She started to put her arm around him, but it was weighed down with the
white plaster cast. That had the fear bubbling quick again. She could
hear in her mind the sound of that dry snap, the screaming pain that had
followed.
It hadn't been a dream-and if it had been real, then the rest ...
"Where's Darren?"
She would ask that first, Brian thought as he squeezed his eyes tightly
shut. How could he tell her? How could he tell her what he had yet to
understand or believe himself ? She was only a child. His only child.
"Emma." He kissed her cheek, her temple, her forehead, as if somehow
that would ease the pain, for both of them. He took her hand. "Do you
remember when I told you a story about angels, about how they live in
heaven?"
"They fly and play music and never hurt each other."
Oh, he was clever, Brian thought bitterly, so clever to have woven such
a pretty tale. "Yes, that's right. Sometimes special people become
angels." He reached far back for his Catholic faith and found it weighed
heavily on his shoulders. "Sometimes God loves these people so much he
wants them with him up in heaven. That's where Darren is now. He's an
angel in heaven."
"No." For the first time since she had crawled out from beneath the
dirty sink over three years before, she pushed away from her father. "I
don't want him to be an angel."
"Neither do I."
"Tell God to send him back," she said furiously. "Right now."
"I can't." The tears were coming again; he couldn't stop them.
"He's gone, Emma."
"Then I'll go to heaven too, and take care of him."
"No." Fear clutched in his gut, drying his tears. His fingers dug into
her shoulders, putting bruises on her for the first time. "You can't. I
need you, Emma. I can't get Darren back, but I won't lose you."
"I hate God," she said, dry-eyed and fierce.
So do I, Brian thought as he gathered her close. So do I.
THERE wo BEEN OVER a hundred people in and out of the McAvoy house on
the night of the murder. Lou's pad was overflowing with names, notes,
and impressions. But he was no closer to an answer. Both the window
and the door of the boy's room had been found open, though the nanny was
adamant that she had closed the window after putting the boy to bed. She
also insisted the window had been locked. But there had been no signs
of a forced entry.
There had been footprints beneath the window. Size 11, Lou mused. But
there had been no impressions in the ground a ladder would have made,
and no traces of rope on the windowsill.
The nanny was little help. She'd awakened when a hand had clamped over
her mouth. She'd been blindfolded, bound, and gagged. In the two
interviews Lou had had with her, she'd changed her estimate of the time
she'd been bound from thirty minutes to two hours. She was low on his
lists of suspects, but he was waiting for the background check he'd
ordered.
It was Beverly McAvoy that Lou had to see now. He'd postponed the