Hugging her knees to squeeze herself into the smallest ball possible, Chloe closed her eyes. Tears wet her cheeks and she could taste them. She shuddered, trying to hold back a sob.
“Shh. Stay right there,” Mommy had whispered. “Don’t move a finger or make a sound. No matter what. Do you understand?”
She didn’t understand at all, but she was scared, and she was almost doing what Mommy said, even when tears dripped off her chin onto her bare arms. Chloe peeked. Daddy’s eyes were open, but she could tell he didn’t see her. Or anything.
Now she couldn’t see anybody else, but she heard the man talking. There weren’t any other voices, but she didn’t move. She didn’t whimper, even when the house became quiet and stayed quiet for a long time. She had to wait until Mommy came or Daddy woke up.
She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, even when different people came. They all had the same color of blue pants. Now she saw a man crouching beside Daddy, and even though she didn’t move, she didn’t, he lifted his head and saw her.
Her teeth chattered and she shook all over, but he stepped right over Daddy and opened the cupboard door all the way. He bent low, his face nice, and held out a hand.
“You’re safe now, honey. I promise.”
As he reached for her, the sob burst out, but not another sound.
Mommy said.
“Shall we leave the frosting white?” Trina Marr had already mixed up a cream cheese icing to go on the cupcakes cooling on a rack. “I might have some sprinkles. Or let’s see.” Being obsessive-compulsive neat, she knew right where she kept the small bottles of food coloring. “Green? Red? Or if we use just a tiny bit, pink?”
The little girl looking up at her nodded vigorously. The pigtails she’d started the day with sagged crookedly.
“Pink?”
Another nod.
Trina had become accustomed to the lack of verbal response. As Dr. Katrina Marr, she specialized in working with traumatized children. Three-year-old Chloe Keif had started as a patient but was now her foster daughter. Chloe still wouldn’t talk, but she relaxed with Trina as she didn’t with anyone else. She’d remained stiff and unresponsive in the receiving home where she was first placed. An aunt and grandparents both were hesitant to take Chloe when she had such problems. Offering to foster had seemed a natural step for Trina, if a first for her.
“Ooh,” she said now. “You know what we could put on top?”
Chloe waited, bright-eyed and expectant.
Trina rose onto tiptoes to reach a jar in a high cupboard. “Maraschino cherries. Have you ever had one?”
A suspicious shake of the head.
“They’re super sweet, like candy. The flavor just bursts in your mouth when you bite into one.” Trina wrinkled her nose. “Don’t tell anybody, but every once in a while when I’m feeling mad or sad, I open a jar and eat every single cherry.” She winked. “Which makes me sick to my stomach, but I don’t care.”
Chloe laughed, then clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide with astonishment and...fear? Yes.
It was the first sound to come out of her mouth in the two weeks Trina had known her. She crouched and tickled Chloe’s tummy. “It’s okay, cupcake.”
That almost earned her another smile.
“It was really smart of you to stay quiet when the bad men were in your house, but you’re safe now. Anytime you’re ready, you can start talking. You can make all kinds of noises.” She blew a noisy raspberry. Neighed, like a horse. Revved, like a motorcycle engine.
And Chloe giggled again.
Heart feeling as light as a helium balloon, Trina swung Chloe up to sit on the kitchen counter. “Here, try your first maraschino cherry.” She opened the jar, stuck a fork in and popped one into her own mouth. “Yum.” She offered the next one to the little girl, who sniffed it cautiously, then touched the tip of her tongue to the cherry.
Chloe’s face worked as she savored the taste before she opened her mouth and snatched the cherry off the fork.
Trina waited for the verdict.
“Yum!”
Trina grinned and said, “Then let’s make our frosting pink.” Her mouth fell open. “Wait. You talked.”
Chloe’s freckled nose crinkled mischievously.
Laughing exultantly, Trina swung her to the stool she’d pulled up to the counter. “Now you’re just teasing me.”
The little girl nodded. It was all Trina could do to concentrate on how many drops of red food coloring she ought to add to the bowl of icing to turn it a pretty pink.
Her delight was quickly dampened by the sobering knowledge that once Chloe really began to talk the police would be ready to pounce.
If investigators had a clue who’d murdered her mother, father and older brother in their home, they hadn’t confided as much in Trina or even hinted when pressed by reporters. Admittedly, the crime was not only horrific, it was puzzling. Chloe’s mother hadn’t been raped. Expensive electronics weren’t stolen. Neither was the nearly thousand dollars in Michael Keif’s wallet that had been left on the counter of the island in the kitchen. His Piaget watch, which according to the detective sold for over ten thousand dollars, remained on his wrist. If Michael, a wealthy businessman, had been the target, why had the rest of his family been killed, too?
Chloe wouldn’t have been mute and terrified when she was found if she hadn’t seen her father murdered within feet of her hiding place. With the investigation seemingly going cold, the detectives had latched on to the hope that this preschool girl could crack the case. It was making them nuts that so far, Chloe hadn’t been able to answer a single question.
Trina worried about what the weight of their expectations might do to Chloe. What if she was never able to tell them anything, and had to live with that failure for the rest of her life?
But there was another really scary possibility. Somehow reporters had learned that the three-year-old survivor of the massacre couldn’t say a word. On the local TV news, they’d even flashed a photo of Chloe as the anchor talked solemnly about the mystery and the devastating impact witnessing the horror had had on a little girl. Chloe had said her first word today, and Trina didn’t want anyone else to know. Because...what if this incredibly vulnerable child became a threat a killer couldn’t ignore?
Trina shivered. Pay attention, she told herself. She had to be careful not to turn this frosting bloodred.
* * *
GABRIEL DECKER SWUNG his rope with practiced ease. The loop settled on the ground just in front of a calf’s hind legs, tricky to do in such tight quarters in the temporary corral. The second the calf stepped into the loop, Gabe pulled in the slack, wrapped the rope around the saddle horn and drew the calf toward the fire. Once a pair of wrestlers tossed the struggling calf to his side and pulled off the rope, Gabe would coil it up and go back for another one. Today, four ropers and four teams on the ground were moving things along well. They aimed by the end of the week to have every spring calf branded, dehorned, castrated and vaccinated.
His eyes stung from the dust cloud raised by bawling calves penned in the corral and their mothers milling outside it. Unpleasantly reminded of a dust storm in Afghanistan, Gabe had to keep pushing the memory back. The work demanded focus. At least he felt useful, which he hadn’t much lately. He was irked that he couldn’t be one of the men tossing the calf and holding it down, a task he’d