The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,59

happened. Because after the soldiers had killed her family, they hadn’t simply gone away; they’d stayed with Lacey in the field, for hours and hours, and the little girl they’d left for dead might just as well have been dead, if God hadn’t protected her by washing her mind of these events. That He had chosen not to take her at that instant was simply an expression of His will, and nothing for Arnette to question. It was a burden, this knowledge, and the worry that came with it, for Arnette to bear in silence.

But now there was the girl. This Amy. Polite to a fault, quiet as a ghost, but wasn’t there something rather obviously wrong with the whole situation? Something completely unbelievable? Now that she thought about it, Lacey’s explanation made less than no sense. She was friends with her mother? Impossible. Except for daily Mass, Lacey barely set foot outside the house; how she would have come into contact with such a woman, let alone a woman who would trust her with her daughter, Arnette could not explain. Because there was no explanation; the story was a lie. And now the two of them were gone.

Sitting in the kitchen at 10:30, Sister Arnette knew what she had to do.

But what would she say? Where would she start? With Amy? None of the other sisters seemed to know anything. The girl had arrived when Lacey was alone in the house, as she often was; Arnette had tried many times to coax her out, for their days at the Pantry and also on small trips, to the store and what-have-you, but always Lacey declined, her face at such instances radiating a kind of cheerful blankness that put the question instantly to rest. No thank you, Sister. Perhaps another day. Three, four years of this, and now the girl had appeared out of nowhere, Lacey claiming to know her. So if she called the police, the story would have to start there, she understood, with Lacey, and the story of the field.

Arnette picked up the phone.

“Sister?”

She turned: Sister Claire. Claire, who had just come into the kitchen, still in her sweat suit, when she should have changed for the day by now; Claire, who had sold real estate, who’d been not only married but also divorced; who still kept a pair of high-heeled shoes and a black cocktail dress hanging in her closet. But that was an altogether different problem, not the one she was thinking about now.

“Sister,” Claire said, her voice concerned, “there’s a car in the driveway.”

Arnette hung up the phone. “Who is it?”

Claire hesitated. “They look … like police.”

Arnette reached the front door just as the bell was ringing. She drew back the curtain of the side window to look. Two men, one maybe in his twenties, the other older but still somebody she thought of as a young man, the pair of them looking like funeral directors in dark suits and ties. Police, but not exactly. Something serious, official. They were standing in the sunshine at the bottom of the steps, away from the door. The older one saw her and smiled in a friendly way but didn’t say anything. He was nice-looking but unremarkable, with a trim physique and a pleasant, well-shaped face. A bit of gray fanned away at the temples, which shimmered faintly with perspiration in the sun.

“Should we open it?” Claire asked, standing behind her. Sister Louise had heard the bell and come downstairs as well.

Arnette took a deep breath to calm herself. “Of course, Sisters.”

She opened the door but left the screen closed and latched. The two men stepped forward.

“May I help you gentlemen?”

The older one reached into his breast pocket and produced a small billfold. He opened it and in a flash she saw the initials: FBI.

“Ma’am, I’m Special Agent Wolgast. This is Special Agent Doyle.” Just like that, the billfold was gone, returned to the insides of his suit coat. She saw a scrape on his chin; he had cut himself shaving. “Sorry to disturb you like this on a Saturday morning—”

“It’s about Amy,” Arnette said. She couldn’t explain it: she’d just blurted it out, like he’d somehow made her do this. When he didn’t reply, she continued, “It is, isn’t it? It’s about Amy.”

The older agent—his name had already slipped her mind—glanced past Arnette at Sister Louise, sending her a quick, reassuring smile before returning his eyes to Arnette.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s correct. It’s about Amy. Would it be