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“Smartass. If he’s not a loony, why does he always call me by my full name?”
“Jeff always had an obsessive-compulsive personality. In school, he focused it on football. Now, it’s on you.”
“Splendid. I should buy him a voodoo doll with blonde hair.” I stared at the ladybug climbing Natalie’s cast. “Do you think his OCD explains why he has a picture of Addy pasted next to the missing girls’ cutouts?”
“Maybe. Do you have any idea where he would have gotten a picture of Addy?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Kelly may have had one of those disposable cameras with her at the Dinosaur Park last week. I believe I saw one when we were unloading the picnic stuff from Harvey’s truck. It was that or a box of matches.”
“Have you asked Kelly about the pictures?”
“I haven’t had the chance. The girls have had their heads together since I came home, and I don’t want to ask questions about Kelly’s family in front of Addy.”
“Well, I’m holding off judgment until you get a chance to drill Kelly on all of this.”
“You’re biased.”
“Because he’s an ex-football player who I sat next to in Woodshop class?”
“Because you don’t want to have slept with a psycho.”
“Oh, I have no problems with psycho sex. It’s the normal guys who scare me.”
“Mom,” Addy came running up to us, holding out her blood-covered finger.
I winced. “Crap.” I hopped up and grabbed her hand, taking a closer look. “What’d you do?”
“I fell on a piece of glass sticking out of the ground.”
I couldn’t tell how bad it was through the blood and dirt. “Come on, let’s go inside and clean it up.” I was thankful I knew where Wolfgang hid his spare key.
The quiet of the house felt thick and cottony in my ears after the buzz of the outside world. Shadows framed the sitting and dining rooms, the musty smell of stale varnish and dust heavy in the stillness. The house had trapped the heat of the day, the warm air rousing more sweat from my pores. I couldn’t wait to hit the shower and scrub this place off of me.
Addy’s thongs flopped on the hardwood floor as I led her into the kitchen.
“Cool!” She looked around at the clown paraphernalia as she sat on the counter next to the sink. “Wolfgang must really like the circus.”
“You’ll have to ask him about it when he comes back next Wednesday.” I turned on the faucet, waiting through a low groan of the pipes before water spurted and then gushed out.
Addy’s cut didn’t look so ugly when clean. Just a small gash that some salve and a Band-Aid would fix. Unfortunately, I had neither on me and didn’t know where to begin digging for either in the Hessler Haunt.
I opened and shut a couple of the drawers next to the sink. The first held silverware, the second a bunch of keys—mostly the old-fashioned, skeleton type—and odd tools. A pile of dish cloths and linens filled the third one down. Even the towels had garish clowns on them. Wolfgang’s mother should have sought counseling.
“Here.” I tossed a clown towel to Addy. “Wrap this around your hand for now. We’ll fix you up with a Band-Aid when we get back to Aunt Zoe’s.”
After helping Addy to the floor, I grabbed another towel to wipe down the sink area.
“Can I go back outside now?”
“Sure. Just take it easy, Sweetie.” I dropped a kiss on her forehead and smiled at her back as she flip-flopped out the kitchen doorway into the dining room.
I wiped down the counter and sink, stopping partway through the process to turn the clown-popping-out-of-a-barrel cookie jar so it wasn’t watching me with those big, empty blue eyes and Joker-like grin. In the quiet of the clown-covered walls, my breathing sounded laborious. I really needed to stop using ice cream therapy to solve my problems. My clothes were going to start bulging soon.
A door slammed somewhere overhead.
I paused. The ceiling creaked, as if someone walked across the floor in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
“Addy?” I dropped the towel on the counter and stepped into the dining room, my ears straining. Why hadn’t she gone back outside?
