"Oh G.o.d," I said, scarcely conscious of what I was saying.

Eve came into the bedroom. She had picked up the baby and brought her with her. I looked at her white face, and I am sure I looked as stricken as I felt.

"Miss Lily," she said, and her voice was limp and a little sad. "My dad's at the door. He came to get us."

"He's here," I said into the phone and hung up.

I got on my knees in front of Eve. "What were you going to tell me?" I asked. "I was wrong to go use the phone when you were waiting to talk to me. Tell me now."

My intensity was making her nervous, I could see, but it wasn't something I could turn off. At least she knew I was taking her seriously.

"He's here now, it's ... I have to go home."

"No, you need to tell me." I said it as gently as I could, but firmly.

"You're strong," she said slowly. Her eyes couldn't meet mine. "My dad said my mom was weak. But you're not."

"I'm strong." I said it flatly, with as much a.s.surance as I could pack into a statement.

"Maybe . . . you could tell him me and Jane need to spend the night here, like we were supposed to? So he won't take us home?"

She'd intended to tell me something else.

I wondered how much time I had before Emory came to find out what was keeping us.

"Why don't you want to go home?" I asked, as if we had all the time in the world.

"Maybe if he really wanted me to come, Jane could stay here with you?" Eve asked, and suddenly tears were trembling in her eyes. "She's so little."

"He won't get her."

Eve looked almost giddy with relief.

"You don't want to go," I said.

"Please, no," she whispered.

"Then he won't get you."

Telling a father he couldn't have his kids was not going to go over well. I hoped Jack had found something, or Emory would make that one wrong move.

He'd have to. He'd have to be provoked.

Time to take my gloves off.

"Stay here," I told Eve. "This may get kind of awful, but I'm not letting anyone take you and Jane out of this house."

Eve suddenly looked frightened by what she had unleashed, realizing on some level that the monster was out of the closet now, and nothing would make it go back in. She had taken her life, and her sister's, in her own hands at the ripe old age of eight. I am sure she was wishing she could take back her words, her appeal.

"It's out of your hands now," I said. "This is grown-up stuff."

She looked relieved, and then she did something that sent shivers down my back: She picked up the baby in her carrier and took her to a corner of the bedroom, pulling out the straight-backed chair that blocked it, crouching down behind it with the baby beside her.

"Throw Reverend O'Shea's bathrobe over the chair," the little voice suggested. "He won't find us, maybe."

I felt my whole body clench. I picked up the blue velour bathrobe that Jess had left lying across the foot of the bed and draped it over the chair.

"I'll be back in a minute," I said and went down the hall to the living room, Anna's milk-stained clothes still under my arm. I tossed them into the washroom as I pa.s.sed it. I was trying to keep things as normal as I could. There were children here, in my care.

Emory was standing just inside the front door. He was wearing jeans and a short jacket. He'd pulled his gloves off and stuck them in a pocket. His blond hair was brushed smooth, and he looked as if he'd just shaved. It was like ... I hesitated to say this, even to myself.

It was like he was here to pick up his date.

His guileless blue eyes met mine with no hesitation. Luke, Anna, and Krista were playing a video game at the other end of the room.

"Hey, Miss Bard." He looked a little puzzled. "I sent Eve back to tell you I'd decided the girls should spend the night at home, after all. I've imposed on the O'Sheas too much."

I walked over to the television. I had to turn off the screen before the children would look at me. Krista and Luke were surprised and angry, though they were too well raised to say anything. But Anna somehow knew that something was wrong. She stared at me, her eyes as round as quarters, but she didn't ask any questions.

"You three go back and play in Krista's room," I said. Luke opened his mouth to protest, took a second look at me, and jumped up to run back to his sister's room. Krista gave me a mutinous glare, but when Anna, casting several backward looks, followed Luke, Krista left too.

Emory had moved closer to the hall leading down to the bedrooms. He was leaning on the mantel, in fact. He'd pulled off his jacket. He was still smiling gently at the children as they pa.s.sed him. I moved closer.

"The girls are going to stay here tonight," I said.

His smile began to twitch around the edges. "I can take my children when I want, Miss Bard," he told me. "I'd thought I needed time alone with my sister to plan the funeral service, but she had to go home to Little Rock tonight, so I want my girls to come home."

"The girls are going to stay here tonight."

"Eve!" he bellowed suddenly. "Come out here right now!"

I heard the children in Krista's room fall silent.

"Stay where you are!" I called, hoping each and every one of them understood I meant it.

"How can you tell me I can't have my kids?" Emory looked almost tearful, not angry, but there was something in the way he was standing that kept me on the edge of wary.

Truth or dare. "I can tell you that so easy, Emory," I said. "I know about you."

Something scary flared in his expression for just a second. "What the heck are you talking about?" he said, permitting himself to show a reasonable anger and disgust. "I came to get my little girls! You can't keep my little girls if I want them!"

"Depends on what you want them for, you son of a b.i.t.c.h."

It was the bad language that cracked Emory's facade.

He came at me then. He grabbed one of the plastic icicles suspended from the garland on the O'Sheas' mantel, and if I hadn't caught his wrist, it would have been embedded in my neck. I overbalanced while I was keeping the tip away from my throat, and over we went. As Emory and I hit the floor with a thud, I could hear the children begin to wail, but it seemed far away and unimportant just now. I'd fallen sideways, and my right hand was trapped.

Emory was small and looked frail, but he was stronger than I'd expected. I was gripping his forearm with my left hand, keeping the hard plastic away from my neck, knowing that if he succeeded in driving it in I would surely die. His other hand fastened around my neck, and I heard my own choking noises.

I wrenched my shoulder in a desperate effort to pull my right hand out from under my body. Finally it was free, and I found my pocket. I pulled out the nail scissors and sunk them into Emory's side.

He howled and yanked sideways, and somehow I lost the scissors. But now I had two free hands. With both of them I forced his right hand back, heaved myself against him, and over we rolled with me on top but with his left hand still digging into my throat. I pushed his right arm back and down, though his braced left arm kept me too far away to force it to the ground and break it. I struggled to straddle him and finally managed it. By now I was seeing a wash of gray strewn with spots instead of living room furniture. I pushed up on my knees and then let my weight fall down on him as hard as I could. The air whooshed out of Emory's lungs then, and he was trying to gasp for oxygen, but I thought maybe I would give out first. I raised up and collapsed on him again, but like a snake he took advantage of my movement to start to roll on his side, and since I was pushing his right arm in that direction, I went, too, and now we were on the floor under the Christmas tree, the tiny colored lights blinking, blinking.

I could see the lights blinking through the gray fog, and they maddened me.

Abruptly, I let go of Emory's arm and s.n.a.t.c.hed a loop of lights from the tree branches. I swung the loop around Emory's neck, but I wasn't able to switch hands to give myself a good cross pull. He drove the tip of the plastic icicle into my throat.

The plastic tip was duller than a knife, and I am muscular, so it still hadn't penetrated by the time the string of blinking lights around Emory's neck began to take effect.

He took his left hand from my throat to claw at the lights, his major error since I'd been right on the verge of checking out of consciousness. I was able to roll my head to the side to minimize the pressure of the icicle. I was doing much better until Emory, scrabbling around with that left hand, seized the stable of the manger scene and brought it down on my head.

I was out only a minute, but in that minute the room had emptied and the house had grown silent. I rolled to my knees and pushed up on the couch. I took an experimental step. Well, I could walk. I didn't know how much more I was capable of doing, but I seized the nearest thing I could strike with, one of the long plastic candy canes that Lou had set on each side of the hearth, and I started down the hall, pressing myself against the wall. I pa.s.sed the washroom on my left and a closet on my right. The next door on my left was Krista's room. The door was open.

I cautiously looked around the door frame. The three children were sitting on Krista's bed, Anna and Krista with their arms around each other, Luke frantically sucking on his fingers and pulling his hair. Krista gave a little shriek when she saw me. I put my finger across my lips, and she nodded in a panicky way. But Anna's eyes were wide and staring as if she was trying to think of how to tell me something.

I wondered if they would trust me, the mean stranger they didn't know, or Emory, the sweet man they'd seen around for years.

"Did he find Eve?" I asked, in a voice just above a whisper.

"No, he didn't," Emory said and stepped out from behind the door. He'd gone by the kitchen; I saw by the knife in his hand.

Anna screamed. I didn't blame her.

"Anna," said Emory. "Sweet little girls don't make noise." Anna choked back another scream, scared to death he would get near her, and the resulting sound was terrifying. Emory glanced her way.

I stepped all the way into the room, raised the plastic candy cane, and brought it down on Emory's arm with all the fury I had in me.

"I'm not sweet," I said. not sweet," I said.

He howled and dropped the knife. I put one foot on it and scooted it behind me with the toe of my shoe, just as Emory charged. The plastic candy cane must not have been very intimidating.

This time I was ready, and as he lunged toward me, I stepped to one side, stuck out one foot, and as he stumbled over it, I brought the candy cane down again on the back of his neck.

If the children hadn't been there I would have kicked him or broken one of his arms, to make sure I wouldn't have to deal with him again. But the children were there, Luke screaming and wailing with all the abandon of a two-year-old, and Anna and Krista both sobbing.

Would hitting him again be any more traumatic for them? I thought not and raised my foot.

But Chandler McAdoo said, "No."

All the fight went out of me in a gust. I let the red-and-white-striped plastic fall from my fingers to the carpet, told myself I should comfort the children. But I realized in a dim way that I was not at all comforting right now.

"Eve and Jane are behind the chair in the bedroom across the hall," I said. I sounded exhausted, even to myself.

"I know," Chandler said. "Eve called nine-one-one."

"Miss Lily?" called a tiny, shaky voice.

I made myself plod into the master bedroom. Eve's head popped up from behind the chair. I sat on the end of the bed.

"You can bring Jane out now," I said. "Thank you for calling the police. That was so smart, so brave." Eve pushed the chair out and picked up the infant seat, though now it was almost too heavy for her thin arms.

Chandler shut the door.

It promptly came open again and Jack came in.

He paused and looked me over. "Anything broken?" he asked.

"No." I shook my head and wondered for a second if I would be able to stop. It felt like pendulum set in motion. I rubbed my throat absently.

"Bruise," said Jack. I watched him try to decide how to approach me and Eve.

With great effort, I lifted my hand and patted Eve on the head. Then I folded her in my arms as she began to cry.

I sat with Eve in my lap that night as she told the police what had been happening in the yellow house on Fulbright Street. Chandler was there, and Jack-and Lou O'Shea, since Jess had pa.s.sionately wanted to be there as Eve's pastor, but Eve had shown a definite preference for Lou.

Daddy, it seemed, had started getting funny when it became apparent that the bills from Meredith's pregnancy and delivery were going to be substantial. He began to enjoy playing with his eight-year-old daughter.

"He always liked me to wear lipstick and makeup," Eve said. "He liked me to play dress up all the time."

"What did your mom have to say about that, Eve?" Chandler asked in a neutral voice.

"She thought it was funny, at first."

"When did things change?"

"About Thanksgiving, I guess."

It was just after Thanksgiving that the article about unsolved crimes had appeared in the Little Rock paper. With the picture of the baby in the giraffe sleeper. The same baby sleeper that Meredith had kept all these years in a box on the closet shelf, as a memento of her baby's first days.

"Mama wasn't happy. She'd walk around the house and cry. She had a hard time taking care of Jane. She ..." Eve's voice dropped almost to a whisper. "She asked me funny questions."

"About... ?" Chandler again.

"About did Daddy touch me funny."

"Oh. What did you tell her?" Chandler sounded quiet and respectful of Eve, as if this was a very ordinary conversation. I had not known my old friend could be this way.

"No, he never touched me ... there. But he liked to play Come Here Little Girl."

My stomach heaved.

I won't go through it all, but the gist of it was that Emory liked to deck Eve in lipstick and rouge and call her over to him as if they were strangers and induce her to touch him through his pants.

"So what else happened?" Chandler asked after a moment.

"He and Mama had a fight. Mama said they had to talk about when I was born, and Daddy said he wouldn't, and Mama said ... oh, I don't remember."

Had Meredith asked him if Eve was their baby? Had she asked him if he was molesting the child?