night, and he would have to do it from the house. But the windows were barred, and there was always someone awake, watching.
He moved through the woods slowly, trying to figure out what he could do. As he stepped from the forest onto the edge of the lawn, he saw an answer.
On the slope of the roof there seemed to be some kind of trap door. Randy stopped and stared at it for a long time. Was it really a trap door? But what was it for? What if it wasn’t a trap door at all? What if it was just a skylight, and wouldn’t open.
He frowned, trying to puzzle it out. And then, in his innocence, he decided that it had to be a trap door, and it had to open. Otherwise there was no way out.
But once he was on the roof, what would he do?
A tree. All he had to do was find a tree that reached to the eaves of the three-story building, and he could climb down it. He was about to begin searching for the right tree when he heard his name being called. He recognized Louise Bowen coming toward him.
“Randy, I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I was just off in the woods, messing around.”
She smiled at him and tousled his hair. “I was worried about you.”
Randy’s first impulse was to pull away from her, but he thought better of it. If he was really going to try to run away, he couldn’t let anyone know he might even be thinking about it Otherwise they would watch him. He slipped his arms around Louise and hugged her. “I was just thinking about what we talked about last night,” he said. His heart began pounding, and he prayed she wouldn’t see through the lie he was about to tell her. “And I decided God must have wanted Eric to die, and what happened to him isn’t going to happen to me.”
Louise patted him on the back. “Well, that seems very sensible,” she told him. “What made you decide that?”
Randy looked up at her, trying to hide the fear he was feeling. “I don’t know. But I’m not scared anymore.”
“Well, that’s good,” Louise said. But when she looked into his eyes, she saw something that told her he was lying. There was a look in his eyes and something about his smile that rang false.
He’s going to do something, she thought He’s going to try to run away.
“Do you think I could build a treehouse here?” Bandy suddenly asked.
“A treehouse?” Louise echoed. What was he talking about? One minute he was talking about dying, and the next minute he was talking about treehouses.
“You know,” Randy said. “A treehouse. All you need is the right tree and some boards and nails.”
Louse frowned, certain that somehow there was a connection. “Where do you think you might put it?”
“I don’t know,” the little boy conceded. “Over there, maybe?”
He pointed toward a grove of maples near the house, and as her gaze followed his gesture, her eyes wandered to the roof of the house. Clearly visible to her, and obviously to Randy too, was the trap door that allowed access to the roof. Suddenly she understood.
“Why, I don’t know,” she said. “Why don’t we go have a look?”
Pleased that she had fallen so easily into his plans, Randy skipped off toward the trees, with Louise Bowen slowly and thoughtfully following after him.
Half an hour later, amid much planning of an elaborate treehouse, both Randy and Louise knew which tree Randy would use when he tried to escape.
As they returned to the house, Louise Bowen tried to decide what to do. She knew she should report her conversation with Randy, as well as her suspicions, to Dr. Hamlin. And yet she couldn’t She knew perfectly well that to Hamlin, Randy was no more than an animal, and she suspected that he wouldn’t hesitate to lock the boy up like an animal. So, for the moment, she would say nothing. Instead, she would simply watch Randy very carefully. Then, when she knew exactly what he was planning, she would decide what to do about it.
As for Randy, he was positive that the woman suspected nothing. Tonight he would run away, and he was childishly sure that he wouldn’t be caught
Chapter 22
THE LONG TWILIGHT of the spring evening was just beginning to fade as Sally steered her car toward Lucy Corliss’s house. She had been driving aimlessly all afternoon, intent only on