“Trish?”

She looks up at me and I see the shadow in her eyes.

“What are you doing here?”

She stops chewing, the sandwich suspended in a hand that begins to shake.

Ryan eyes flash. “She’s not going back to that house,” he says. “If you make her, we’ll just run away again. This time we’ll leave the state. We’ll go to Mexico. You’ll never find us.”

His tone is fervent and desperate, a kid trying to explain the demon threatening his best friend to an adult he suspects doesn’t believe in them.

But I’m not most adults.

“Did someone hurt you, Trish?” I ask softly.

Ryan reaches out a gentle hand and touches her shoulder. “Tell her,” he says. “Or I will.”

Trish’s hand descends slowly, the sandwich falling from her limp fingers while tears spill onto her cheeks.

“We don’tknow her,” she mumbles to Ryan.

He nods toward me. “Yeah, but look at Cujo. He likes her, so she can’t be all bad.”

I put a hand on Cujo’s head, trying to emphasize the dog’s obvious good judgment, but he looks up at me and rolls his tongue like he’s ready to plant another big doggy kiss on my face. I gently but firmly push his head back down before he can.

Ryan’s eyes lock onto mine. “And if she was going to take you back, you’d be gone by now, right?”

The question is directed at me. I nod. “But I can’t really help you until I know what happened.”

Trish’s eyes go flat, passionless. “My mother,” she says simply. “My mother happened to me.”

She stops, recomposing herself. I don’t try to rush her or ask another question. My own insides are churning. I suspect I’m not going to want to hear what she has to say. And I’m just as terribly convinced that my first instincts about Carolyn Delaney will prove to have been accurate. I didn’t like or trust the woman from the moment she walked into my parent’s home.

Trish picks up a paper napkin from the small pile on the floor and wipes her eyes. “My mother wasn’t always-” Her voice falters, breaks. She scrubs at her eyes again and lifts her chin. “She used to be a pretty good mom. We’d do things together. Go to movies. Shopping. We didn’t have much money, but that didn’t matter.”

There’s nothing more pathetic than a child defending her parent-or more unnatural. It should be the other way around. Always. Ryan places an arm around Trish’s shoulders. The simple act seems to give her strength. She sits up a little straighter.

“Anyway, I guess the trouble really started when my dad left a couple of years ago. He just walked out on us. Mom says she doesn’t know why he left. She woke up one morning and he was gone. No note. Nothing. He just left us.”

My shoulders jump. “Your dad?”

Misery, as intense as the pain in her voice, slumps her shoulders. “I used to think it was something I’d done. That it must have been.” She looks at Ryan and his smile of reassurance lifts the weight a little. “Ryan says it wasn’t of course. That sometimes adults do stupid things that have nothing to do with their families. He almost makes me believe it.”

She looks so sad, I want to put my arms around her and tell her that there’s another family she could belong to. A good one that would never abandon her. But that would involve telling her that her mother has been lying to her for thirteen years.

If she has been.

One thing is for certain, though, Carolyn has been lying to someone.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” I say, stumbling over the word “dad.”

“But you haven’t told me why you ran away. Was it because of what happened to your friend?”

Trish’s brows draw together. “My friend?”

In the same instant, Ryan draws a sharp breath and shakes his head at me. “I haven’t had a chance to tell her about that.” His tone makes it clear that he doesn’t think I should either.

But it’s too late. Trish looks from his face to mine. “What are you talking about?”

Ryan stiffens, the look he throws me dark with anger. “Trish has enough to worry about. She doesn’t need to hear about that other thing.”

Trish is staring at Ryan now with burning, reproachful eyes. “What other thing, Ryan?”

He looks away, refusing to meet her gaze or answer.

So I do. “I’m sorry, Trish. I thought you knew. It’s Barbara.”

“Barbara?” She repeats the name with the same puzzled inflection. “What about Barbara?”

I don’t know how to make this easy. One thing I’m sure of, Trish either doesn’t know that her friend is dead or she’s an Oscar-worthy actress. I take hold of one of her hands. “Barbara is dead, Trish. The police found her body this morning. I’m sorry.”

“Oh my God,” Trish’s anguished cry echoes in the empty garage. She snatches her hand out of mine and rounds on Ryan. “You knew about Barbara. And you didn’t say anything?”

Ryan doesn’t meet her eyes. He busies himself with his dog, calling him over, breaking off a bit of the sandwich in his hand and holding it out to him. He watches Cujo with fierce intensity until he can bring himself to look at Trish again. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I couldn’t tell you.”

Trish’s face crumbles. Fat tears wet her cheeks and her shoulders shake with sobs, but she doesn’t make a sound. It’s only when she draws a deep, shuddering breath that the wail erupts. She buries her face in her hands. “Oh my god, oh my god. I’m next. I’m next. I’m next.”

She keeps repeating the litany, ignoring me when I gather her to my chest, stroke her hair, and croon soft promises that I’ll keep her safe. She doesn’t struggle against me or try to break away. She holds herself rigid, arms wrapped tightly around her own waist.

I look over her head at Ryan. He’s trembling as he stares at us. Neither kid has asked how Barbara was killed. It’s as if they were expecting it. “You’d better tell me what’s going on, Ryan.”

He looks close to tears, too, but he doesn’t break down. “It’s the guys from the website,” he says, voice flat.

“Website?”

He nods, staring at his friend. “They want the computer back.”

“Computer?” I sound like a parrot.

Ryan climbs to his feet and heads for the back of the garage, Cujo at his heels. For the first time, I notice clothes and a blanket in the corner. He shuffles through the stuff, and when he turns back around, he has a laptop in his hand. Wordlessly, he brings it back to us, kneels down and powers it up. His fingers fly over the keyboard until the expression on his face tells me he’s found what he’s looking for. It’s a mixture of revulsion and fury that sends the color flooding into his cheeks. I know because he’s turned the computer around to face me and I’m experiencing the very same things.

It’s Carolyn, standing behind her daughter, a leather thong in her hand. The thong is attached to the collar around Trish’s neck. Trish is spread-eagled on the bed, her face partially obscured by a scarf, but recognizable nevertheless. She’s naked. And there’s a man’s hand between her legs.

The rage that rises up in me is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Swift. Uncontrollable. I lash out, sweeping the computer from Ryan’s hand and sending it crashing against the wall. I can’t stop shaking; my whole body vibrates with hot fury. I see the fear in Ryan’s eyes as he watches me, feel Trish flinch away and move next to him. They both cower, shivering, out of reach. Cujo, too, whimpers and backs away. My wrath is scaring them but I don’t know if I can rein it in.

But I also know I must. I’ll tuck it away, secure it in a dark part of my mind, so I can recall it later.

When I face Carolyn.

It takes a few minutes but when I can speak without screaming, I hold out a hand to Trish. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Your mother made you-” I gesture toward the ruined computer. “Do that?”

She nods, her face flushing to deep crimson. “I didn’t want to.”