“Daughters don’t run away from their mothers.”
Serena sank to the floor. She bent forward until her cheek lay on the cushion of the chair, and she could feel its warmth, as if she were doing what she’d done so many times as a child, laying her head on Samantha’s knees.
Then came the hardest one of alclass="underline" “I forgive you, Mother.”
She hesitated. Did she really mean that? Was she telling herself the truth?
“I forgive what you did. It doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t make me forget a moment of it, it doesn’t make you less evil, but I forgive you.”
The words were like a breath of wind that could blow away the dust. With that, Samantha was silent and gone, and Serena was alone. The empty chair was an empty chair, and the voice in her head went away. She stood up in the darkness, feeling an urge to scream with joy. She wanted a drink, but she wasn’t going to have one.
Not tonight.
The future was something else. The future was a lot of days strung together, and Serena was no fortune-teller.
But not tonight.
Then she spun as she heard a loud knocking on the cottage’s front door. It was an urgent knocking, the kind that said something was wrong. She ran to the door and ripped it open.
Cat and Delaney stood side by side on the porch.
The first thing Serena saw was blood.
32
Their clothes were dirty and grass-stained. Mud streaked their faces. Dried blood made a ribbon down Cat’s arm, and Delaney had a deep purplish bruise on one of her cheekbones and a gash on her forehead just below the line of her dark hair. Their eyes looked numb with fear.
“Oh my God, what happened?” Serena cried.
She took Cat by the hand and dragged her inside the cottage and then did the same with Delaney. She turned on the lights and ran to the bathroom and came back with damp towels, Bactine, and bandages. Cat nodded at her to help Delaney first, and Serena examined the girl carefully and began to clean and disinfect the wounds on her face. As she did, Delaney winced at the sting.
“What happened?” Serena asked again.
“Someone tried to run Delaney down,” Cat said.
“What?”
Cat explained about the car on the street near UMD. Serena didn’t ask any more questions immediately. Instead, she broke away from Delaney long enough to wrap Cat up in a fierce hug. Her embrace was long and tight enough that Cat complained that Serena was squeezing her to death. She finally let go.
“Thank God you’re okay,” Serena said, taking Cat’s face with both hands and leaning her forehead against hers.
“I’m fine.”
When Serena turned back to help Delaney, she saw the girl watching the two of them closely. Serena understood her emotions. She was lonely. And a little jealous. She was looking at a mother and daughter together, and she was missing things that were gone and things that had never been.
“Delaney, how are you?” Serena asked softly.
“I’m okay.”
“Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No. I just bumped my head a little when I landed on the ground. Cat saved me. I never even saw the car.”
“You’re a mess from all the mud, and you must be cold. Do you want to clean up? I’ve got clothes you can wear.”
Delaney nodded. “Thanks. That would be great.”
Serena went to her dresser in the other bedroom to gather up clothes. They might be a little big for Delaney, but she thought they would fit her fine. She made a folded pile that she took into the cottage’s one bathroom, and then she returned to the living room.
“You’re all set. Take your time. If you want to take a shower, too, go for it.”
Delaney gave her a weak smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Stride.”
“It’s Serena. Please.”
Delaney went into the bathroom and closed the door. When Serena was alone with Cat, she tended to the girl’s scraped arm and did her best to clean up the dirt from her face and skin with the damp towel. Then she gave Cat another hug.
“You could have been killed.”
“I was on autopilot. I didn’t think about it.”
“Give me more details. Tell me about the car.”
The girl shook her head. “I wish I could, but it all happened too fast. It was dark; it was raining. All I saw were headlights. I don’t have any idea what the car looked like. I mean, it wasn’t an SUV or a truck. It was a car. But beyond that, I can’t tell you color, make, anything like that.”
“And the driver?”
“No clue.”
“Are you absolutely sure that this person was targeting Delaney? Could it have been an accident? Maybe they didn’t see her in the street.”
“No way,” Cat insisted. “The car was going after her. The driver must have been watching us and waiting until she crossed. It started up as soon as she was in the middle of the street, and it went over the curb and followed us onto the grass. The thing barely missed us.”
“Did you see where it went afterward?”
“No. By that point, we were both too freaked.”
“Did Delaney say anything?” Serena asked.
“No. She was in shock. She wanted to go inside her apartment and forget about it. No doctors, no police, no nothing. I persuaded her that we should at least come here and tell you about it.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Cat asked. “Why would someone would want to kill her?”
“I don’t know, but I want to hear what she has to say.”
When Delaney got out of the shower a few minutes later, dressed in Serena’s clothes, Serena talked with her while Cat went into the bathroom to take her own shower. She knew not to push too hard with the girl. She didn’t mention Nikki, or the man in the car, or Zach, or Zach’s father. Instead, she asked about calculus and college and being a freshman and living on her own. Slowly, Delaney relaxed around her. She began to talk quickly, as if a lot of words had been bottled up inside her and she was letting them out all at once. Her smile came back. It was a pretty smile.
When Cat was out of the shower, they ordered pizza. Delaney told them she had never eaten at Sammy’s before, a fact that brought stricken looks of horror to Serena’s and Cat’s faces. They called in an order for delivery, opened cans of Diet Coke, and continued to chat about school, books, movies, and clothes. Two hours later, when the pizza was gone, Serena shot Cat a look that the girl understood. Cat made an excuse and went inside her old bedroom and closed the door, leaving Serena and Delaney alone.
Serena could see the girl’s anxiety rise, but Delaney didn’t shut down this time or get angry or defensive. She sat on the sofa across from Serena and steeled herself, as if she knew she needed to open the closet door and go toe-to-toe with the monster inside.
“I need to ask you some questions,” Serena said. “Do you have any idea who the person in the car could be?”
Delaney brushed her long hair back. Her voice was steady. “I don’t. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt me.”
“Has anything unusual happened recently?”
The girl’s sharp eyes homed in on Serena. “Well, you. You happened.”
“I started asking about your mom again.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s fair. I may have opened Pandora’s box, but that tells me there was something in the box to begin with.”
Delaney was silent.
“You want another pop?” Serena asked.
The girl shook her head.
“Well, I need one.” Serena went into the kitchen and opened a new can of Diet Coke and returned to the living room. This time, she sat on the sofa next to Delaney.
“I told you some things about my own life the other day,” Serena went on. “My struggle with drinking. My mother. I don’t share those things with a lot of people, but I thought you deserved to know why this case is important to me. And honestly, why I blew it the first time around. Because I did. I wrote off your mom’s death, and now I think there was much more to it than I realized at the time. The thing is, the two of you — you and Nikki — pushed too many buttons for me. I wasn’t ready to deal with the emotions you brought up for me. Does that make any sense?”