There were still cops up in Kelly’s bedroom when I went back down to the study. The money I’d found in the brown envelope was no longer on my desk. I’d dashed down here, bringing Kelly with me, between the time I’d called 911 and the arrival of the first squad car, stuffed the money back into the wall and replaced the panel. I’d had her stand outside the office door while I did it.
Just as well, because the police were all through the house. There were only so many questions I wanted to deal with.
I dialed Fiona.
“Hello? Glen? Good God, do you know what time it is?”
“I need a favor.”
I could hear Marcus, on the other side of the bed. “Who is it? What’s going on?”
“Shh! What kind of favor? What are you talking about?”
“I’d like you to look after Kelly for a while.”
I could sense Fiona trying to figure out what I was up to. Maybe she’d return to her earlier suspicion, that I wanted Kelly out of the house so I could have a woman over.
“What’s the problem?” she asked. “Have you decided you do want to send her to school here?”
“No,” I said. “But I would like her to stay with you. For a few days, anyway.”
“Why? I mean, I love having her here, but what’s your thinking?”
“Kelly has to get out of Milford for a while. No school, nothing to worry about. She’s been through a rough time and it might be just the thing for her.”
“Won’t she fall behind in her studies?” she asked. “At that school where they call her Boozer?”
“Fiona, I need to know whether you can do this for me.”
“Let me talk to Marcus and get back to you in the morning.”
“I need an answer now. Yes or no.”
“Glen, what’s this about, really?”
I paused. I wanted Kelly out of town, someplace where it would be more work for Darren or anyone else to find her. I knew Fiona’s house had a full security system that was directly wired into the police, and that Fiona had it on all the time.
I said, “It’s not safe here.”
There was an even-longer pause at the other end of the line. Finally, Fiona said, “Fine.”
I went upstairs and asked Kelly to come into my room, out of earshot of the police still in the house. I sat her on the bed next to me.
“I’ve made a decision and I hope you’re going to be okay with it,” I said.
“What?”
“I’m taking you to your grandparents in the morning.”
“I’m going to school there?”
“No. It’ll be like a vacation.”
“A vacation? Where?”
“I don’t know that they’ll actually take you anywhere, but I suppose that would be okay,” I said.
“I don’t want to be away from you.”
“I don’t like that, either. But it’s not safe here, and until I’m sure it is, it’d be better if you were someplace else. You’ll be safe with Fiona and Marcus.”
She thought about it. “I’d like to go to London. Or maybe Disney World?”
“I don’t think you should get your hopes up about that.”
She nodded, then thought a moment. “If it’s not safe for me here, then it’s not safe for you here. Are you going to go on a vacation, too? Can’t we both go?”
“I’m going to stay here, but I’ll be okay. I’ll be very careful. I’m going to find out what’s going on.”
She slipped her arms around me. “My bed’s got glass on it,” she said.
“You stay here with me tonight.”
After the police had left, Kelly got into her pajamas and slipped under the covers of my bed. She nodded off fairly quickly, which surprised me, given the events of the evening. But I guessed her system was telling her to sleep, that she needed to recharge her batteries to cope with all the confusing things that were going on.
My system didn’t work that way, not after someone had taken a shot at the house. I felt a need to do regular patrols. I turned off all the lights except for one in the kitchen and a night-light in the hall outside my bedroom. I’d check in on Kelly, head downstairs, take a look at the street, go back upstairs and check on Kelly again.
Sometime around three, I was starting to feel pretty beat. I went up to my room, lay down on the bed on top of the covers next to my daughter.
I listened to her breathing. In, and out, and in, and out. So peaceful. It was the only reassuring sound I’d heard in some time.
My intention was to stay up, to maintain my watch, but sleep finally overtook me. But my eyes opened with the suddenness of a fire station door. I looked at the clock and saw that it was just after five. I got up to do another perimeter patrol and decided there was no point in going back to bed.
I did a few things around the house, dealt with a couple of bills online that I’d forgotten to pay by the due date, made a note that we were nearly out of orange juice and cereal.
This was also the morning they picked up the trash. I gathered together all the household garbage, including the handcuffs Kelly had taken from the Slocum house that I’d tucked into the drawer of my bedside table. I stuffed them way down into one of the bags, put two cans out on the street, and by seven the truck had been by and taken everything away.
