She paused in the middle of the street, her eyes darting toward the other houses on the block. Who was watching her? How many of them? Did they know what had happened? Were they all a part of it?
She started running, half staggering as her feet struck the uneven bricks of the pavement. She had to find help, find refuge.
But where?
Whom could she turn to? Whom could she trust?
Elaine Harris. Elaine had been her friend since…
She abandoned the thought. Elaine couldn't be trusted- she must be part of it. If Jerry was, Elaine must be, too.
And then she remembered.
There was one person she knew who might help her, might at least listen to her. Her breath coming in choking sobs, she turned and ran down the street.
Mark had left the house immediately after breakfast that morning, and Sharon had had to remind him to feed his rabbits, as she had every morning that week. His eyes had rolled with irritation and he'd suggested that Kelly do it, but Sharon had shaken her head. "They're your rabbits. You can't just dump them on your sister." He'd sighed heavily, but headed out to the backyard and quickly refilled the food and water containers inside the hutch. There were only five rabbits now, and as Sharon watched Mark hurriedly clean out the hutch, her eyes wandered to the small cross that marked the spot behind the garage where Kelly had insisted they bury the rabbit she'd found dead in the hutch last weekend.
It had been Mark who'd gone out to take a look when Kelly came running in that Saturday morning-the morning after the snowfall-crying that one of the rabbits had frozen to death. When he'd come back in, both Sharon and Blake looked inquiringly at him, but he only shrugged, seeming unconcerned. "I guess he didn't go in with the others," he said. "I turned the light on last night, and the rest of them are fine. I dumped him in the trash barrel."
Kelly, outraged at the indignity of the treatment accorded the dead animal, had insisted on a funeral for the rabbit, so after breakfast they all trooped out behind the garage and buried the little corpse in a shoe box. Only when Kelly had gone off to play with one of her friends had Sharon dug up the box, replacing it with a stone, andredeposited the rabbit in the trash barrel soChivas wouldn't be tempted to dig it up and bring it into the house, proudly presenting it to her like a child who has just won a trophy.
But as the week had gone by, and it became increasingly clear that Mark's interest in the creatures was waning, she'd wondered what to do with the small colony that still survived. Blake had suggested eating them, and though Sharon could still remember eating rabbit when she was a little girl, the thought of devouring what had been family pets turned her stomach. Now, as Blake sat in his chair in the family room going over a stack of files, and Kelly sprawled on the floor staring at a cartoon on television, she gazed out the window at the furry creatures-all too unaware that their future had suddenly become uncertain-who were peacefully munching on their food. Perhaps they could simply release them and let them join the large colonies of jackrabbits that proliferated all over the valley. Her reverie was suddenly interrupted by a pounding at the front door. Before she had risen to her feet, Kelly was dashing out of the room. A minute later the little girl was back, her eyes wide and her voice trembling.
"There's a lady here," she said. "And she looks like she's crazy or something." She hesitated a second, then went on proudly, "I didn't let her in."
Frowning, Sharon went to the front door, Kelly trailing after her, and opened it a couple of inches. For a moment she didn't recognize CharlotteLaConner standing on the front porch, her face ashen, her dark-circled eyes reddened with tears. But at last Charlotte spoke. Gasping, Sharon pulled the door wide.
"Please," Charlotte rasped, her voice strained and her eyes darting back over her shoulder, as if she thought she were being followed. "I don't have anywhere else to go. You've got to let me in… please?"
As Kelly pressed close to her, Sharon held the door with one hand and drew Charlotte in with the other. "Charlotte! What is it? What's wrong?"
"They're making me go away," Charlotte sobbed. "They want me to just go away and forget about Jeff. But he's my son, Sharon!" she wailed. "I can't just forget him. I can't!"
Sharon stared at CharlotteLaConner, her mind whirling. What was the woman talking about? Jeff was in a hospital somewhere, wasn't he? She began guiding Charlotte gently toward the kitchen and the family room beyond, then realized that Kelly was still beside her, gazing curiously at the distraught woman. "Go up to your room, sweetheart," she said. "Just for a little while. All right?"
For a second she thought Kelly was going to protest, but then, as if she knew that something was happening that she didn't need to know about, she trotted up the stairs. When she got to the top, she turned and looked back. "Is she JeffLaConner's mother?" she asked.
Sharon hesitated, then nodded. Kelly seemed on the verge of saying something else, but abruptly changed her mind and disappeared down the hall toward her room.
Blake was on his feet when Sharon and Charlotte came into the family room. When he saw the state Charlotte was in, he quickly began stuffing files back into the briefcase. "I'll be out of here in a second," he mumbled. He fell silent as CharlotteLaConner's bleary eyes fixed on him.
"Are you in on it, too?" she demanded, her voice reduced now to a hoarse rattle. Gasping for air, nearly spent from her wild run through the streets, she allowed herself to collapse onto the sofa. But her eyes never left Blake.
"I… in on it?" Blake asked. What was the woman talking about? Of course, he knew about JeffLaConner's breakdown. He'd even helped set up the boy's admission to a private mental institution near Denver.
CharlotteLaConner's eyes were wild now. "They're all part of it, you know," she rasped, her eyes flicking toward Sharon. "They did something to Jeff, and they don't want me to find out what it is. They won't let me see him. They even say it's my fault!" She buried her head in her hands and began sobbing. Sharon reached out, wanting to comfort her, but Charlotte shrank away from her touch.
The door bell rang, and Charlotte flinched visibly at the sound. Wordlessly, Blake hurried out of the room, and a moment later Sharon heard the faint sounds of whispered conversation. Then Blake was back.
Behind him, his eyes veiled with worry, was ChuckLaConner. As soon as he saw Charlotte, his sigh of relief filled the room.
"I'm sorry," he said to Sharon, going to sit next to his wife. But as he tried to slip his arm protectively around Charlotte, she shrank from him as a moment ago she had from Sharon. "I wasn't sure where she went. I've been driving around, looking for her." He paused, then reached out to Charlotte once again. "Honey, it's going to be all right. I'm here, and I'm going to take care of you."
"No!" Charlotte lurched to her feet and scuttled away until she had backed herself into a corner of the room and could go no farther. She froze there for a moment. Dimly, as if from a great distance away, she could hear her husband's voice.
"You have to understand," he was saying. "Ever since the trouble with Jeff started she's been getting worse and worse."
She had to get hold of herself-she had to! He was going to convince them that she was crazy, and if that happened…
She drew a deep breath, then another. She stood quite still for a moment more, then slowly, her hands held carefully at her sides, turned to face the three people who were watching her. Though every one of her frayed nerves demanded she turn away once again, cried out for her to give in to the panic that was building inside her, she knew she couldn't. She swallowed, trying to clear her throat of the lump that threatened to cut off her breathing, then took another breath.