Blood Brothers Page 0,57

shortsighted."

"A little more practical," Frannie corrected, "seeing as we were eight and ten at the time. Plus I enjoyed having you moon over and chase after me. Yes, you're right." Frannie looked back at Quinn. "You have to see each other, and see in each other something that makes you want to take the chance, that makes you believe you can dig down for the long haul."

"And sometimes you think you see something," Quinn commented, "but it was just a-let's say-trompe l'oeil."

ONE THING QUINN KNEW HOW TO DO WAS FINAGLE. Frannie Hawkins wasn't an easy mark, but Quinn managed to charm her way into the kitchen to help put together dessert and coffee.

"I love kitchens. I'm kind of a pathetic cook, but I love all the gadgets and tools, all the shiny surfaces."

"I imagine with your work, you eat out a lot."

"Actually, I eat in most of the time or call for takeout. I implemented a lifestyle change-nutrition-wise-a couple of years ago. Determined to eat healthier, depend less on fast or nuke-it-out-of-a-box food. I make a really good salad these days. That's a start. Oh God, oh God, that's apple pie. Homemade apple pie. I'm going to have to do double duty in the gym as penance for the huge piece I'm going to ask for."

Her enjoyment obvious, Frannie shot her a wicked smile. "À la mode, with vanilla bean ice cream?"

"Yes, but only to show my impeccable manners." Quinn hesitated a moment, then jumped in. "I'm going to ask you, and if you want this off-limits while I'm enjoying your hospitality, just tell me to back off. Is it hard for you to nurture this normal life, to hold your family, yourself, your home together when you know all of it will be threatened?"

"It's very hard." Frannie turned to her pies while the coffee brewed. "Just as it's very necessary. I wanted Cal to go, and if he had I would have convinced Jim to leave. I could do that, I could turn my back on it all. But Cal couldn't. And I'm so proud of him for staying, for not giving up."

"Will you tell me what happened when he came home that morning, the morning of his tenth birthday?"

"I was in the yard." Frannie walked over to the window that faced the back. She could see it all, every detail. How green the grass was, how blue the sky. Her hydrangeas were headed up and beginning to pop, her delphiniums towering spears of exotic blue.

Deadheading her roses, and some of the coreopsis that had bloomed off. She could even hear the busy snip, snip of her shears, and the hum of the neighbor's-it had been the Petersons, Jack and Lois, then-lawn mower. She remembered, too, she'd been thinking about Cal, and his birthday party. She'd had his cake in the oven.

A double-chocolate sour cream cake, she remembered. She'd intended to do a white frosting to simulate the ice planet from one of the Star Wars movies. Cal had loved Star Wars for years and years. She'd had the little action figures to arrange on it, the ten candles all ready in the kitchen.

Had she heard him or sensed him-probably some of both-but she'd looked around as he'd come barreling up on his bike, pale, filthy, sweaty. Her first thought had been accident, there'd been an accident. And she'd been on her feet and rushing to him before she'd noticed he wasn't wearing his glasses.

"The part of me that registered that was ready to give him a good tongue-lashing. But the rest of me was still running when he climbed off his bike, and ran to me. He ran to me and he grabbed on so tight. He was shaking-my little boy-shaking like a leaf. I went down on my knees, pulling him back so I could check for blood or broken bones."

What is it, what happened, are you hurt? All of that, Frannie remembered had flooded out of her, so fast it was like one word. In the woods, he'd said. Mom. Mom. In the woods.

"There was that part of me again, the part that thought what were you doing in the woods, Caleb Hawkins? It all came pouring out of him, how he and Fox and Gage planned this adventure, what they'd done, where they'd gone. And that same part was coldly devising the punishment to fit the crime, even while the rest of me was terrified, and relieved, so pitifully relieved I was holding my dirty,