LITMIR.BIZ

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as she asked, Kara crouched down with her sheets and made her way to Lillian. “What is it, Lil?” The frightened girl was barely breathing. “Did you have a nightmare? Did you see my friend Sam—”

      “It’s the man…” She faltered, unable to speak. Purple splotches spread across her pale cheeks as she gulped in more and more air, not breathing out.

      “Lillian…honey, you need to hold your breath for a couple of seconds. You’re not exhaling. If you get too much oxygen into your bloodstream, you’ll pass out.”

      She raised her huge blue eyes to Kara and dutifully held her breath for two seconds, then blew out a sharp breath and blurted, “It’s the man from the ranch!”

      “What man? Where?”

      “Outside. I saw him. Henry said we shouldn’t tell you about him until we get to Stonebrook Cottage, but he’s here. Mom doesn’t even know about him.”

      Kara could feel Lillian’s near hysteria infecting her. Wisps of blond hair matted the girl’s damp forehead and temples, beads of perspiration formed on her freckled nose. Kara steadied herself. “Lillian, where? Where is this man?”

      “Out front. He’s in a car. I saw him from the bedroom window.”

      “Are you sure? This is the city. There are lots of cars—”

      “It’s him. Come on, I’ll show you.” She tugged on Kara’s arm, but when Kara tried to stand up, Lillian gasped and dug her fingernails into her godmother’s wrists, almost drawing blood. “Stay down.”

      Whatever was going on with these kids, Kara thought, it was serious and undoubtedly more than she could handle alone. She set the sheets on the floor and tried to maintain an outward air of calm, if only to reassure Lillian, who was scared out of her wits. The girl’s hyperventilating wasn’t an act. Kara had seen enough faked fear and panic attacks—on the part of witnesses, clients, even young attorneys before a big trial—to recognize the difference.

      Staying low, she followed Lillian to the bedroom. Henry was on his knees at the window, peering over the sill in the dark, an angle of light from outside catching his pale face. He silently motioned for Kara and his sister to join him.

      “I wasn’t going to tell you,” he whispered when Kara crouched next to him. “I didn’t want to scare you, but Lillian wouldn’t listen. He’s out there.”

      “Who, Henry?” Kara asked.

      “Do you see the black car? That’s him.”

      She looked up past the neighbor’s house, craning her neck, and saw a black sedan parked on the street. Someone was in the front seat, but she couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.

      “Look,” Lillian said, kneeling down on Kara’s other side, “he’s smoking a cigarette.”

      Kara frowned. “I can’t see the cigarette never mind who’s in the car. How do you two know he’s from the ranch?”

      “He got out of the car a few minutes ago,” Henry said. “He stared right at your house. Lillian and I got a good look at him, didn’t we, Lil?”

      “Uh-huh. He was under the streetlight.”

      “Okay, I believe you,” Kara said. “So who is he?”

      Henry sat down on the floor, leaning back against the wall under the window with his knees tucked up under his chin. Kara noticed a smattering of small scratches and bruises on his tanned bare legs, a twelve-year-old at summer’s end. How had his and Lillian’s summer come to this?

      “We saw him watching us at the ranch,” he said. “Well, I did, and I warned Lillian to look out for him. He showed up the first of this week.”

      “Are you sure he wasn’t an employee? He didn’t introduce himself—”

      “Sometimes he had on a disguise,” Lillian said. “I saw him with a fake mustache. I thought he looked stupid.”

      A fake mustache. It could have been another man altogether and Lillian had just leaped to the conclusion it was her strange man in a disguise. “Did you ever talk to him?” Kara asked.

      Both kids shook their heads. “That would have been dumb,” Henry said.

      “Yeah,” Lillian said, “what if he dragged us into the woods and chopped our heads off?”

      Kara winced, but realized Lillian was serious. Bad things could happen if you talked to strange men. Why hadn’t it occurred to them that bad things could happen if you lit out on your own?

      But Kara stuck to the issue at hand. “Did this man ever approach you, ever try to talk to you?”

      “No.” Henry was remarkably calm. “He just watched us, usually from where no one else could see him. I asked one of my friends who he was, but the man disappeared—it’s like he knew I was checking him out.”

      Kara peered out at the parked car and wondered if the stress of the past weeks—the isolation they’d felt after Mike’s death and their mother becoming governor, coupled with the unfamiliarity of being on a Texas dude ranch—had pushed these two bright, imaginative kids over the edge. They had to be making this stuff up.

      “You didn’t tell your counselors about him?”

      “I wanted to,” Lillian said, “but Henry wouldn’t let me.”

      He pursed his lips, as if contemplating the logic of his decision. “I was scared to say anything. Then Mom told us to come here. I knew something was wrong.”

      “Lillian says your mother doesn’t know about this guy.”

      “We didn’t want to worry her. She was already worried enough.”

      Kara tried to follow his thinking, but he was twelve years old. “Okay—are you sure this is the same guy?”

      “Yes,” he and Lillian said simultaneously.

      They argued over everything—the rules of a card game, television shows, favorite rock groups, where to sit in a restaurant. Kara had put a stop to their bickering enough times to realize that agreeing, without hesitation, about the man outside had to mean something. She sighed, wishing she could be neutral and objective where Henry and Lillian Stockwell were concerned. If they could successfully manipulate anyone, it’d be her. She loved them unconditionally, and they knew it.

      Sam would want to know about the man in the black sedan.

      Both kids were back on their knees, spying out the window. The car’s headlights popped on, catching them by surprise. Lillian dived to the floor, sobbing and gulping for air, and Henry ducked down low and went stone-still, as if any movement might give away his position.

      Kara touched Lillian’s trembling shoulder. “Stay here. I’ll be right back. Trust me. ”

      She ran up the hall into the foyer, tore open her door and shot out onto the porch, catching the car as it moved up the street. It had a Texas tag, but she couldn’t make it out or tell if the car was a rental.

      She debated calling Sam. Her brother. 911. Never mind the damn letter—never mind Henry and Lillian’s irrational fear. This was her decision to make. She was the prevailing adult here.

      When she returned to her bedroom, her godchildren were hoisting their backpacks onto their shoulders, grim-faced, as if they knew exactly what Kara was considering doing and now they had to go find someone else to help them.

      She sighed. “What are you two doing?”

      “We’re getting out of here.” Henry spoke calmly, seriously. “He’ll come back. We don’t want him to find us—or you. We have no right to endanger you, Aunt Kara.”

      She ignored a sudden, overwhelming wave of nausea and forced herself to focus on the problem at hand. These kids were on the verge of spinning out of control. She had to do something,

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