“God, no. She’s fine right now. I’m just telling you that she’s in danger at that school. That’s all I want to say. Talk to her about it, then call me. I’m going now.”
“Wait—”
“You’ll understand soon, Johnny. I’ll explain everything. But you have to trust me first.”
“I’ll understand what?”
“What happened to Mallory.”
“What about Mallory? Did you—”
Cole whispered, “They just let the kids out of school. Your maid picked up Annelise five minutes ago.”
Waters felt only slight relief. “Listen to me, Ms. Sumner. Did you have something to do with Mallory Candler’s death? Did you know her?”
“I didn’t know her,” Eve said in a soft voice. “I am her.”
Waters closed his eyes. His voice, when it finally came, emerged as a whisper. “Did you just say—”
“The world isn’t how we think it is, Johnny. I know that now. And soon you will too. Soon you’ll understand.”
“What do you mean? What are you—”
The phone clicked dead.
Waters jumped to his feet and ran for the door.
“What the hell’s going on?” Cole yelled.
“I’m going to get Annelise!” Waters veered into the hall, checking his pocket for his keys as he ran. “I’ll call you when I find her.”
“Let me drive you!” Cole shouted, but Waters was already halfway down the stairs.
Waters drove fifty miles an hour through the center of town, the Land Cruiser’s emergency lights flashing. When he hit State Street, he accelerated to eighty. The beautiful boulevard tunneled through a large wooded area in the center of town that concealed two antebellum homes: sprawling Arlington plantation; and his own smaller estate, Linton Hill. He’d tried to reach Lily on her cell phone but failed, which meant she was probably swimming at the indoor pool downtown. That was why Rose, their maid, had picked up Annelise from school. He’d bought Rose a cell phone last year, but half the time she forgot to switch it on.
Annelise didn’t have soccer practice this afternoon, and he prayed that she didn’t have ballet or gymnastics or any of the other countless activities she pursued with the dedication of a seven-year-old career woman. He often wished the world were as simple as it had been when he was a kid; that there were long afternoons when Annelise would have nothing to do but use her imagination and play.
He slowed and swung the Land Cruiser into his driveway, then accelerated again. For the first thirty yards, trees shielded the house, but when he rounded the turn, he saw Rose’s maroon Saturn parked in the semicircular drive, and his pulse slowed a little. He parked beside her and sprinted up the steps, then paused at the door and took a breath. He didn’t want to panic Rose or Annelise if there was nothing to worry about.
When he opened the door, he smelled mustard greens and heard metal utensils clanking in the kitchen. He started to move toward the sounds, but then he heard Annelise’s voice down the hall to his left.
He found her sitting on the floor in the den, playing with Pebbles, her cat. She was trying to coax Pebbles into a house she had built out of plastic blocks that reminded him of Legos but weren’t.
“Daddy,” she complained, “Pebbles won’t check into the kitty hotel!”
Waters smiled, then struggled to keep the smile in place as tears of relief welled in his eyes. Seeing Ana playing there, it was hard to imagine what he’d been afraid of two minutes ago. Yet Eve Sumner had sounded deadly serious on the telephone. Your daughter’s in danger at school …
“How was school today, punkin?” he asked, sitting beside Annelise on the floor.
“Good. Why won’t she go inside, Dad?”
“Cats are pretty independent. They don’t like being told what to do. Does that remind you of anybody?”
She grinned. “Me?”
“You said it, not me.”
Ana pushed the cat’s bottom, but Pebbles pressed back against her hand and glared like a woman groped in an elevator. Waters started to laugh, but stopped when he saw something that would normally have caused him to scold his daughter. The family’s fifteen-hundred-dollar video camera was lying on the floor behind Annelise.
“Honey, what’s the camcorder doing on the floor?”
Annelise hung her head. “I know. I wanted to make a movie of Pebbles in the hotel I built.”
“What’s the rule about that camera?”
“Only with adult supervision.”
“We’ll make a movie later, okay? I want to talk to you for a minute. We haven’t spent enough time together lately.”
She looked up at him. “It’s always like that when you’re drilling a well.”
From the mouths of babes. “Has everything been going okay at school lately?”
“Uh-huh.” Annelise’s attention had returned to Pebbles.
“Are there any bullies bothering you?”
“Fletcher hit Hayes on the ear, but Mrs. Simpson put him in the sweet chair for an hour.”
The sweet chair. “But no one’s picking on you? Other girls, maybe?”
“No.” Annelise grabbed a paw and earned a feline slap.
“Have you seen any strangers hanging around the school? Around the playground, maybe?”
“Um … no. Junie’s dad hung around the fence for a while one day, but then a policeman came and made him leave. Her parents are divorced, and her dad’s not supposed to see her except sometimes.”
God, they have to grow up fast, Waters thought bleakly. Another idea came to him. He didn’t want to consider it – Annelise was only in the second grade – but he knew that the dark side of human nature observed no rules. “Honey, has anyone … touched you somewhere they’re not supposed to? Boys, I mean?”
Annelise looked up, her eyes interested. “No.”
She said nothing else, but she continued to look at Waters, and he knew something was working behind her eyes.
“What is it, Ana?”
“Well … I think maybe Lucy and Pam have been doing something they’re not supposed to.”
Two girls, Waters thought. This can’t be too bad. “Like what?” Annelise clearly wanted to speak, but still she hesitated.
“You know you can tell me anything, baby. You’re not going to get in trouble. No matter what it is.”
“Well … they’ve been going to the closet during recess to see stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Stuff Mr. Danny shows them.”
A chill raced up Waters’s back, and a vague image of a soft-faced thirty-year-old carrying a ladder came into his mind. “What does Mr. Danny show them?”
“I don’t know. But I think it’s stuff girls aren’t supposed to look at.”
Waters desperately wanted more information, but he didn’t want to press his daughter on something sexual. “Have you been in that closet, Ana?”
“No way. I don’t like Mr. Danny.”
“Why not?”
“He