heart beat faster. His father? His father had sent this woman? Was it really going to happen, finally? “He wanted me to pick you up at home,” he heard the woman say, “but I was late. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Randy said. He moved closer to the car. “Are you taking me to Daddy’s house?”
The woman reached across and pushed the passenger door open. “In a little while,” she promised. “Get in.”
Randy knew he shouldn’t get in the car, knew he should turn around and run to the nearest house, looking for help. It was things like this—strangers offering to give you a ride—that his mother had talked to him about ever since he was a little boy.
But this was different This was a friend of his father’s. She had to be, because she seemed to know all about his plans to go live with his father, and his father’s plans to take him away from his mother. Besides, it was always men his mother warned him about, never women. He looked at the woman once more. Her brown eyes were twinkling at him, and her smile made him feel like she was sharing an adventure with him. He made up his mind and got into the car, pulling the door closed behind him. The car moved away from the curb.
“Where are we going?” Randy asked.
Louise Bowen glanced over at the boy sitting expectantly on the seat beside her. He was every bit as attractive as the pictures she had been shown, his eyes almost green, with dark, wavy hair framing his pugnacious, snub-nosed face. His body was sturdy, and though she was a stranger to him, he didn’t seem to be the least bit frightened of her. Instinctively, Louise liked Randy Corliss.
“We’re going to your new school.”
Randy frowned. New school? If he was going to a new school, why wasn’t his father taking him? The woman seemed to hear him, even though he hadn’t spoken out loud.
“You’ll see your father very soon. But for a few days, until he gets everything worked out with your mother, you’ll be staying at the school. You’ll like it there,” she promised. “It’s a special school, just for little boys like you, and you’ll have lots of new friends. Doesn’t that sound exciting?”
Randy nodded uncertainly, no longer sure he should have gotten in the car. Still, when he thought about it, it made sense. His father had told him there would be lots of problems when the time came for him to move away from his mother’s. And his father had told him he would be going to a new school. And today was the day.
Randy settled down in the seat and glanced out the window. They were heading out of Eastbury on the road toward Langston. That was where his father lived, so everything was all right.
Except that it didn’t quite feel all right. Deep inside, Randy had a strange sense of something being very wrong.
Chapter 4
IT HAD NOT BEEN ONE of Lucy Corliss’s better days. She had spent the morning making the rounds of new listings coming onto the market. Houses that she privately thought weren’t worth the land they were built on were being priced at well over a hundred thousand dollars. Between the prices and the mortgage rates, she didn’t see how anyone was going to be able to afford to buy. That meant her commissions were going to be off. While pretending to be interested in the houses, she had privately begun reviewing her financial position, and making plans for cuts in her budget For the moment, the situation wasn’t perilous—she had three closings coming up over the next couple of months, and those commissions, if she was careful, would see her through a year. Then what?
Over lunch, she discussed the matter with Bob Owen, who was not only her employer, but her friend. She’d known Bob since childhood, and he’d seen her through a lot.
When her marriage had begun to sour, Bob had been there, listening to her complaints with a sympathetic ear, finally telling her that at some point she was going to have to stop complaining and take some action. When the crunch had at last come, she’d gone to Bob for advice.
The problem, at the time, had been twofold. She was pregnant, and her husband had walked out on her. In fact, she’d admitted to Bob, Jim Corliss had walked out on her because she was pregnant, accusing her of trying to tie him