The Babysitter Murders - By Janet Ruth Young Page 0,30
she could get another babysitter. Are you going to call a doctor now?”
“What did Mrs. Alex say when you told her?”
“She didn’t say much. She immediately called the cops.”
“You shouldn’t have told Mrs. Alex anything. You should have just quit.”
“I tried. She wouldn’t let me.”
“If something like this ever happens again—”
Dani sits on the couch. “I’m never babysitting again. It isn’t going to happen.”
“Oh, Dani.” Beth scoots over to Dani and pulls Dani’s head onto her shoulder. Dani can tell her mom is trying to figure out how to tell Sean. This will be one of only three times in Dani’s life that her mother hasn’t been proud of her. The other two were when Dani made her mother a Valentine’s Day card from 105
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a nonexistent secret admirer, and the time Dani was late for the concert. “It should have been you and me having that conversation, not you and Mrs. Alex.”
“I tried two days ago, I said.”
“That was your way of telling me? You could have said it was an emergency.”
“Oh, well.” Dani wraps her arms around herself.
Beth presses her hands to her face again. The right hand wears a ring from Sean that he called a friendship ring. Beth spent hours on the phone with her friends discussing the ring’s significance, whether it meant she was pre-engaged. One friend said, “I didn’t know people used the term ‘friendship ring’ anymore.”
“Dani, why do you think you’re doing this?”
“It doesn’t feel like something I’m doing. It feels like something that’s happening to me. I think Sergeant Mason is right. I think I’d like to talk to somebody.”
“Dani, is somebody at school putting ideas like this into your head?”
“No.”
“Who are you spending time with these days? Is it still Shelley, or are you with a different crowd? I feel like I’ve been ignoring you lately and I know that isn’t good.”
“It’s still Shelley.”
“I should start calling around. We need a really good therapist. Not just any hippie-dippie who can hang up a shingle.”
“Mom, would you sit with me a few minutes? Then we’ll make the appointment? And then can we go to the movies and 106
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the sandwich place? I think a good movie might rinse some of the bad stuff out of my mind.”
Beth strokes Dani’s hair. “I need to catch my breath a minute, honey. This is a lot to hit me with.”
It’s over, Dani tells herself. Finally she doesn’t have to go back and babysit. Finally she doesn’t have to be alone with Alex. Her problem with the bad thoughts had seemed to be expanding, picking up power and momentum and spreading into every area of her life. But she did the right thing and told Alex’s mom. That’s the bottom line. Her shame and embarrassment meant nothing in comparison to Alex’s need to be safe. It was awkward and hor-rifying to have to discuss the thoughts with the police and Beth.
It was absolute hell to discuss it with Mrs. Alex. But Dani has put Alex first, and so she privately congratulates herself with the same word she used for Shelley. I’m brave, she thinks. I may be crazy, but I’m brave.
But her relief lasts only for moments, because an old saying starts to run through her mind like a musical loop: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. The fact that she’s no longer babysitting doesn’t mean that she won’t kill Alex. A new thought comes into her mind, of going to Alex’s house and dragging him home to her house and murdering him there.
Not after all that work, Dani thinks. Not after all I’ve done. Finding someone to listen to me. Asking and asking. Telling and telling. Involving the police and Mom and Mrs. Alex and everyone. I thought it was over. I tried to end it. How I can I still have these thoughts? She thought she had left them behind, but they followed her here. The thoughts are like 107
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the water that comes into a hole you dig in the sand, Dani realizes. If you create an empty space, they will fill it. She looks at her hands and squeezes them together. I’m not hurting anyone; I haven’t hurt anyone; at least as of this exact minute, I still have not hurt anyone.
Beth puts her hands on top of Dani’s. “Tough day, huh?” She’s trying to understand.
“Will you start calling the doctors