"I know. And she loved you so much she barked her head off whenever you left the house."
"Yeah. One of the neighbors called the sheriff so many times my parents said I'd have to give her away if it happened again. I knew no one else would want her, so I kept her in my bedroom whenever we were gone." I sniffed my running nose. "Then she got out of the house one day ... and something killed her. Ripped her throat right out." My own throat ached with the memory of it. "I had nightmares every night for a month."
"It was my dad," Daniel said quietly.
"What?"
"The one who called the police all those times." Daniel wiped his nose with his shoulder. "He'd wake up in the middle of the day in one of his moods and ..." He reached under the hood and jiggled something into place. "Start the car."
I backed away and got in the driver's seat. I said a small prayer and turned the key in the ignition. The engine chugged a couple of times and then made this sound like an asthmatic cough. I tried the key one more time and it started. I clapped my hands together and thanked the Lord.
Daniel dropped the hood. "You should get out of here." He rubbed his hands on his arms, leaving black, greasy tracks on his skin. "Have a good life." He kicked one of the tires and walked away.
As he slipped out of the light of the streetlamp, I jumped out of the car. "That's it?" I shouted. "You're just going to take off again?"
"Isn't that what you wanted?"
"I don't, I mean, aren't you coming back to school?"
He shrugged, his back to me. "What's the point? Without that art class ..." He took another step into the darkness.
"Daniel!" My frustration fired like a pottery kiln. I knew I should thank him for fixing the car--for coming along when he did. I knew I should at least say goodbye, but I couldn't make the words come.
He turned and looked at me, his body almost lost in the shadows.
"Can I give you a ride somewhere? I could drop you at the shelter so you can get some clothes and something to eat, maybe."
"I'm not the shelter type," Daniel said. "Besides, I'm staying with some guys over there." He thumbed in the direction of the squatty building across the street.
"Oh." I looked at my hands. I'd actually thought he'd been following me, but he was probably just walking down the street when he saw me with Pete. "Wait there." I went to the car and tore open one of the boxes in the backseat. I dug around and pulled out a red-and black coat. I took it to Daniel and handed it to him.
He held it for a moment, fingering the embroidered North Face logo on the front. "I can't take this," he said, and tried to hand it hack.
I waved it away. "It's not charity. I mean, you used to be my brother."
He flinched. "It's too nice."
"I'd give you another one, but the others in this car are women's. Jude has the rest, so unless you want to come to the shelter?" "No."
Shouts echoed in the background. A pair of headlights appeared around a corner.
"This will do." He nodded and took off into the darkness.
I stood and watched until he disappeared. I didn't even notice the headlights stop in front of my car until I heard someone call my name.
"Grace?" Pete ran up to me. "Are you okay? Why didn't you stay in the car?"
I looked over his shoulder to the white truck idling in the dark. Its cabin light barely revealed Jude's face as he sat in the driver's seat. His expression was blank and stiff as if carved out of stone.
"I got the car running," I lied.
"Good, but you're freezing." Pete wrapped his arms around me and held me to his chest. He smelled spicy and clean like always, but this time it didn't make me want to be closer to him.
"Can we skip bowling tonight?" I said as I pulled away. "It's getting late, and I don't feel up to it. We can go some other time."
"Sure. But you'll owe me." He draped his arm around my shoulder and walked me to the truck. "It's nice and warm in there, so you ride with Jude. I'll take the Corolla and then after we unload I'll drive you home. Maybe we can stop for coffee on the way back."
"Sounds good." But the thought of rich coffee made me ill. And that stony look on Jude's face as I climbed into the truck made me want to find a hole to bury my head in.
"He shouldn't have left you here," Jude said under his breath.
"I know." I held my fingers up to the heater. "But he thought he was keeping me safe."
"Who knows what could have come along?" Jude shifted the truck into drive. He didn't speak again all night.
Chapter Five
Charity Never Faileth
SATURDAY
I wandered aimlessly around the house like a ghost all morning. Except I was the one who felt haunted.
All night long, I'd dreamed of rattling car doors and that strange, high-pitched noise. And then Daniel's eyes, glinting and hungry, staring back at me through the glass. I woke up more than once, cold and sticky with sweat.
In the afternoon, I sat in my room and tried to write a report on the War of 1812, but my gaze--and mind-- kept drifting out the window to the walnut tree in the front yard. After I'd started the first sentence of my report over for the tenth time, I kicked myself mentally and went downstairs to the kitchen to make some chamomile tea.
I rummaged in the pantry and found a bottle of honey shaped like a bear. It was the same kind I'd loved when
I was young enough to live off of peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches with the crusts cut off. But now it seemed grainy and goopy as I squeezed it out in tiny globs on the surface of the brown tea and then watched them sink to the depths of my steaming mug.
"Got any more of that tea?" Dad asked.
I jumped at the sound of his voice.
He pulled off his leather gloves and unbuttoned his wool overcoat. His nose and cheeks were bright red. "I could use a pick-me-up."
"Um, yeah." I mopped up the puddle I'd spilled on the counter. "It's chamomile, though."
Dad crinkled his Rudolph nose.
"I think I saw some peppermint in the cupboard. I'll get it for you."
"Thanks, Gracie." He pulled a stool up to the counter.
I took the kettle off the stove and poured him a cup. "Bad day?" He'd been so busy with the charity drive and the endless studying in his office for the last month; it had been weeks since we'd really talked.