Angie Garvey finished wiping down the kitchen counters, rinsed the sponge, stuffed it into the mouth of the pottery frog that everyone in the family hated except her, and pushed the b.u.t.ton on the dishwasher. Except for a quick mopping of the floor, the kitchen was finished.

Too bad she hadn't gotten around to was.h.i.+ng the windows. They were pretty bad. On the other hand, with the sheers dropped, you could hardly notice the streaks.

She pulled the vacuum cleaner from the closet and plugged it into an outlet in the small dining room, antic.i.p.ating a roar of disapproval from Mitch, who, as usual, was slouched on the sofa watching some sporting event on the television that dominated the equally small living room.

"Mitch," she said. "I have to vacuum."

"Do it later," he said, not even bothering to glance at her.

Angie's jaw muscles tightened, but instead of putting the vacuuming off, she walked over to the couch, picked up the remote and turned off the television.

"Hey!" Mitch glowered up at her. "I was watching that." He grabbed for the remote, but she held it out of his reach.

"Watching what?" she challenged. "Tell me who was playing and what the score was within three points." Seeing the blank look on his face, she twisted the knife. "Forget the score. Just name the teams. Even one of them."

Mitch's glower deepened and his fingers closed around the beer can in his hand, crus.h.i.+ng it.

"You don't even know one of the teams," Angie said, not trying to keep the disgust out of her voice. She tossed the remote back onto the couch. "Get up, Mitch. Get dressed. The social worker's bringing the foster kid here in an hour, and I want you to look as good as the house."

"I look fine," Mitch said, "and I don't want no foster kid living with us. They're nothin' but trouble. If they were worth anythin', they wouldn't need people like us."

Angie pulled open the drapes, and Mitch, unshaven and still in the T-s.h.i.+rt and underwear he'd slept in, squinted in the light. "Get dressed."

"C'mon, Ange," he whined. "It's my day off."

"You've got more days off than you work lately," she shot back. "They cut your hours at the prison, remember? And we aren't making ends meet, remember?" She picked up dog toys and tossed them into the corner.

"That's not my fault."

"Did I say it was? Besides, it doesn't make any difference-it is what it is."

"You could get a job," he groused.

"Which is exactly what I'm doing," Angie said as she pulled a pile of old newspapers out from under the coffee table. "I take care of people, remember? You and Zach and Tiffany. And it keeps me plenty busy, believe me. But I'm doing what I can to bring in some extra money by taking care of one more person. We get paid to take care of a foster kid, remember?"

Mitch scratched his belly and drained the last of his beer out of the mangled can.

"Come on," Angie said, swatting his leg with the newspapers. "We need to impress that social worker." She checked her watch. "They'll be here in forty-five minutes. Get up!"

She hustled the newspapers into the kitchen garbage, and when she got back to the living room, Mitch had disappeared. She disposed of the empty beer can, then fluffed the throw pillows and placed them just right to disguise the worst of the stains on the old sofa. She still needed to dust, vacuum, and spray some of that air freshener, but then the living room would be finished. At least it would be if Pepper didn't track in a bunch of the rotting leaves that Mitch hadn't bothered to rake up from the yard. Too bad she hadn't had time to give the dog a bath-if he came in wet, the old c.o.c.ker spaniel would smell pretty rank.

Angie turned on the vacuum cleaner and was just starting to run it around the living room when Mitch came downstairs dressed in his ragged Warwick High School letterman sweater and a pair of jeans that were at least clean, if almost as worn as the old sweater. "I'm going to watch the game down at O'Malley's," he said. "Got any money?"

Angie had just been to the grocery store, and all that was left in her purse was twenty dollars that was supposed to serve as the kids' lunch money for the week. Still, better to have Mitch out of the house when the social worker arrived, even if it meant spending the kids' lunch money on beer at the local tavern. "In my purse," she sighed.

"Thanks," he said, riffled through her purse, came up with the cash, and opened the front door, letting a wet and muddy Pepper scurry in as he went out.

"Noooo!" she moaned, but the storm door had already slammed behind Mitch and he was gone. "Come on, Pepper," Angie said, gingerly lifting the filthy dog off its feet and taking it into the kitchen. "You stay in here and I'll clean you up in a couple of minutes."

Perspiration dampened the back of her neck, and if she was going to finish cleaning the house-and the dog-she wouldn't have time to take a shower herself.

Which meant she had a choice: either the house wouldn't look or smell as fresh as she wanted or she wouldn't.

Abandoning the house in favor of cleaning up herself and the dog, she headed back to the kitchen.

She'd do what she could for Pepper and herself, and light a vanilla candle just before the social worker was due.

It wasn't much, but it might help.

"Did you hear me, Sarah? That's the school you'll be going to. Aren't you even going to look at it?"

Kate Williams's voice jerked Sarah out of the memory of her father's gray and haggard face as she made her eyes follow her caseworker's pointing finger. Caseworker, she thought. Where did they get that word? It sounded so ... so ... she wasn't quite sure what. Sort of like she wasn't a real person, but just some papers in a file. Why couldn't they just call Kate a counselor or something like that? Of course it didn't really matter, because in a few minutes Kate would drop her off at the Garveys' house, and she probably wouldn't see her much anymore. If only- If only!

She had to stop using those words. How many times had she thought them over the last two months? A hundred? A thousand? If only her mother hadn't died ... if only her father had stayed home that night ... if only she had stayed home that night. But none of that had happened, and she had to deal with things the way they were, not the way she wished they were. Now her mother's voice echoed in her head.

Wis.h.i.+ng, wis.h.i.+ng, doesn't make it so!

We have to deal with things they way they are, not the way we wish they were.

She was right, Sarah told herself. And that's what I'm going to do.

Finally, she looked out the window and discovered that they were no longer making their way along the narrow road that wound through the farms from the prison to Warwick, but had come into the town itself.

The school Kate was pointing out looked as if it had been there for at least a hundred years, but it was freshly painted in white with black trim, just like most of the houses around it. It was one large building with a big sports field next to it and a tennis court behind the parking lot. There was a flagpole in the center of the front lawn, and as they pa.s.sed, a bunch of boys in football jerseys jogged around a track while cheerleaders practiced their moves on the infield.

"I hear they've got a good team this year," Kate said, her gaze following Sarah's.

"My dad played football," Sarah said, then wished she could pull the words back.

"You can visit him once a week," Kate said. She turned left, and two blocks later Sarah felt like she was looking at a movie set.

The town of Warwick had been built around a square, and in the center of the square was the kind of gazebo she'd seen dozens of times at the movies, but never before in actual real life. Across the street from the square, a bigger-than-life-size bronze statue of a man holding an old flintlock rifle stood in front of an ancient log cabin with a steeply pitched roof. "That's Jeremiah Bigelow, in front of the first house built in Warwick, back in 1654. It's a museum now."

"It's pretty," Sarah said, scanning the small shops that lined the street. Nowhere could she see a 7-Eleven, or a Minimart, or any of the other chains she was used to seeing elsewhere. And as they pa.s.sed the corner of the square, she could see an old Carnegie library next to a post office with half a dozen cars parked diagonally in front. "I've never seen anything like it," she went on, her spirits rising at the sight of the town that seemed to have come right out of the past. "Look!" She pointed at two old dogs relaxing outside a coffee shop, waiting patiently for their people. "The dogs aren't even tied up!"

Kate turned left again after they pa.s.sed a large park with a jogging trail winding through the maple trees, and a large church with intricate stained-gla.s.s windows, a simple sign in front proclaiming it to be THE MISSION OF G.o.d. THE MISSION OF G.o.d. Then Kate turned right onto a tree-lined block and pulled up in front of a modest two-story brick home. "This is it," she said. "Twenty-seven Quail Run." Then Kate turned right onto a tree-lined block and pulled up in front of a modest two-story brick home. "This is it," she said. "Twenty-seven Quail Run."

All the anxiety that had been slowly easing as they drove through Warwick suddenly gripped Sarah's stomach again.

"Do you remember their names?" Kate asked.

"Garvey," Sarah said, struggling to concentrate. "Angie is the mother, and the kids are Tiffany and Mitch."

"No, Mitch is the father. The kids are Tiffany and Zach."

"Zach. Right." Sarah tried to take a deep breath but couldn't-it felt as if a band of steel had closed around her chest. Yet there was no choice but to get out of the car and face whatever was to come next.

As Kate got her suitcase from the trunk, Sarah tried for the umpteenth time to find the words to the question she'd been wanting to ask Kate for weeks now. But every time she practiced it, the whole idea sounded stupid. How could she come right out and say something like, "Can't I just live with you?" It seemed like such a simple question, and Kate probably had a dozen kids a day ask her the same thing.

On the other hand, Kate seemed to truly care about her-she'd visited her in the hospital a lot more often than she had to, and most of those times didn't seem to have any real reason to be there at all. And she'd brought her little things to help her through the rehab, too. Did she do that with a dozen other kids? Sarah wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to that; besides, she'd already been enough of a burden on Kate.

Sarah opened her door, but when she tried to put her right leg on the sidewalk, nothing happened; all the walking at the prison had stiffened not only her leg, but her hip as well. Using both hands, she lifted her right leg and swung it out and to the ground, then-with Kate's help-hoisted herself to her feet. A moment later she stood unsteadily on the sidewalk, her hip aching.

"Want your crutches?" Kate asked in an anxious voice.

Sarah looked through the rear window at the two metal sticks she'd already grown to hate and shook her head. "No. I'm done with them."

Kate seemed about to argue, then appeared to change her mind. "Tell you what," she finally said. "I'll take them in and leave them with Angie Garvey, just in case. Okay?"

Not wanting to argue-and knowing that Kate was right to insist on leaving the crutches-Sarah slowly limped up the front walk. Then, as Kate pressed the doorbell, she suddenly felt the hair on the back of her neck start to p.r.i.c.kle, and a s.h.i.+ver ran through her.

She was being watched.

"You all right?" Kate asked.

Sarah nodded, but the unmistakable feeling that someone was watching her grew stronger, and she glanced both ways down the row of houses facing the street.

No one.

But the feeling was still there. Steadying herself on the black wrought-iron railing that guarded the Garveys' porch, she turned around.

Across the street a boy wearing a parka and a backpack was staring directly at her, but before she could get a clear look at his face, he lowered his head and hurried down the sidewalk and around the corner.

"Already turning heads?" Kate asked, following Sarah's gaze in time to see the boy scurry away.

Before Sarah could answer, the door opened and a tall blondish woman wearing a denim skirt and a bulky sweater opened the door. "h.e.l.lo," she said, nervously wiping her hands on the ap.r.o.n tied around her waist. "You must be Sarah."

"Yes, ma'am," Sarah said.

"Well, come right in." She held the storm door open. "I'm Angie Garvey."

Sarah's right foot caught on the threshold as she stepped into the house and Kate caught her arm, steadying her before she fell to the floor.

The glimmer of hope that Sarah had nurtured as they drove through the little Vermont village began to evaporate as she took in the Garveys' living room. Though it was at least as large as the living room of the farmhouse-maybe even a little larger-it both looked and felt completely different. No art hung on the walls, the furniture was worn, and the carpet was badly stained. Where the living room at home had been filled with books and magazines, here there was only one small stack of books, and they were being used to prop up a corner of the sofa.

A huge television took up one whole corner, and the furniture had been arranged so every seat had a view of the screen.

Nothing-not one single thing-felt anything like what she'd grown up with, and a wave of homesickness threatened to crash through the thin wall of courage she'd been constructing to get her through the day. But just as she felt herself losing the struggle not to start crying, a small brown and white spaniel came skittering out of the kitchen and jumped up on her, almost knocking her over.

"No, Pepper!" Angie snapped, s.n.a.t.c.hing the little dog off the floor. "You can't just jump all over people, especially our Sarah here."

Kate put out a hand to help steady Sarah, but Sarah stepped forward and held out her hands. "Can I hold him?"

Angie hesitated a moment, then handed the wiggling little dog to her. Sarah let Pepper lick her all over her face, and though Kate laughed, Angie Garvey pursed her lips disapprovingly.

"He likes you," Kate said.

"But you don't know where that tongue has been," Angie countered. "Maybe you should put him down."

But Sarah clung to the warm little dog. If she could just cuddle Pepper every day, maybe she could actually survive four years in this house.

Maybe.

[image]

Silence.

The kind of silence Nick Dunnigan could barely even remember.

All the voices in Nick's head had fallen completely silent, and he knew exactly when it had happened: the moment when he'd first seen the girl with the bad limp getting out of the car and making her way slowly up the Garveys' walk.

He'd stopped and stared, and it took him a moment before he realized the voices had stopped. And then he found himself engulfed in a silence so profound, so welcome, so completely glorious, that he'd felt light-headed, almost dizzy.

He felt as if he'd been touched by something special.

An angel, perhaps, if such things actually existed.

He'd watched as a woman carried a suitcase-one he was sure belonged to the girl-up to the Garveys' house.

The girl would be staying for a while.

Maybe she'd even be going to school here.

And maybe-just maybe-she'd be his friend. Even though he knew he shouldn't be thinking it, memories of the way he'd been teased flooded his mind, and as he watched the girl limping painfully up the sidewalk, he knew that the same kids who had shut him out for as long as he could remember would shut this girl out, too.

He could already hear them whispering to each other, see them pointing at her, and giggling at the way she walked.

Maybe if he was nice to her-tried to befriend her-she wouldn't turn away from him the way all the other kids did.

He was still gazing at her when she turned around on the stoop almost as if she knew what he'd been thinking. Their eyes met for an instant, and then Nick dropped his head and hurried away, ashamed at even hoping the other kids might be mean enough to her that she'd have to become his friend.

But as he started home, the voices began to protest. Yet they were different now. Instead of whispering to him to do the kind of terrible things he hated even to think about, it now sounded as if they were crying out for help.

As if they thought this girl could help them.

Was it possible? Of course not! They were just voices! It wasn't as if they were real. They couldn't be.

Could they?

Unable to stop himself, Nick turned back for one more look at the Garvey house before he turned the corner. The girl was gone; she had already disappeared inside the house, and the storm door was still settling in its catch, its pane of clouded Plexiglas still vibrating.

Then one voice, louder than the rest, shrieked through Nick's head and a great red streak appeared on the front of the Garveys' house.

He blinked, shook his head and looked away, trying to erase the hallucination.

But when he looked again, it was still there. A huge red streak that ran across the entire front of the house.

A streak the color of blood.