'd just grab a sandwich at the studio, would she be all right alone with the kids? She heard Amanda giggle, looked over to see Sam making a face out of his macaroni, Lauren smiling indulgently. In the next instant, all three were making faces in their macaroni, something that would have horrified Bonnie's mother, but that filled Bonnie with something approaching pride-her dinner was a success. Yes, she told Rod, they'd be all right.

After dinner, Bonnie got Amanda into bed, then called Mira Gerstein, an elderly woman who lived down the street, and asked her to baby-sit. She wouldn't be long, she told her, wondering where she was going, what she was planning to do. Stay out of it, she felt Rod admonish as she climbed into her car and backed out of the driveway onto Winter Street. But how could she just sit home and do nothing when her child was at risk? How could she hope to rebuild her family until Joan's ghost was laid to rest, until her killer was caught? Only then could they move forward; only then would they be safe.

"So, just what is it you think you're doing?" Bonnie asked out loud, once again turning her car onto Marsh Lane, driving slowly past the old wood-framed houses that irregularly interrupted the landscape, eyes peeled for number 18.

It was the oldest house on the small street, or at least it looked that way, neglect covering it like a second coat of paint. Haze lived in this house with his maternal grandparents, his mother having abandoned him after she herself had been abandoned by his father. Bonnie slowed her car down further, so that she was almost crawling, trying to peer inside the curtainless windows of the single-story home. But the interior of the house was in darkness; it didn't look as if anybody was there, although there was an ancient blue Buick in the driveway. What kind of car did Haze drive? she wondered, stopping, debating whether to get out of her car, knock on the door, demand to speak to Haze's grandparents, neither of whom she remembered ever meeting.

And what good would that do? she asked herself, returning her foot to the gas pedal. Just what was she planning to ask? Where was their grandson immediately after school? Had they noticed anything strange about his behavior lately? Did they believe he could be guilty of murder?

Sure, great. Terrific detective work. Let the police deal with it, Rod had told her, and he was right. She'd done her part, told them everything she knew.

Except that she hadn't told them everything she knew.

She turned onto Spruce Street, then again at Elm Street, and again at Cherry. She hadn't told them about seeing her brother. She turned again at Meadow Road, stopped the car at the end of the long street.

Two long blocks to the right and another to the left, and she'd be there-the old brick house she'd grown up in, the house her mother had willed to her brother. Nick had immediately turned around and sold the house to his father.

Just one right turn, and then another, then one more to the left, and she'd be there. She wouldn't go there now, Bonnie decided, knowing that she was already on her way, that it had been to this house, this haunted house, so full of skeletons and ghosts, that she'd been headed all along.

She drove as if on automatic pilot, her fingers barely touching the steering wheel. She hadn't been back to the house since her mother's death, refusing to even think about it on a conscious level, although sometimes, when she closed her eyes in sleep, the dark walls of her childhood reappeared, closing in on her, like a coffin. It was then she saw the heavy floral wallpaper that she'd always held responsible for the slightly sickly odor that permeated every room.

What am I doing here? Bonnie wondered, stopping her car in front of the house at 422 Maple Road, not sure for a moment if she had made a mistake, turned at the wrong street. "What have they done?" she asked, stepping outside, her feet wobbling as they touched the pavement.

The redbrick exterior had been painted gray, and there were white shutters around each window. Brightly colored pansies sat in two large clay pots on either side of the white front door and in a long window box suspended outside the kitchen window. The scent of freshly mowed gra.s.s wafted toward her nose as Bonnie inched her way slowly up the front walk. "What am I doing here?" she asked again, thinking that there was still time to turn back, that no one had seen her, that she could crawl back into her car and leave with no one being the wiser.

The front door suddenly opened, a woman appearing on the outside landing, watching Bonnie, as if she had been aware of her presence all along. "My goodness," the woman said. "It is you."

"h.e.l.lo, Adeline," Bonnie said, surprised to hear her voice so strong. She stopped, her feet immediately taking root.

"I thought it was you when I saw your car pull up. I said to Steve, 'I think we have a visitor. I think it's Bonnie.'"

"And what did he say?" Bonnie asked.

The woman shrugged. "You know your father. He doesn't say much."