Excerpt

There was a half-finished tea cloth in my embroidery basket, a big cluster of flowers in each corner and another in the center. Embroidery almost always had a soothing effect on me and whenever unpleasant thoughts of Francine's disappearance or Mrs. Morton's murder intruded, I swept them firmly away. I thought I'd succeeded pretty well when a scream brought me to my feet, my heart racing. It's just the cougar, I told myself. Calm down. I went to the sink and got a drink of water. Then the scream came again. It was muffled by the thick snowflakes in the air but this time it didn't stop with just one cry.

All at once I knew where it was coming from and who was doing it. Debbie and Dottie! I snatched my coat and wrenched the door open. Not stopping for galoshes, I pulled the coat on as I floundered through the snow. The screaming stopped but I kept on. Mr. Chichester and Cleve Price and Steve Allston came running out of their houses. They were nearest to me and to Jim Morton's and I expect the snow kept the rest of the camp from hearing the noise. Jim came out of his back door as the rest of us converged on it. The men stopped to talk to Jim but I went on past. I think I knew what I was going to find even before I got there because I remember that I felt no surprise at all.

Debbie was kneeling by the hole at the edge of Jim's yard -- one of the boys had fallen into it a couple of days earlier. I had forgotten all about it until I heard the screaming. Dottie was standing beside her sister, holding the flashlight so it illuminated the inside of the hole. They were both staring into the hole with horror. I knew what they saw. Francine Morton.

"Debbie, Dottie. Come away from there," I said.

Both girls looked at me and seemed to dissolve from their horrified rigidity to frightened little girls.

Debbie scrambled to her feet and they both ran to me and hurled themselves against me.

"Oh, Miss O'Connor," Dottie cried.

"It's awful, Miss O'Connor," Debbie sobbed.

I put my arms around them and tried to quiet them as they both told me what they'd found in the hole in Jim's yard.

The men gathered around the hole and looked with thinly veiled hostility at Jim as he came up to them. The back door of Jim's house opened and Danny started to come forward. Jim turned on him.

"Go back, Danny," he shouted furiously. "Go back and take care of your sisters."

"They're asleep," Danny yelled.

Danny kept on coming and Jim went to head him off.

"I said, go back inside," he said angrily, taking hold of Danny's arm.

"I won't." Danny looked scared and shaky but very determined. He pulled away from his father's restraining hand. "I have to see."

The other men watched as Danny moved forward. Jim stood and looked at his son with despair. Danny looked into the hole then looked steadily into the face of each man with a sick sort of questioning shame. Embarrassed, the men flicked glances at Jim and at one another. Danny walked slowly back to the house and went indoors, closing the door softly behind him.

Jim shrugged as if trying to dislodge an intolerably heavy burden and went over to the men. The twins were crying and not talking much. I kept my arms around them and spoke softly to them, much as one speaks to a spooky horse, and making about as much sense.

Steve Allston spoke first. "It's Francine, isn't it, Jim?"

"Yes, it's Francine." Jim sounded tired.

"You know how she got here, Jim?" Carl Chichester asked.

"No. No, I have no idea. I thought she had gone away with Mason Sturdevant."

"We best get her out of there," Cleve Price stated.

Mr. Chichester looked at me.

"I'll take the girls home and tell the Millers what has happened."

The men nodded.

"I'll get a blanket," Mr. Price said. "We'll have to put her in the first aid room, I reckon."

"That's about the size of it," Mr. Allston agreed. "Then someone had better go into Kinzua and call the police."

"The phone line is down," I said. "Or at least it was earlier. That's what Mr. Hamilton said."

"Well, he'll have to be notified, anyway," said Mr. Chichester. "He can call the police whenever they get the phone line fixed. I'll go as soon as we get this taken care of."

The other men agreed and Mr. Price started after a blanket. I shepherded the twins away and back to their own house. The snow continued to fall. My footprints going down to Jim's were already blurred.