Candace smiled. “Don’t worry, Ruthie, we’re going to find your mother—I’m not leaving here until I do. We need to start with you telling me everything you know about Tom and Bridget.”
Ruthie shook her head. “Next to nothing. We’d never heard of them until we found their wallets the other day.”
“So your mom never mentioned them?”
“Never,” Ruthie said.
“And how did you find the wallets?” Candace asked.
“Just like I told you. We were searching the house, hoping to find some clue about what happened to our mom.”
“You never called the police?”
“We thought about it, but no. Not yet. We knew that’s not what Mom would want. She hates the cops.”
Candace smiled. “Smart woman. So, tell me, where’d you find these wallets?”
Ruthie paused, thinking. “The hall closet. There’s a secret compartment behind the back wall.” She flashed Fawn a go-along-with-this look.
“Show me,” Candace said.
Ruthie led the way to the hall and opened the closet. The back panel was out, resting against the side, where they’d left it.
“Take a look,” she said, handing Candace the flashlight to let her see for herself. Candace got down on her hands and knees and shone the beam around in the empty space. Ruthie looked around for something heavy she could hit Candace on the back of the head with while she was in this vulnerable position. All she saw were a couple of flimsy umbrellas. How hard did you have to bean someone to knock them out?
“And there was nothing else back there?” Candace asked, her voice full of suspicion.
“Not a thing,” Ruthie said.
Candace came out of the closet, shone the light on Ruthie. “You wouldn’t be lying to me, now, would you?”
“Candace, I swear,” she said. “All we found was those two wallets sealed up in a Ziploc bag.”
“Hey,” Candace said, looking around. “Where did your sister go?”
Fawn hadn’t followed them to the closet.
Candace stalked back down the hall into the living room, Ruthie following. Fawn wasn’t there. Candace hissed out an angry breath.
“Fawn?” Ruthie called. She wouldn’t try to escape, would she? Ruthie pictured Fawn running through the snow with a fever, dressed in her overalls and socks, trying to go for help. The nearest neighbors were a couple of miles away, and very few cars ever came down the road this far. Only people going out to the Devil’s Hand, and no one would be going there on a night like tonight. Fawn would freeze to death before she could get help.
She thought of little Gertie, wandering off into the woods and falling into the well.
Is that where they’d find Fawn?
Ruthie breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the thump of feet on the stairs and looked over to see Fawn coming down, cradling Mimi the doll.
“You are not to leave my sight,” Candace snapped. Her face was quite ruddy now, damp with sweat. “Do you understand?”
Ruthie clasped her hand firmly around Fawn’s, determined not to lose her again.
Fawn nodded rapidly. “I just went to get a blanket for Mimi,” she said, showing Candace her doll all swaddled in an old baby blanket. “She’s sick, you know. She’s got a fever. I had to give her medicine. I’m sick, too.”
Candace forced a smile, though it was clear her patience was wearing thin. “Sorry to hear that, kiddo. But from now on, you stick with us, okay?”
“I promise,” she said, smiling real big. Fawn’s smile could melt an iceberg. You just couldn’t help smiling back, no matter how mad you were.
Candace rubbed her face, and let her shoulders slump. “Do you have any coffee?”
“Coffee?” Ruthie said. The woman was holding them hostage, and now she wanted refreshments? “Um, sure. I can go put a pot on.” This might be her chance—if she could just get into the kitchen alone for a minute, she could call for help, grab a knife … something.
“We’ll come with you,” Candace said, following close behind. “I don’t want to lose anyone else tonight.”
Candace sat down at the table and watched Ruthie measure and grind the coffee and start the machine. Fawn settled in at her usual place, the chair across from the window, Mimi on her lap.
Ruthie joined the others at the table, sitting beside Fawn. Fawn took Ruthie’s hand and held it tight in her own. Fawn’s hand was hot. She probably needed Tylenol again.
Candace stared at Ruthie. “When’s your birthday?” she asked.
“October thirteenth.”
Fawn tugged on Ruthie’s hand, guiding it down to her doll, who was resting on Fawn’s legs, still all bundled in a thick blanket. Fawn pushed Ruthie’s hand against the doll. There was something hard there, under the blankets.
“And how old are you?” Candace asked.
“Nineteen.” Ruthie pulled back the blankets slightly, gingerly feeling the outline of the object. She put all her energy into keeping her face blank.
The gun.
Fawn had gotten the gun from its hiding place in their mom’s room and wrapped it in the blanket. Ruthie carefully pushed the blanket back into place.
“You’re the spitting image of your mother, did you know that?”