"Did your daddy tell you that?"

"He tells me I can be what I want, and that's what I want."

"What about John?"

"What about him?"

"He's already there. Won't the company be his?"

"I'll fire him. That's the first thing I'll do. The second will be to hire your mother. She can do sorting and matching."

But Marcy was insistent. "Mama won't do nothing different from what the other women do, and they don't work at the mine. B'sides, she doesn't mind the factory. She gets paid enough so there's food on the table, even if there isn't much left over for anything else."

She paused then, and Pam was quiet, too. She could see the sadness on Marcy's face, a face that didn't usually reveal too much. What it told Pam now made her wonder just what Eugene had meant when he'd said that Marcy had seen the bare side of life.

"Is that what makes things so bad?" she asked cautiously. "Not having money for things?"

Still ironing, Marcy tipped her head to the side. "It's one of the things."

"What's the other?"

"Him."

"Your father?"

"He's not my father. My father died in Korea. Mama married Jarvis a couple of years after that."

"Is he Tommy and Lizzie's father?"

She nodded. The iron hissed a breath of steam. "Wouldn't know it. He hits them, too."

"He spanks them?" Pam had never been spanked in her life. She'd been yelled at, but never spanked.

"Not spanks," Marcy clarified. "Hits. Sometimes he's drunk, sometimes he's not. But when he does it, he does it hard." She hauled back an arm in demonstration. "Bam!"

Pam flinched. "Did he ever hit you that way?"

"Lots. That's why your daddy took me to live here soon as I could leave school."

Pam hadn't known. She felt awful. "Oh, Marcy."

"It was worst for Mama. I could run away from him, but Mama, she never did have so much strength after Lizzie was born. She's all tired after work, and he wants somethin' to eat. If she doesn't get it for him fast enough . . ."

"He hits her?"

Marcy nodded. "And yells. And throws things sometimes clear across the room." She snapped the shirt from the ironing board, shook it straight, and reached for a wire hanger. "That's what bad is."

So now Pam knew, and, as Marcy had intended, it made her feel less sorry for herself. Although there were arguments in her house, there wasn't any hitting, yelling, or throwing. Patricia wanted dignity and peace nearly as much as prosperity.

Thinking about it that night, curled up in her bed, Pam had a lot to be grateful for. True, she hated John. But she loved her mother. And she adored Eugene, who was kind and gentle and wasn't anything like Jarvis Willow. Maybe Marcy was right-maybe her parents weren't going to get a divorce; maybe they were comfortable just living apart like they did.

None of her friends' parents lived that way.

But there were some advantages to it. Like the tourmaline crystals Eugene had taught her to love, her life was dichroistic, glowing in one color, then the next as the light turned. When she was in Boston, she was the lady her mother wanted her to be. She went to a private school with her friends, took dancing lessons and piano lessons, went to Sat.u.r.day morning cla.s.ses at the museum, which she loved, ate at the best restaurants in town, and went to the ballet and the theater. There were times that she felt she was playing a game, but since she did it well, she didn't mind-especially since she could then turn around and go to Timiny Cove, take the satin ribbon from her hair, put on jeans and a long shirt, and do all the fun things Patricia might not like.

She couldn't imagine living in Timiny Cove without returning to Boston. Nor could she imagine it the other way around. Maine was her salvation. It was where Eugene was. It was where everyone knew her and liked her, and she knew and liked everyone. It was small, close, like family.

It was also where Cutter was.

Chapter 6.

THERE HAD NEVER BEEN A TIME when Cutter Reid hadn't known the name St. George. He'd been born and raised in Timiny Cove, and though his father had been kicked off the company payroll soon after Cutter's birth, St. George Mining was too visible a presence in town to be ignored. That wasn't to say that Cutter respected it. He didn't respect much of anything, and, being his father's son and his own worst enemy, not much of anything respected him.

In 1965 Cutter was sixteen going on twenty-eight, if being street-wise counted for anything. His father had drunk himself to death when Cutter was nine, and his mother had wh.o.r.ed her way into an adjacent grave soon after. From the age of thirteen, Cutter had fended for himself. He had worked at odd jobs until he quit or was fired, had gone to school only when the truant officer came looking, and had committed enough petty crimes to firmly establish himself as one tough kid. He'd spent more than his share of nights in the local jail and had managed to avoid a serious conviction only by the skin of his teeth.

That was why, when Eugene St. George tackled him in the trash alley behind Paquette's Luncheonette, he wasn't expecting an ounce of mercy. Having helped himself to the contents of the cash drawer at the gas station in the center of town, he suddenly found himself being chased not only by the attendant Judd Stuckey but by Eugene St. George, who had stopped for gas.

Cutter cursed himself for not recognizing the large, dark blue Lincoln, but it was raining so hard that visibility was next to nil, which was one of the reasons he figured he could get away with the heist. Even when Eugene caught sight of him and jumped from the car, he wasn't concerned. He was younger and lighter than Eugene; he could outrun him. But one block into his escape he knew he was in trouble. March was mud season in Maine, and with the rain pouring down, footholds in the mired earth were precarious at best. Unable to stay on the pavement, which would have led him straight through the center of town and past dozens of pairs of curious eyes, he had to take the back paths. That was how he found himself sprawled face-down in the mud in the trash alley beneath Eugene's large frame. He barely had time to catch his breath when he was hauled up by the collar.

"What in the h.e.l.l do you think you're doin', boy?" Eugene roared. He was panting from the run, but the exertion hadn't dulled his indignation.

Cutter wrenched his body to the right, a move that should have taken Eugene by surprise and secured his freedom, but it didn't. Eugene hung on tight.

"Got him," Judd gasped, coming around the corner at the fastest his gimpy left leg would allow. "Who-Cutter Reid, you no-good thug!"

Cutter wrenched to the left, but Eugene's hand was like steel around the collar of his drenched jacket and shirt. Still he struggled, trying to head-b.u.t.t his way free, and when that didn't work, he kicked. But Eugene's superior size and bulk-and cunning, it seemed-had him down in the mud again before Cutter knew what had happened. This time, a knee was pressed sharply to his groin, holding him still. Eugene fished inside Cutter's soggy clothes and came up with the cash that Cutter would have denied he'd taken.

As if all that weren't bad enough, the trash alley was suddenly filled with more people than it had seen in days. Most notable among them was Verne Walker, Timiny Cove's police department.

One look at Cutter's muddy face and he said wearily, "What's he done this time?"

There was nothing weary in the way Judd held up the money Eugene had recovered. "He stole from me, the dirty rotten thief! You gotta do somethin', Verne. He's gettin' bolder 'n' bolder. Just walked in and took the money from the cash drawer. If it hadn't been for Eugene, he'd a got away."

Cutter wanted to argue, but his b.a.l.l.s were hurting something fierce. It was all he could do to take one breath after another and make like he was fine, and he was determined to do just that. He wasn't about to let them think him a sissy on top of everything else.

"He been eyein' that gas station for a while," someone behind Verne said, calling out to be heard above the rap of rain on a rusted tin gutter nearby.

Someone else called, "Last time was the supply store. Couldn'a been more 'n two months ago."

A third voice said: "He's trouble. Been trouble since the day he was born. No wonder his daddy drunk so much."

Cutter turned a deaf ear to the talk. He'd heard it before. His eyes were on Eugene, whose eyes were on him. He was starting to feel dizzy.

Verne bent over at the waist, rain dripping off the visor of his cap. "So what you got to say for yourself, sonny? Just can't keep your nose clean, can ya? I'm gonna have to lock ya up again, and if Judd presses charges, you gotta go to Portland. Got yourself a lawyer? Ya may need one this time."

"He doesn't have any lawyer," Eugene muttered. He was looking closely at Cutter, who had broken out in a cold sweat and was ash white. "Doesn't have any parents, doesn't have any money, doesn't have any food from the looks of him." The knee came off his groin. In a helpless reflex, Cutter rolled to his side and curled up. Eugene's hand went to his shoulder, ostensibly restraining. "Deep breath," he murmured in a low voice.

Cutter took a deep breath, then a second when the first one was ragged. After a third the dizziness began to ease. In the next instant Eugene released the pressure on his shoulder and helped him sit up. With all eyes on him, Cutter shrugged off the helping hand.

"So what you got to say for yourself, sonny?" Verne repeated.

"To you, nuthin'," Cutter answered in a voice deliberately made deep.

"You want to say it to the judge?"

"It don't much matter. He ain't gonna give any more of a d.a.m.n about me 'n you do."

"Then we might as well give it a try," Verne concluded and straightened. "Okay, folks. Back to what you was doin' before Cutter Reid got you out in the rain." He watched while the first of the onlookers turned to leave. "Judd, you gonna press charges?"

"d.a.m.n right I am. He got no right lookin' to wipe me out that way. I work hard for my money. He ought to try doin' that for a change."

Verne turned back to Cutter, who was gingerly pushing himself to his feet. Upright, he was taller than the police chief. He knew that from experience and wanted the advantage it gave.

"You hear that, sonny? You're in trouble this time. Judd's gonna press charges, an' what with everythin' else you done in the past, it ain't gonna be good."

"Nuthin's good," Cutter said, in the grip of a familiar bleakness. "Tell me somethin' I don't already know."

"You know what it's like in prison?" Eugene asked.

Cutter looked off in the opposite direction, not caring what he saw as long as it wasn't Eugene. He might have gained a physical superiority over Verne in the last year, but he had a way to go to catch up with the big man who owned half the town.

"It's mean," Eugene went on, "meaner than anything you ever known. Meaner than anything you ever dreamed. It's dark and hard and unforgiving, and once you're in there, you're a con, then an ex-con. You think it's tough goin' through life with your daddy's name? Well, tack ex-con after it, and see how that feels."

Cutter thought of Eugene's big house and his big car and his big bankbook, and made a disparaging sound. "How would you know?"

"I had a friend once. Born right here, just like you. Alvie Joplin, remember him, Verne? No, I guess he was before your time." He addressed Cutter again. "Car theft was his specialty, only he didn't do it here, he did it down in Boston. After a time they caught him and put him away, and when he got out, he tried to find a job, only he was an ex-con, and people were nervous hiring an ex-con. Since he wasn't good at much of anything but stealin' cars, he tried it again, and they sent him away again. He was longer in gettin' out that time, and he wasn't a kid anymore, older and hardened, so when he needed money to eat, he took a job for some quick money. It was right down his alley, stealin' a car, only he used the car to help his two buddies get away after they robbed a bank."

"What happened to him?" Verne asked, fully taken with the tale.

But Eugene kept looking at Cutter, who was looking right back at him. "Cops got 'im. Shot 'im. I read that he was in serious condition, so I went to the hospital. Didn't even recognize him. It had been ten years since I'd seen him. He looked thirty years older. But that was as old as he got. He died the next day."

Cutter was used to people lecturing him, and there was always a moral to their stories that was tailor-made for him. It was too convenient. "Nice tale," he said.

"True tale," was Eugene's comeback.

"So you gonna learn somethin' from that, sonny?" Verne asked.

Coming in the breath after Eugene's vow, Verne's gloating voice was a rude abrasive to Cutter. "I ain't gonna learn nuthin' from you," he spat.

"Well, that's just fine," Verne said, "but you're comin' with me whether you like it or not." When he closed a hand around his prisoner's arm, Cutter knocked it away. "Watch it, sonny. I don't want to have to add resistin' arrest to the charges." This time, though, when he reached for Cutter, Eugene was the one who stopped him.

"I want him, Verne."

Cutter's eyes shot to Eugene while Verne said, "You what?"

"I want him. Let me have him for the rest of the day."

"You gone mad?"

"Do I look like I've gone mad?" Eugene asked, his tone dead serious.

"What are you gonna do with him?"

"That's between him and me. Any problem?"

"You want him, you got him. But I'd be careful if I was you. Turn your back on him and he'll be gone."

"I'm not turning my back." He took Cutter's arm. "Let's go."

Cutter didn't resist. He didn't know why, whether it had to do with the choice being between Eugene and Verne, memory of that hard knee in his groin, curiosity about what Eugene had in mind, or something else. But he went along, albeit uneasily. Eugene was more commanding than Verne any day. He was also stronger, quicker, and more wily. Making a break for it would be hard. Not that Cutter planned to do that, at least not right off. It might be worth sticking around if there was promise of a hot meal in it.

"Where you takin' me?" he asked.

"You'll see."

"I want to know."

"If you wanted to know where you were goin', you should'a gone with Verne."

Manacled to Eugene by a single strong hand, Cutter didn't have much choice but to march alongside him, through the rain and the mud, back to the scene of the crime.

They didn't talk. Cutter wasn't good at conversation in the best of circ.u.mstances. When they reached the car, Eugene opened the pa.s.senger's door and nudged him in.

He balked then. "I got mud all over me."

"So do I."

"Your car's new and clean."

"So? I don't plan on stayin' out in this rain forever, and I'm sure as h.e.l.l not goin' to walk for miles in it. You may be young and insensitive, but I'm gettin' cold. Now get in."

He gave Cutter another push, a firmer one this time. Cutter got into the car.

Slamming the door, Eugene rounded the car and climbed in behind the wheel. He shot Cutter a glance. "You missed your chance. The keys were here in the car. You could'a taken off when I was goin' around."

But Cutter was cold and tired. It never occurred to him to take off. Not that he was about to tell Eugene that. "I don't know how to drive."

"No? So how do you get around?"

"Motorcycle." He snorted. "Got no gas for it now, thanks to you."

"You want gas, you can earn the money to buy it."