Is that where they’d find Fawn?
Ruthie breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the thump of feet on the stairs and looked over to see Fawn coming down, cradling Mimi the doll.
“You are not to leave my sight,” Candace snapped. Her face was quite ruddy now, damp with sweat. “Do you understand?”
Ruthie clasped her hand firmly around Fawn’s, determined not to lose her again.
Fawn nodded rapidly. “I just went to get a blanket for Mimi,” she said, showing Candace her doll all swaddled in an old baby blanket. “She’s sick, you know. She’s got a fever. I had to give her medicine. I’m sick, too.”
Candace forced a smile, though it was clear her patience was wearing thin. “Sorry to hear that, kiddo. But from now on, you stick with us, okay?”
“I promise,” she said, smiling real big. Fawn’s smile could melt an iceberg. You just couldn’t help smiling back, no matter how mad you were.
Candace rubbed her face, and let her shoulders slump. “Do you have any coffee?”
“Coffee?” Ruthie said. The woman was holding them hostage, and now she wanted refreshments? “Um, sure. I can go put a pot on.” This might be her chance—if she could just get into the kitchen alone for a minute, she could call for help, grab a knife…something.
“We’ll come with you,” Candace said, following close behind. “I don’t want to lose anyone else tonight.”
Candace sat down at the table and watched Ruthie measure and grind the coffee and start the machine. Fawn settled in at her usual place, the chair across from the window, Mimi on her lap.
Ruthie joined the others at the table, sitting beside Fawn. Fawn took Ruthie’s hand and held it tight in her own. Fawn’s hand was hot. She probably needed Tylenol again.
Candace stared at Ruthie. “When’s your birthday?” she asked.
“October thirteenth.”
Fawn tugged on Ruthie’s hand, guiding it down to her doll, who was resting on Fawn’s legs, still all bundled in a thick blanket. Fawn pushed Ruthie’s hand against the doll. There was something hard there, under the blankets.
“And how old are you?” Candace asked.
“Nineteen.” Ruthie pulled back the blankets slightly, gingerly feeling the outline of the object. She put all her energy into keeping her face blank.
The gun.
Fawn had gotten the gun from its hiding place in their mom’s room and wrapped it in the blanket. Ruthie carefully pushed the blanket back into place.
“You’re the spitting image of your mother, did you know that?”
Candace said to Ruthie.
Fawn laughed and shook her head incredulously. “Ruthie doesn’t lookanythinglike Mama.”
“That’s because Alice Washburne is not her mother.” Candace let her words drop like bombs, watching their faces as the dust settled.
“The O’Rourkes are my real parents,” Ruthie said quietly. It wasn’t a question. Her hand was resting on the blanket-covered gun.
She’d known the truth since she first saw the photo at Candace’s, hadn’t she? Felt it deep down.
It was funny, though—when she was a little kid, she used to have fantasies about Mom and Dad not being her real parents; she’d imagine a rich couple, a king and queen of some far-off country she’d never heard of, coming to claim her as their own and ferry her off into the life she was meant to be leading, a life that didn’t involve cleaning out the chicken coop and wearing hand-me-down clothes. But now that she had finally gotten her wish, it didn’t feel like a magical new beginning. It felt like a punch in the gut, hard and heavy.
“Like I said, you’re a smart girl.”
Fawn clutched Ruthie’s hand tighter.
“Which makes you…my aunt?” Ruthie wasn’t sure what else to say.Pleased to meet you, actual blood relative—that didn’t seem appropriate.
“I don’t get it,” Fawn whispered, looking from Ruthie to Candace.
