"I wish," Nick said as he put his heavy chemistry book into his backpack and pulled out a tattered paperback. "Still have to write a book report on this."

Lily hesitated, wondering if she should just leave well enough alone, but before she could stop herself, the question leaped from her lips as if of its own volition. "No voices tonight?"

Nick swiveled his chair so he was facing her. "They're actually leaving me alone."

"You mean it's working? We've actually found the right dose of the right medicine?"

Her son shrugged and his eyes s.h.i.+fted away from hers.

There was something he wasn't telling her. "What is it, Nick?"

"Nothing." He began swiveling back and forth in his chair, a nervous tic that put the lie to his answer.

"It's something." She reached out and took the arm of his chair to stop the swiveling. "Are you taking some other drugs?"

"No," he said, but his eyes still avoided hers.

"Then what?"

Nick hesitated, but then finally spoke, his eyes turning quizzical. "Well, a weird thing happened."

Lily steeled herself for whatever he was about to tell her.

"There's this girl."

A girl? Whatever she had expected, it wasn't this. "A girl?" she echoed. "You've met a girl?"

"Well, I haven't really met her yet. She's new. She's staying with the Garveys. Her name's Sarah Crane."

Lily had heard that Angie Garvey was getting a foster child. "So what was weird about it?"

Once again Nick hesitated, and for a moment Lily thought he might just close down. But then he actually grinned.

"The voices stop when she's around," he said.

Lily let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "What do you mean, they stop?"

"Just that-when she's around, they just stop bugging me."

"Well, I don't call that weird," Lily declared. "I call that wonderful. So tell me about her."

He looked up at her. "There's nothing to tell. I don't even know her yet."

"Well, whatever makes you feel better makes me feel better," she said, standing up. "So get to know her, okay?" She leaned over and kissed the top of his head. "I'll let you get back to your homework."

"Okay. Good night."

Heading back down to the living room, Lily picked up her crossword puzzle, but now, instead of the silence, it was an overwhelming feeling of hope that kept her from concentrating. "Guess what?" she said to Shep, putting the puzzle aside once again.

Shep glanced disinterestedly in her direction. "What?"

"Nick's found a girl."

Shep lowered his newspaper and looked at her.

"Which isn't the best part," she went on. "The best part is that his voices go quiet when he's around her." As Shep looked at her in disbelief, Lily finally let her face break into the grin she'd been holding back.

"You're kidding," Shep said.

Lily shook her head.

"What's her name?"

"Sarah Crane. She's a new girl at school."

A shadow pa.s.sed over Shep's face, and he was silent for a moment, then stood up. "I think I'll go have a talk with him."

Lily's belly clenched. If her husband went upstairs and started pressuring Nick- But what could she do? Shep was Shep, and she could only do so much to s.h.i.+eld her son from him. So she held her tongue as she watched him walk up the stairs.

Nick tried to focus on the words on the page in front of him, but he couldn't. He hadn't quite lied to his mother, but he hadn't told her the whole truth, either, and he knew she'd been happy at what he had told her. He hadn't told her just how weirdly the voices had reacted to Sarah Crane, and he sure hadn't told her about the horrible hallucinations he had in the cafeteria when the other kids were being nasty to Sarah.

He hadn't told her because he knew she'd never understand.

She'd think he was getting worse, and he wasn't.

He was getting better. He could feel it.

He took a deep breath, went back to the book, and focused once again on the words on the page.

But before he got through the first paragraph, his bedroom door opened simultaneously with a single loud knock.

"Hi," his dad said. "Studying?"

"Yeah." Nick couldn't remember his dad having been in his room more than a couple of times in the last year, and now that he was here, the voices were suddenly muttering again. He should have known his mom would tell his dad about Sarah Crane; he should have kept his mouth shut. Now he was going to have to listen to one of his father's pep talks on how to act like "a real teenager."

By which he meant "a normal teenager."

Sure enough, his dad was wandering around the room, touching his printer, looking at the books on his shelf, picking up a CD. Stalling.

"Hear you've got a girlfriend," he finally said.

"Not really a girlfriend," Nick replied, keeping his eyes on the book in front of him.

"Sarah Crane," Shep said, and now Nick could feel his father's eyes on him.

He finally looked up and nodded.

"She's the daughter of one of my prisoners."

Nick nodded again. "I heard something about that. She's staying with the Garveys."

"Look, I'm all for you having a girlfriend," Shep said, and now his eyes began wandering around the room again. "I mean, it's time, you know? All boys your age need a girlfriend. But kids whose parents end up in prison can get kind of screwed up in the head, know what I mean?"

Nick said nothing. His father didn't know anything at all about Sarah Crane.

"High school is for having fun, Nick," his dad said.

"I know," Nick said.

"So have some fun, okay? Just make sure you don't make any lifelong mistakes."

Nick nodded, feeling his face burn with embarra.s.sment. Why couldn't his father just leave him alone to do his book report?

"Use your head," his father pressed on, then offered him a leering wink that made Nick want to squirm. "And stay safe, you know?"

Nick nodded again.

"Okay, sport. I'll let you get back to your studies."

"'Night, Dad."

As his father closed the door behind him, the mumbling voices quieted.

Giving up on his desk, Nick turned off his computer and study lamp, undressed and got into bed with the paperback book, but all he could think about was Sarah Crane.

Why hadn't he defended her in the cafeteria, or at least offered her a place to sit when the other kids kept turning her away?

She needed a friend-that was for certain-and maybe he could be that for her.

Tomorrow he'd find the courage to talk to her.

He turned off his nightstand lamp and discovered that he was looking forward to that.

Talking to Sarah Crane.

Tomorrow.

The voices in his head blissfully mute, Nick closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Seven.

Bettina Philips was still three blocks from school the next morning when she saw Sarah Crane walking slowly down the sidewalk. Her backpack was heavy enough that she was bent forward, her bad leg keeping her pace to a limping walk no more than half as fast as the other groups of teenagers who were converging on the school with no sense of urgency.

Bettina slowed the Mini Cooper, watching as two girls-Heather Smythe and Jolene Parsons-caught up to Sarah, then pa.s.sed her.

Pa.s.sed her without so much as a glance, let alone a word.

As if she didn't exist.

But Sarah, obviously not yet used to the role the kids had already cast her in-that of outcast-had looked up eagerly as Heather and Jolene came abreast of her, only to fall back into a slump as they hurried past.

Bettina moved the car forward, then slowed to a stop alongside Sarah.

She rolled down the pa.s.senger side window.

"Hi," she said. "Hop in and I'll give you a lift."

Sarah paused, her breath condensing in the cold air. But instead of hurrying toward the warmth of the car, she hesitated, looked both ways up and down the street, then shook her head. "No, thanks."

No, thanks. The words echoed in Bettina's mind, and she knew instantly what had happened.

Someone-probably Angie Garvey-had told Sarah all the rumors. For an instant Bettina was tempted to stamp on the accelerator and send the car flying away, but she suppressed the urge just as quickly as it rose inside her. No sense taking her own anger out on Sarah. So she stayed where she was. "C'mon, you're freezing," she urged.

Once again Sarah hesitated, and again looked up and down the street as if to see if someone might be watching. Then, as Bettina glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Tiffany Garvey turning the corner from Quail Run, Sarah looked Bettina squarely in the eye. "Thank you," she said firmly, "but I can't. I really can't." Turning away from the car, she started once more toward the school.

"Okay, then," Bettina called after her. "I'll see you in cla.s.s."

But Sarah Crane didn't so much as lift her hand to wave, let alone look back to acknowledge Bettina's words, and finally Bettina put the window back up and drove on, past Sarah, past Heather and Jolene, and on toward the school.

Bettina knew perfectly well what so many people in Warwick said about her, especially those who gathered every Sunday at the old white-clapboard community church whose congregation had grown since the new pastor came to town five years ago and found out that Bettina Philips was not only an artist, but dabbled in fortune-telling with tarot cards, palmistry, and astrology, as well as medicinal herbs, homeopathics, and everything else that interested her.

The terrible disrepair of her house hadn't helped; even when she'd been Sarah's age, many of her cla.s.smates wouldn't come near the old mansion on the lake, given the stories not only about the house, but the long-closed "retreat for the criminally insane," which had been told and retold until most of the children "knew" that the house was haunted and that she was a witch.

Then, when Reverend Bradley Keener came to town, he began convincing the parents as well, and though Bettina hadn't yet lost her job, she knew it wasn't for the lack of the minister trying to get her fired.

Rather, it was the fact that she did her job well, and no one ever had cause to complain about her.

And now they'd told Sarah Crane about her, and either Sarah was afraid of her or had been told to stay away from her.

But Sarah was different.

As Bettina turned into the school's parking lot, she decided she would set the record straight with her, perhaps today.

Sarah Crane had a talent.

A very special talent.

And she would do her best to help Sarah make the most of her gifts, just as she herself had always tried to make the most of her own.

Normally, Kate Williams would have called to make an appointment to check up on a foster child, but when she found herself in Warwick on another case that morning, she suddenly thought of Sarah Crane.

Maybe she should just drop by and see how things were going.