The crowd around their house spilled off the sidewalk and blocked the street. Patricia’s face twitched. Was it just Slick? What about the rest of Slick’s family? Something was wrong. She needed to go. She took her foot off the brake and rolled onto the edge of the Simmonses’ front yard on the far side of McCants, flashing her lights to make people clear the way. It took her five minutes to get through the intersection, and then she picked up speed as she headed to Coleman Boulevard, and hit fifty on Johnnie Dodds. Even that wasn’t fast enough.

She pulled into Creekside and wove around trick-or-treaters as fast as she dared. Both cars were parked in the Paleys’ driveway. Whatever had happened had happened to the entire family. A flickering white candle sat on a kitchen stool on the front porch. Next to it sat a bowl of pamphlets emblazoned with orange type reading: Trick? Yes. Treat? Only Through the Grace of God!

Patricia reached for the doorbell and stopped. What if it was James Harris? What if he was still inside?

She tried the handle and the latch popped and the door swung silently open. Patricia took a breath and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and stood, eyes and ears straining, listening for any sign of life, looking for a single telltale detail: a drop of blood on the hardwood floor, a picture knocked askew, a crack in one of the display cabinets. Nothing. She crept down the front hall’s thick runner and pushed open the door to the back addition. People started screaming.

Every muscle in Patricia’s body snapped into action. Her hands flew up to protect her face. She opened her mouth to scream. Then the screaming dissolved into laughter and she looked past her hands and saw Leland, LJ, their oldest, Greer, and Tiger sitting around the long dinner table halfway across the room, their backs to her, all laughing. Greer was the only one facing Patricia.

She caught sight of Patricia and stopped laughing. LJ and Tiger spun around.

“Ohmygosh,” Greer said. “How’d you get in?”

A Monopoly board sat in the middle of the table. Slick wasn’t there.

“Patricia?” Leland said, standing, genuinely baffled, trying to smile.

“Don’t get up,” she said. “Slick called and I thought she was home.”

“She’s upstairs,” Leland said.

“I’ll just pop right up,” Patricia said. “Keep playing.”

She left the room before they could say anything and went up the carpeted stairs fast. In the upstairs hall she didn’t have a clue which way to go. The door to the master bedroom sat ajar. The bedroom light was off but the master bathroom light was on. Patricia walked in.

“Slick?” she called softly.

The shower curtain rattled and Patricia looked down and saw Slick lying in the tub, her lipstick smeared, her mascara running down her face in trails, her hair sticking out in clumps. Her skirt had been torn and she only wore one dangling sand dollar earring.

Everything between them evaporated and Patricia knelt by the bathtub.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I didn’t make a sound,” Slick rasped, eyes wide with panic.

Her mouth moved soundlessly, straining to form words. Her hands opened and closed.

“Slick?” Patricia repeated. “What happened?”

“I didn’t…,” Slick began, then licked her lips and tried again. “I didn’t make a sound.”

“We need to call the ambulance,” Patricia said, standing up. “I’ll go get Leland.”

“I…,” Slick said, and it trailed off to a whisper. “I didn’t…”

Patricia walked to the bathroom door and heard hollow flailing in the tub behind her, and then Slick rasped, “No!”

Patricia turned around. Slick gripped the edge of the tub with both hands, knuckles white, shaking her head, her single sand dollar earring flopping from side to side.

“They can’t know,” she said.

“You’re hurt,” Patricia said.

“They can’t know,” Slick repeated.

“Slick!” Leland called from downstairs. “Everything all right?”

Slick locked eyes with Patricia and slowly shook her head back and forth. Patricia eased out into the bedroom, eyes still on Slick.

“We’re fine,” she called back.

“Slick?” Leland said, and from his voice Patricia could tell he was coming up the stairs.

Slick shook her head harder. Patricia held out one hand, then raced to the hall and headed off Leland at the top of the stairs.

“What’s happening?” he asked, stopping two steps below her.

“She’s ill,” Patricia said. “I’ll sit with her and make sure she’s okay. She didn’t want to break up your party.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Leland said. “You didn’t need to come all this way. We’re right downstairs.”

He tried to take a step but Patricia moved to block him.

“Leland,” she said, smiling. “Slick wants you to have fun with the children tonight. It’s important to her that they have…Christian associations with Halloween. Let me handle this.”

“I want to see how she is,” he said, sliding one hand up the banister, letting her know he was going to go right through her if necessary.

“Leland.” She dropped her voice low. “It’s a female problem.”

She wasn’t sure what a female problem meant to Leland, but his body sagged.

“All right,” he said. “But if she’s really not well, you’ll tell me?”

“Of course,” Patricia said. “Go back to the kids.”

He turned and went back downstairs. She waited until he passed into the addition, and then sprinted back to the bathroom. Slick hadn’t moved. Patricia knelt beside the tub, leaned forward, and got her arms around Slick. She stood, pulling Slick up with her, amazed at how weak her legs were. She helped her out of the tub, one foot at a time.

“They can’t know,” Slick said.

“I didn’t say a word,” Patricia said.

She took off Slick’s one earring and laid it on the bathroom counter.

“The other one’ll turn up,” she reassured her.

Patricia locked the bathroom door, then pulled Slick’s sweater over her head and unfastened her brassiere. Slick’s breasts were small and pale and the way she was hunched over, the way her ribs stuck out, the way her breasts hung lifeless, she reminded Patricia of a plucked chicken.

She sat Slick down on the toilet and put her fingers in the waist of her skirt. It was torn down the back so there was no need to unzip it. The tear went right through the suede, not down the seam. Patricia didn’t know what was strong enough to do that.

As she started to pull off her skirt, Slick recoiled, pulling her hands up over her groin.

“What’s wrong?” Patricia asked. “Slick, what’s wrong?”

Slick shook her head back and forth, and Patricia’s heart hitched. She focused on keeping her voice steady and slow.

“Show me,” she insisted, but Slick shook her head faster. “Slick?”

“They can’t know,” Slick moaned.

She took Slick’s thin wrists and pulled them away. Slick resisted at first, then went slack. Patricia pulled her skirt down. Slick’s panties were torn. She pulled them off, lifting Slick’s buttocks. Slick clamped her thighs closed.

“Slick,” Patricia said, using her nurse’s voice. “I need to see.”

She pried Slick’s knees apart. At first, Patricia didn’t know what was coming through Slick’s sparse, blond pubic hair, and then she saw Slick’s abdominal muscles convulse and a runnel of black jelly oozed out of her vagina. It smelled rank, like something lying rotten on the side of the road in summer. And it kept coming, an endless ooze of fetid slime pooling in a quivering black puddle on the toilet seat lid.

“Slick?” Patricia asked. “What happened?”

Slick met her eyes, tears trembling along her lower lids, and she looked so haunted that Patricia leaned forward and embraced her. Slick stayed stiff in her arms.

“I didn’t make a sound,” Slick insisted.

Patricia sprayed enough air freshener in the bathroom to make her eyes burn, and then she ran the shower. She took off her blouse and helped Slick back into the tub, holding her under the hot, strong spray. She cleaned the makeup off Slick’s face with a washcloth, rubbing until Slick’s skin turned pink, then used as much soap as she could to clean between Slick’s legs.

“Bear down,” she told Slick over the spray. “Like you’re going to the bathroom.”

She saw the last remaining black drops fall into the water, stretch into tendrils, and swirl down the drain. She used an entire bottle of St. Ives shampoo to wash Slick’s hair, and when they were finished the bathroom smelled steamy and floral. She dried herself and put her top back on while Slick stood naked and shivering, and then she wrapped Slick in her robe and tucked her into bed. She put a glass of water on her bedside table.

“Now,” she told Slick, “I need you to tell me what happened.”

Slick looked up at her with wide eyes.

“Talk to me, Slick,” Patricia said.

“If he did this to me,” Slick whispered, “what’s he going to do to you?”

“Who?” Patricia asked.

“James Harris.”

CHAPTER 33

“I prayed over your photograph,” Slick whispered. “I sat with those clippings and your photograph, and I prayed for guidance. That man put so much money into Gracious Cay, and he made himself Leland’s friend, and he came to church with my family, but I saw that picture, and read those clippings, and I didn’t know what to do. That photograph is him. You look at it and you know.”