“How can you possibly blame yourself? You just said—”
An automobile engine growled our way from somewhere down the road.
Daddy glanced over his shoulder and stepped back with his good leg. “Go home. It’s not safe to wander these roads late at night.”
“Do you want revenge, Daddy?”
“Go home. And stay away from the doc.”
“Do you want me to—?”
“For God’s sake, girl, go home!”
Headlights swerved into view, and I thought of Sheriff Rink patrolling the streets, or Deputy Fortaine with his Hollywood smile and his ties to Uncle Clyde. I jumped out of my circle and dove onto my belly in a patch of dirt behind wild blackberries, and as soon as the car roared by, my father seeped away into the darkness, as if swallowed up by ink.
He was gone.
Again.
CHAPTER 6
WILD AND WHIRLING
I TORE PAST TREES AND FERNS AND scraped my arms on berry thorns, twisting my ankle, not caring at all about the pain. The nighttime forest glowed in a strange haze of gold, and the fat trunks and green awnings soared high above, as if I were nothing more than a spider scampering through a window box. Branches and leaves pushed at my back, thrusting me forward, sending me on my way through the night to the Paulissens’ little white shed.
I banged my fists on the door.
“Joe? Are you in there?”
Joe slammed his full weight against the door from within, as if to hold it closed.
“Wait!” I grabbed the knob. “It’s Hanalee. I need to talk to you.”
“Have you got a gun?” he called through the slats.
“No.”
“You swear?”
I raised my hands in case he could see me through the cracks. “I swear. I left it behind. Let me in. I just spoke to someone. Someone who said you’re innocent.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Open up. I believe you.”
The door opened, and I stumbled into the small space lit by a kerosene lantern, with just a cot, a potbelly stove, and some old fishing rods parked against a wall. My knees and elbows crashed against floorboards half sunken into the earth. I smelled and tasted dirt. And fish.
The door closed behind me, and Joe crouched down by my side, shining that foul lantern into my eyes. Bright light cut across my corneas. I hissed and shrank back.
“What’s the matter with you?” He grabbed my arm and shoved the light even closer. “Your pupils are as large as dimes. What’d you take?”
“An elixir”—I pushed the lantern away—“from Mildred Marks.”
“Jesus!” He set the light on the ground beside him. “You look like the dope fiends I met in prison.”
“I don’t know what the Markses put in there, but”—I clasped his left elbow—“I spoke to him, Joe.”
“Who?”
“My father. My real father.”
“You . . .” His face blanched, and I watched his own pupils dilate. “You mean—”
“He said he should have stayed away from the doc that night. He puts full blame on Dr. Koning.”
Joe knelt so close to me, I smelled pond water in his hair and saw the C-shaped arc of the scar above his right eyebrow. His bottom lip looked as though it had once split open and tried to heal, with questionable success.
Without warning, the room swayed, and I had to cover my mouth to keep from retching. Kerosene smoke lodged in my lungs. I coughed and wheezed and curled onto my side, the heels of my palms pressed against my eye sockets.
“Hanalee.” Joe nudged my arm. “Wake up. You can’t go to sleep in here.”
“We should talk to Sheriff Rink.”
“I told the sheriff about Dr. Koning when he first threw me in jail. He didn’t listen to a fucking word I said.”
I flinched at his language. “There’s got to be something we can do.”
“There’s only one way to get rid of a man who got away with murder, Hanalee.”
I lowered my hands from my eyes and gaped at him. “He’s my stepfather, Joe.”
“He murdered your father.” Joe pointed toward the door. “He took that man’s life and robbed you of love and peace.”
“I can’t kill him.”
“Where’d you get that gun? From Laurence?”
“I’m not shooting Clyde Koning.”
“Talk to Fleur, then. She knows all about herbs and flowers, doesn’t she? I’m sure she’s aware of poisonous local plants and could—”
“No!” I sat back up. “I’m not tangling Fleur up in this mess. I’d kill myself before anything happens to her.”
“I can’t risk going back to that prison.”
“Well, you’re going to have to go back, because I’m not a killer.”
“Neither am I.”
I smacked his arm with the heel of my right palm. “You’re an ex-convict with nothing to lose. You’ve got no family, no money, no house, no love—”
He snatched my wrist and squeezed my bones between his fingers. “They’ll cut me up if I go back there.”