Public Secrets Part 59

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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d," 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