“I mean,” Kitty said, trying to help, “something wasn’t right out there. Everyone was on edge. We almost got jumped by a street gang. But accusing one of our neighbors of being a drug dealer…”

“Here’s how I see it,” Patricia said. “In Six Mile, they think that someone is doing something to the children, giving them something that makes them go crazy and hurt themselves. Now over here in the Old Village, we’ve had Mrs. Savage go crazy and attack me. And then there’s Francine. I saw her go into his house, and then she disappeared. She may have stumbled on his drugs, or his money, or something, and he had to get rid of her. But everything is connected through him. It’s all happening around him. How many coincidences do you need before you wake up?”

“Patricia,” Grace said, speaking slowly. “If you could hear yourself you’d feel terribly embarrassed.”

“What if I’m right?” Patricia said. “And he’s out there giving drugs to these children and we’re too scared of being embarrassed to do anything? It could be our children. Think about how many young women would still be alive today if people hadn’t taken Ted Bundy at face value and started asking questions earlier. Think if Ann Rule had put the pieces together sooner. How many lives could she have saved? I mean, you have to agree, something strange is going on here.”

“No, we don’t,” Grace said.

“Something strange is going on,” Patricia continued. “Children in first grade are killing themselves. I got attacked in my own yard. Mrs. Savage has the same mark on her body Destiny Taylor did. Francine is missing. In every book we read, no one ever thought anything bad was happening until it was too late. This is where we live, it’s where our children live, it’s our home. Don’t you want to do absolutely everything you can to keep it safe?”

Another silence stretched out, and then Kitty spoke.

“What if she’s right?”

“Excuse me?” Grace asked.

“We’ve all known Patricia forever,” Kitty said. “If she says she saw him in the back of his van doing something to a young girl, I believe her. I mean, come on, one thing I’ve learned from all these books: it pays to be paranoid.”

Grace stood up. “I value our friendship, Patricia,” she said. “And I am ready to be your friend when you come back to your senses. But anyone catering to this delusion is not being helpful.”

Slick stood up and went to her bookcase filled with titles like Satan, You Can’t Have My Children and pulled out a Bible. She flipped to a passage and read it out loud:

“‘There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind. The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough.”’ Proverbs 30:15.”

She turned more pages, then read, “Ephesians 6:12, ‘For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.’”

Then she looked at them all with a wide smile on her face.

“I knew my test would come,” she said. “I knew that one day my Lord would set me against Satan, and try my faith in a battle against his snares, and this is just so exciting, Patricia.”

“Are you putting us on?” Maryellen asked.

“Satan wants our children,” Slick said. “We have to believe the righteous and smite the wicked. Patricia is righteous because she is my friend. If she says James Harris is among the wicked, then it is our Christian duty to smite him.

“The only thing smited is your brains,” Maryellen said, turning to Grace. “But she’s not wrong.”

Grace said, “Pardon?”

“New Jersey was the kind of place where no one watched out for each other,” Maryellen said. “Our neighbors were nice but they would never write down the license plate number of a strange car. They would never tell you they saw a stranger watching your house. There are a lot of things that are different down here, but not once do I regret living in a community where we keep an eye out for each other. Let’s see if we can make a more convincing argument than Patricia, and if so, I’ll run it by Ed. If Ed thinks it holds up, then maybe we’ve done some good.”

Patricia felt a wave of gratitude toward her.

“I will not be a part of some kind of lynch mob,” Grace said.

“We’re not a lynch mob, we’re a book club,” Kitty said. “We’ve always been there for each other. This is where Patricia is now? It’s kind of weird, but okay. We’d do the same for you.”

“If that situation ever occurs,” Grace said, “don’t.”

And she walked out of Slick’s house.

* * *

—

The next morning Patricia had just decided to clean the den closet before doing more research on vampires when the phone rang. She answered.

“Patricia. It’s Grace Cavanaugh.”

“I’m so sorry about what happened at book club,” Patricia said, who hadn’t realized until this moment how desperately she wanted to hear Grace’s voice. “I won’t talk about it with you anymore if you don’t want me to.”

“I found his van,” Grace said.

The change to another page was so fast Patricia couldn’t follow.

“What van?” she asked.

“James Harris’s,” Grace said. “You see, I remembered that in Silence of the Lambs that man hides his car containing a head in a mini-storage unit. And I remembered that I’ve known you for almost seven years and I should afford you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Thank you,” Patricia said.

“The only mini-storage establishment in Mt. Pleasant is Pak Rat over on Highway 17,” Grace continued. “They spell pack wrong because they think it’s cute. It’s not. Bennett knows Carl, the man who runs it. So I called Carl’s wife, Zenia, last night, I’m not sure you’ve ever met her but we’re both in handbell choir. I told her what I was looking for and she was happy to call over and see what she could find and it turns out there is a James Harris who rents a unit, and the attendant said he’d seen him going in and out of it a few times in a white van. He saw him in it last week. So he still owns it.”

“Grace,” Patricia said. “That’s wonderful news.”

“Not if he’s hurting children,” Grace said.

“No, of course not,” Patricia said, feeling chastised and triumphant at the same time.

“If you really think this man is up to no good,” Grace said, “you need more than this before we go to Ed. We don’t want to go off half-cocked.”

“Don’t worry, Grace,” Patricia said. “When we go off, we’ll be fully cocked.”

PSYCHO

August 1993

CHAPTER 20

“But I said you could spend the night with Laurie,” Patricia told Korey.

“Well, now I changed my mind,” Korey said.

She stood in the doorway to Patricia’s bathroom while Patricia finished doing her makeup. Korey had come home from soccer camp and increased Patricia’s stress exponentially. It was hard enough to make sure Blue was always somewhere safe after dark, but Korey hung around the house aimlessly, watching TV for hours, and then she’d get a phone call and suddenly need to borrow the car to go see her friends in the middle of the night. Except for tonight, when Patricia actually wanted her out of the house.

“I’m hosting book club,” Patricia said. “You haven’t seen Laurie since you got back from camp.”

One of the reasons they were having it at her house was because she’d exerted gentle pressure on Carter to take Blue out for supper at Quincy’s Steak House and then to a movie (they decided on something called So I Married an Axe Murderer). Korey was supposed to be spending the night downtown.

“She canceled,” Korey said. “Her parents are getting divorced and her dad wants to spend quality time. That skirt’s too tight.”

“I haven’t decided what I’m wearing yet,” Patricia said, even though her skirt was definitely not too tight. “If you have to be home you need to stay in your room.”

“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” Korey asked. “Can I leave my room then, Mother? Most parents would think it was great that their child wanted to spend more time with them.”

“I’m only asking you to stay upstairs,” Patricia said.

“What if I want to watch TV?” Korey asked.

“Then go to Laurie Gibson’s.”

Korey slouched off and Patricia changed her skirt because it felt tight, and then she finished her makeup and sprayed her hair. She wasn’t going to put out anything to eat, but she’d made coffee and put it in a thermal jug in case the police wanted some. What if they wanted decaf? She didn’t have any and worried that might affect their mood.