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“Of course I will!”
He smiled. “I figured you would, sweet pea. I figured you would.”
“Have you talked to her parents yet? Do they have any idea?”
“No idea at all.”
“They’re not going to leave her in jail overnight.”
“They may not have any choice. Judge Williams has set a bond hearing at five o’clock to try to avoid that, but Lorna said she’s just going to tell the judge she’ll do it again if she gets out.”
Anna drew a long breath. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Please. At the very least maybe you can find out why she thinks it’s better to be in jail than out. I got my own ideas, and they ain’t pretty.”
Nor were the possibilities that were occurring to Anna, but she didn’t want to give voice to them. At least, not until she knew what was going on.
“Anyway,” Nate said, putting his mug down, “you’ve got a definite way with kids this age, especially the girls. I’ve noticed it. Hell, everybody’s noticed it. The kids you work with trust and respect you. That gives you a big advantage from square one over some psychologist I might drag in from somewhere else. At least we can skip over the part about developing trust.”
“Just don’t forget that I’m not a psychologist. And speaking of psychologists, the school has one.”
“But he’s never dealt with Lorna before. How long do you think it would take him to get her to open up compared with you?”
“I can’t venture a guess.” And if Lorna had a guy problem of some kind, she might never open up to a man.
“I don’t think we have that kind of time, whatever it is. I’ve known that girl since she was in diapers, and she won’t talk to me. But I don’t think I know her anywhere near as well as you do. So go talk to her, sweet pea. Find out what’s wrong.”
“If I can.”
A few minutes later she climbed the stairs to the jail. Nate had buzzed the jail guard from his office, and she was taken directly to a consultation room. Lorna was brought in just a few minutes later.
“Hi, Lorna.”
The girl didn’t answer. She sat down at the table and kept her eyes averted.
Anna hesitated, trying to feel her way through this. “We’ve missed you at youth group. Don’t you want to come anymore?”
Lorna gave a quick, negative shake of her head without looking at Anna.
“That’s a shame. Everyone there likes you so much.”
Lorna hunched her shoulders but didn’t say anything.
Anna decided to take the bull by the horns. “Sheriff Tate tells me you set fire to a classroom at school this morning. He didn’t want to put you in jail, but he had to.”
Again no response.
“You’ve never done anything like this before, Lorna. Not even the little stuff that most kids do. So it seems to me that if you felt you had to start a fire, something must be hurting you terribly. If you tell me what’s wrong, we’ll do whatever we can to fix it.”
Lorna looked up at her then, her gaze bleak, almost hollow. “Nobody can fix it.”
“Nobody can fix what?”
But the girl didn’t answer. She lowered her head again.
Anna wanted to reach out and touch her, but she wasn’t sure that would be the right thing to do. Lorna had isolated herself emotionally, that much was apparent, and a touch might be truly unwelcome.
“When I was your age,” she said finally, “something horrible was happening to me, and I couldn’t figure out how to stop it.
Finally I ran away from home for good, but that really didn’t fix much. In fact, it made some things worse.” She realized she had Lorna’s attention now, so she continued. “Looking back at it now, I realized I should have trusted some of the adults in my life. I should have told them what was happening, because any one of them could have helped me. But I didn’t. And that was a big mistake.”
Lorna glanced at her, then looked quickly away without saying anything.
“Just give us a chance, Lorna. The sheriff and I both really want to help you.”
“You can’t. Nobody can.”
“You can’t know that until you let us try.”
Lorna stood up so suddenly that her chair fell over backward. “I want to die! All I want to do is die! Nobody can help me. Nobody at all! Go away. Go away before you get hurt!”
Anna hesitated, but Lorna turned suddenly to the door and started beating on it, screaming, “Get me out of here! Get me out of here now!”
Shaken, Anna watched helplessly as the deputy took Lorna back to her cell. When she felt she could trust her legs to hold her, she went downstairs to Nate’s office.
“Well?” he said when he saw her.
She shook her head. “She won’t talk to me. But she said something very strange. She told me to go away before I get hurt.”
“Was she threatening you?”
Anna shook her head. “Can I sit down a minute? My legs are still shaking.”
“Help yourself. So she wasn’t threatening you?”
“I didn’t get that feeling.” She sank gratefully into the chair. “But something is terribly, terribly wrong, and I got the distinct feeling that someone has threatened her.”
He nodded, compressing his lips grimly. “Yup. That’s about the only reason I can figure that she’d want to stay in a jail cell. Now we have to find out who and why. Damn!” He passed his hand over his eyes, then drummed his fingers on the desktop.
“I’ll talk to her friends,” Anna offered. “The kids she always hung out with in the youth group. Maybe they can shed some light on this.”
“You do that. I’d talk to ’em myself, but I don’t want ’em to clam up for fear of getting Lorna into more trouble.” He gave her a crooked smile. “That’s the disadvantage of this uniform.”
“I’ll let you know if I find out anything. And will you let me know how the bail hearing goes? Maybe she won’t make good on her threat.”
“If she does, it’s going to be a long night for her. God, I can’t see leaving a young girl like that in a cell. We don’t even have proper facilities for it. What if my men have to bring in some drunk tonight to sleep it off? Or worse?” He shook his head. “Hell, if it comes to that, I’ll take her home with me. In custody. Maybe Marge and the girls can get to the root of it.”
Anna nodded. “That might be a good idea. But no matter what, Nate, I wouldn’t send her home.”
He arched a brow at her and nodded slowly. “That’s what I was thinking. I got a feeling there’s something very wrong there. But I have to have something to go on, Anna. I can’t just stick my snoot in without something.”
“I know.” Nor could she. But she could certainly call Lorna’s friends.
A few minutes later she headed back to the church. The wind had grown cruel, and she had no trouble believing there would be sleet later on. The sky was leaden now, with no hint of the autumn sun left anywhere, and the last of the dead leaves were sailing across sidewalks and lawns. The town already looked deserted, as if it had settled down for its long winter sleep.
Dan Fromberg had returned, and greeted her the instant she stepped in the door. “Candy’s okay,” he told her, coming to stand in the doorway of his office.
“Wonderful!” She hung her jacket on the rack and rubbed her hands briskly together.
“I made fresh tea,” he told her, pointing to the drip coffeemaker they used for brewing tea. “You look like you need to warm up.”
“It’s gotten really bitter out there. Oh, I forgot!
I need to go lock the church door. I left it open for Hugh.”
Dan shook his head. “He checked with me a minute ago, and I locked it.”
Anna felt disappointed to realize she’d missed him. She immediately scolded herself for the feeling. “What did he say?”
“It looks like we’re going to need some major work done. He says we need to replace the insulation in quite a few places, so escaping heat under the eaves doesn’t cause the snow to melt, then turn into ice. He also pointed out some spots where the roof is concave, and it’s trapping the snow rather than letting it slide off.”
“That does sound expensive.”
He grimaced. “I’m going to have to dip very deep into the building fund, but at least we can afford it now.” Last spring, when they really should have had the work done, the fund had been nearly empty, having been used for repairs to the foundation. Good Shepherd Church was aging. “But first I’m going to get another estimate to compare.”
Anna poured her tea and cradled the cup gratefully. “Did he mind?”
Dan shook his head. “He suggested it, actually. He’s a very honest guy, you know.”
She nodded and sank gratefully into her chair.
“So you went up to the sheriff’s office? What happened?”
She outlined matters as briefly as she could and watched as his mouth drew into a thin line.
“This doesn’t sound good,” he said when she concluded.
“I’m going to call some of her friends tonight and see if any of them have any idea what might be wrong.”
“Good idea.”
Jazz whimpered just then, and Dan squatted down to take her out of her cage. “Hey, little one,” he said softly. “How’re you doing? Did you piddle on your paper?” He looked over his shoulder at Anna. “I can’t believe anything’s wrong at home,” he said. “Bridget and Al are both the nicest people.”
She nodded, and Dan looked down at the puppy he held.
“On the other hand,” he said, “none of us ever really knows another person.” Straightening, he turned to her. “So, have you had lunch?”
“No.”
“Me neither. I’ll go out and get us something from Maude’s diner. In the meantime, why don’t you see if any of Lorna’s friends are home from school yet?”
He handed her the puppy and put fresh newspaper in Jazz’s box before he left.
The pup seemed content to curl up on her lap while she sipped tea and dug out the roster for the youth group. One by one, she started calling the girls who seemed closest to Lorna. Only one of them was at home yet, and she said she hadn’t really talked to Lorna in a while.
“She’s gotten kind of quiet, Miss Anna, but I don’t know why. She doesn’t hang out like she used to. But I can’t believe she actually started that fire at school. Everybody’s talking about it. It just isn’t like Lorna.”
“So she hasn’t found a different crowd of friends?”
“No. She doesn’t have many friends at all anymore. I mean…well, we all still like her, but she doesn’t want much to do with us.
We ask her to go places with us, and she always says no. I always have a pajama party for my birthday, and Lorna always comes. Not this last time, though. She was the only one who didn’t. When I asked her why not—I mean, I felt really hurt—she said she just didn’t feel like it.”
“So there’s nobody at all she’s close to anymore?”
“I don’t think so. Debbie said she thinks Lorna’s just getting snobby because her dad’s a dentist. Mary Jo argued with her about that and said Lorna just isn’t feeling good lately.”
“Did Mary Jo say why?”
“No. And that’s all I know, really. You want me to talk to the others?”
“Thank you, but I’ll do that.
If you think of anything, let me know?”
After she hung up, Anna found herself looking down at the puppy in her lap, thinking about how trusting young animals were, and how easy it was to shatter that trust. Something had shattered Lorna’s trust.
Dan came through the door on a gust of cold wind, carrying a big brown bag from Maude’s. “Steak sandwiches,” he said. “I don’t think either of us will want dinner. Which is okay with me, because Cheryl took the kids to Cheyenne this morning to visit their grandparents.”
“So you’re baching it?”
“Fine by me.” He set the containers down on her desk and took his coat off. “I love those kids to death, but every once in a blue moon, it’s nice to watch what I want on TV.”
He pulled the chair closer to her desk while she cleared papers to one side, then set out containers full of food. Not only had he gotten the steak sandwiches, but he’d brought a salad, and brownies for dessert.
“Did you find out anything?” he asked while they ate.
“Nothing really useful. Apparently Lorna’s even withdrawn from her friends.”
He paused in the process of taking a bite of his sandwich. “Now that’s really not good.”
“That’s what I think.” She found she didn’t feel hungry at all, but in order not to appear ungrateful, she nibbled at the salad.
“You know,” Dan said presently, “I can think of a lot of things short of mental illness that could have caused this change in the child, and none of them are pretty.”
“I know.” That killed the last of her appetite. She absolutely didn’t want to think about those things, but she couldn’t avoid it. Experience had taught her that bad things could happen to people you knew, including yourself. For Anna, they weren’t just newspaper stories.
“Anna?” Dan was looking at her with concern. “Would you like to quit early today and go home? You look really strung out.”
