Her chin started to shake, and a single teardrop streaked fast down one cheek, shining silver in the light of the bedside lamp.

“I called him in Tampa,” Slick said. “I thought that was what God wanted me to do. I thought that if he knew I had these clippings and the photograph he would be scared and I could get him to leave the Old Village. I was a fool. I tried to threaten him. I told him that if he didn’t leave right away, I would show everyone the photograph and the clippings.”

“Did he know it was me, Slick?” Patricia asked.

Slick shot her eyes to the glass of water and Patricia handed it to her. She took two loud gulps and handed it back, then squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Slick said. “I’m so sorry. I called him yesterday morning and told him you were going into his house. I said you’d find whatever he was hiding. I told him his only choice was to never come back. I told him he could let me know where he went and I’d mail him his checks when Gracious Cay returned on its investment, but he had to leave from Tampa and never come back. I thought he wanted money, Patricia. I thought he cared about his reputation. I told him the photo and clippings were my insurance so he could never come back. I thought you’d be so happy I’d solved this. I was full of pride.”

Without warning, Slick slapped herself in the face. Patricia grabbed for her hand, missed, and Slick hit herself again. Patricia caught her hand this time.

“Pride goeth,” Slick hissed, eyes furious, face white. “The church didn’t want to do my Reformation Party, so we kept the kids home tonight to have family time. We were playing Monopoly, Tiger and LJ weren’t fighting for once, and I was about to put a hotel on Park Place. It all felt so safe. I got up to be excused, and I took my money with me because I pretended I thought Leland would steal it if I left it behind. The kids loved that. I came upstairs to use the bathroom because the downstairs toilet keeps running.”

She looked around the room, reassuring herself the door was closed, the windows were shut, the curtains were drawn. She struggled to get her hands free and Patricia gripped her wrists harder.

“My Bible,” Slick said.

Patricia saw it on the bedside table and handed it to her. Slick clutched her Bible to her chest like a teddy bear. It took her a minute before she could speak again.

“He must have come in the upstairs window and waited for me,” Slick said. “I didn’t know what happened. I was walking down the hall and then I was facedown on the carpet, and something heavy sat on my back, pressing me down, and a voice in my ear said if I made a sound, a single solitary sound he would…who is he? He said he would kill my entire family. Who is he, Patricia?”

“He’s worse than we can imagine,” Patricia said.

“I thought my back would break. It hurt so much.” Slick put a hand to her lips and pressed her fingers against them, hard. Her forehead broke into deep furrows. “I’ve never been with anyone except Leland.”

She gripped her Bible in both hands and closed her eyes. Her lips moved silently in prayer for a moment before she started talking again. Her voice was little more than a whisper.

“My Monopoly money went all over the carpet when he hit me,” she said. “And I just kept looking at that orange five-hundred-dollar bill in front of my nose. That’s what I focused on the entire time. And he kept telling me not to make a sound, and I didn’t make a sound, but I was so scared one of them would come looking for me that I wanted him to finish so he would leave. I just wanted it to be over. That’s why I didn’t fight. And he did. He finished inside me.”

Slick clutched her Bible so hard her knuckles turned red and white and her face crumpled. Patricia hated herself for asking the next question but she had to know.

“The picture?” she asked. “The clippings?”

“He made me tell him where they were,” Slick said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. My pride. My stupid, stupid pride.”

“It’s not your fault,” Patricia said.

“I thought I could do this alone,” Slick said. “I thought I was stronger than him. But none of us are.”

The tips of Slick’s bangs were wet with sweat. Her cheeks shook. She inhaled sharply.

“Where does it hurt?” Patricia asked.

“My privates,” Slick said.

Patricia lifted the duvet. There was a dark stain on the robe over Slick’s groin.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” Patricia said.

“He’ll kill them if I tell,” Slick said.

“Slick…,” Patricia began.

“He’ll kill them,” Slick said. “Please. He will.”

“We don’t know what he did to you,” Patricia said.

“If I’m still bleeding in the morning, I’ll go,” Slick said. “But I can’t call an ambulance. What if he’s outside watching? What if he’s waiting to see what I do? Please, Patricia, don’t let him hurt my babies.”

Patricia went and got a warm washcloth and cleaned Slick as best she could, found some pads beneath the sink, and helped her into a nightgown. Downstairs, she took Leland aside.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is she okay?”

“She’s having bad cramps,” Patricia said. “But she says she’ll be fine tomorrow. You may want to sleep in the guest room, though. She needs some privacy.”

Leland put a hand on Patricia’s shoulder and looked into her eyes.

“I’m sorry I bit your head off earlier,” he said. “But I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to Slick.”

Outside, it was still and dark. The candle on the porch had burned out and all the Creekside trick-or-treaters must have long since gone home. Patricia walked briskly around the side of the house and threw Slick’s underwear, robe, and ruined clothes into the trash, stuffing them all the way down under the bags. Then she ran to the Volvo and locked all the doors behind her. Slick was right. He might still be outside.

Once she had the car moving she felt safer and the anger rose up inside her, making her skin feel too tight. Her movements felt rushed and hurried. She couldn’t contain herself. She needed to be somewhere else.

She needed to see James Harris.

She wanted to stand in front of him and accuse him of what he’d done. It was the only place to be that felt like it made any sense to her right now. She drove carefully through Creekside, using all her self-control to make wide circles around the few remaining trick-or-treaters, and then she was on Johnnie Dodds and she put the pedal to the floor.

In the Old Village she slowed again. The streets were almost empty. Burned-out jack-o’-lanterns sat on front porches. A cold wind whistled through her Volvo’s air-conditioning vents. She stopped at the corner of Pitt and McCants. The Cantwells’ front yard was empty, all its lights dark. As she turned toward James Harris’s house the wind set the corpses hanging from their trees twisting, following her, reaching for her with their bandaged arms as she drove past.

The massive, malignant lump of James Harris’s house loomed on her left, and Patricia thought about his dark attic with its suitcase containing the lonely corpse of Francine. She thought about the wild, hunted look in Slick’s eyes. She remembered what Slick had hissed:

If he did this to me, what’s he going to do to you?

She needed to know where her children were, right that minute. The overwhelming need to know they were safe flooded her body and sent her flying home.

She pulled into the driveway and ran to the front door. One jack-o’-lantern had burned out and someone had smashed the other one against their front steps. She slipped in its slime as she raced up her porch steps. She opened the door and ran to the sun porch. Korey wasn’t there. She raced upstairs and threw open Korey’s bedroom door.

“What?” Korey shouted from where she sat, cross-legged on her bed, hunched over a copy of SPIN.

She was safe. Patricia didn’t say a word. She ran into Blue’s room. Empty.

She checked every room downstairs, even the dark garage room, but Blue was still out. She felt frantic. She checked that the back door was locked, she grabbed her car keys, but what if she went out looking for him, and he came home? And how could she leave Korey alone with James Harris out there?

She had to call Carter. He needed to come home. Two of them could deal with this. She jumped at the noise of the front door opening and ran to the hall. Blue was just closing it behind him.

She grabbed him and pressed him to her body. He froze for a moment, then squirmed out of her arms.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m just glad you’re safe,” she said. “Where were you?”

“I was at Jim’s,” he said. It took her a moment to process.

“Where?” she asked.

“At Jim’s,” he said, defensively. “Jim Harris’s house. Why?”

“Blue,” she said. “It is very important you tell me the truth right now. Where have you been all evening?”

“At. Jim’s. House,” Blue repeated. “With Jim. Why do you care?”

“And he was there?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“All night?”

“Yes!”

“Did he leave at any point, or was he out of your sight for even a single minute?” she asked.