He zeroed in on Camryn, who hadn’t acknowledged his presence at all. She was pouring cola over the ice cream and mashing it into a fizzing mess with her spoon before gobbling it down. At ten o’clock in the morning!
Rafe grimaced. “What kind of a breakfast is that?”
“It’s the only breakfast I want,” retorted Camryn
“And it’s not good for you. I went food shopping before I left for Minneapolis and I know we have juice and eggs and—”
“Quit it, Rafe!” Camryn made a gagging gesture. “You’re trying to make me sick on purpose.”
“I’ll have some juice and eggs, Rafe,” said Trent. “I want the kind with the egg fried in the middle of the bread, like my mom makes sometimes.”
Rafe looked at him blankly. He had no idea what kind of eggs Trent’s mother sometimes made.
“I know what he means. I’ll make it for him.” Kaylin rose to her feet and headed out of the room. “Anybody else want anything?” she called over her shoulder.
“No thanks.” Rafe was grateful for her willingness to help. Kaylin was usually cheerful and cooperative around the house, quite different from Camryn, whose disposition could and often did border on the demonic. But although Kaylin was easier to live with, she was as determined as her sister to run wild with the wrong crowd.
Rafe’s temples began to throb. “Did the girls go out last night, Lion?” He never forgot Trent’s nickname-of-the-moment.
“I don’t know,” Trent replied. “I was playing with my Gameboy. It’s the best present I ever got, Rafe. Thanks again.”
Rafe got the picture right away. The kid wasn’t going to squeal on Kaylin and Camryn, maybe his own choice, maybe because they’d threatened him to keep quiet. Perhaps if he rephrased the question, a standard lawyer’s trick... “What time did the girls get in last night, Lion?”
“I don’t know anything, I was playing with my Gameboy.” Trent stuck to his story.
“By the way, Tony is at the Steens’,” Camryn said in the acidly sweet tone she used to induce guilt. “Did you forget about him? ’Cause you didn’t mention him.”
Rafe felt guilty, all right. “I was just about to ask where Tony was.” He hadn’t forgotten about eight-year-old Tony, he assured himself. He’d been just a second or two away from noticing the child’s absence.
As he glanced from the boy to the girls and then to the dog, a peculiar feeling of unreality swept over him. It had been a whole year, and sometimes he still had difficulty believing that they were all here, living with him. That the life he’d known as a carefree bachelor had been so drastically, irrevocably, changed.
“The new neighbors are moving in today,” Trent said, flopping back down on the floor. “Did you see the moving truck when you came in, Rafe?”
“No, it wasn’t there.” Rafe already pitied the new neighbors who’d been unlucky enough to rent or buy the other half of the duplex in this development of town house condominiums. He knew that the kids’ noise and other antics had driven the Lamberts, the yuppie couple who’d previously lived there, to move across town.
“Maybe it just pulled in this second. I’m gonna go check.” Trent leaped to his feet and ran out the front door, closing it with a jarring slam.
Camryn clutched her head with her hands. “That felt like a cannon blast to the brain,” she complained.
“Where did you go last night and what time did you get in?” Rafe forced himself to ask, hating his role as warden. It was a role thrust upon him and he knew he wasn’t very good at it.
“I went miniature golfing with my friends and then we stopped at the Dairy Queen for sundaes. Real wholesome Midwest teen fun, huh, Rafe? Oh, and I was home before my curfew.” Camryn had a smile that was positively angelic.
Rafe had been fooled by her the first few days after she’d moved in. Then he’d caught on—the girl was actually the devil in disguise.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, scoffing his disbelief. “And Kaylin is going to be the valedictorian in her class and you’re going to be the prom queen in yours.”
The odds of either event occurring went far beyond the realm of possibility, with Kaylin’s and her “what’s bad about a D?” philosophy toward education and Camryn’s Princess of Darkness persona so at odds with the wholesome students at Riverview High. The same odds applied to Camryn’s version of how she’d spent her evening.
Kaylin came into the room carrying a plate with eggs and toast and a glass of orange juice. “Where’s Trent?”
“Pestering the new people next door, or trying to.” Camryn glanced at the food and sat up. “I’m starving! Can I have that?”
“It’s Trent’s,” Rafe said.
“I’ll make him some more. It’ll be cold by the time he gets back, anyway.” Kaylin handed the food and juice to her sister and sat down on Rafe’s designer recliner, wriggling in next to Hot Dog. The dog opened one eye, then closed it again, accepting her presence without protest.
“I feel kind of sick.” Kaylin swallowed visibly. “Like I might throw up. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten all those Oreos. ’Specially not on top of the Twizzlers.”
“For breakfast?” Rafe heaved a groan.
“I had milk with them.” Kaylin was defensive. “Milk’s good for you.”
“Just don’t puke in here or else I will, too!” Camryn shuddered as she proceeded to shovel the food into her mouth.
Rafe decided to skip this particular conversation. “I’m going upstairs to unpack and change.” He fled from the room.
Two
The moment Holly pulled her overpacked Chevy Cavalier into the driveway of 101 Deer Trail Lane, a young boy came running across the front yard to meet her.
“I’m Lion,” he announced as she climbed out of the car. “I live right next door.” He pointed his finger. “See, our places are connected. If me and my brother pound on the walls, you can hear us real good.”
He seemed pleased by this fact. Holly wondered, a little apprehensively, why and how often the brothers pounded on the adjoining walls.
“Me and Tony—that’s my brother—can do Morse code,” Lion continued, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. “Not only SOS, either. All the letters!”
“That must have taken a lot of practice,” Holly said politely.
“Yeah. We’ll teach you and then we can send messages. What’s your name?”
“Holly.”
“Can I call you that? Or are you Mrs. Somebody?”
“You can call me Holly. I’m not Mrs. Anybody.” How ironic. to be quizzed on her marital status moments after setting foot in her new neighborhood. Was this child an agent of her mother’s?
Holly smiled and tried to appear more enthusiastic than she currently felt. The exhaustion from the long drive was seeping through her, and the prospect of learning Morse code by pounding on her walls did not enchant her. She felt hungry, stiff, and more than a little frustrated that she wouldn’t be able to move in today as planned.
Lion brandished a golf club like a sword while he chattered on. Holly tried to listen, to respond to his many questions, but her head was still ringing with all the directions and suggestions provided by the friendly real estate agent, who had just given her the keys to her rented