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iranda opened the back door carefully, not wanting to slam the screen door and let her mother know she was home.
Janice was probably out cold on the sofa in any case. If her mother was still awake she’d be on her fourth or fifth drink by now and wrapped up in Days of Our Lives or Ryan’s Hope or whatever it was she watched in the afternoon. So Janice probably wouldn’t notice the state of Miranda, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Her mother could occasionally be very observant.
Miranda wanted to go upstairs and wash her face and change her clothes before her mother got a good look at her. The seat of her shorts and the back of her shirt were stained with dirt and she was sure her face was flushed. She toed out of her sneakers, left them in a heap on the mat, and ran
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Night of shades 21
Karen didn’t know what had happened between her mother and Lauren that afternoon. She didn’t know because neither of them would tell her, despite the fact that Karen had called her mother and demanded to know what hadcaused her daughter to leave her bike in the backyard instead of putting it away properly and then run upstairs and lock the door of her bedroom.Karen called her mother and Mom had only said, “It’s between me and Lauren,” which left Karen with the same wrenched-stomach feeling that she always had when the two of them put their heads together and left her out.It was ridiculous that she should feel this way, feel like a high school girl who wasn’t allowed to join the cool-girls club, but she always had. Karen had never been close to her mother. She&rsq
Night of shades 22
MSchneider stood at her kitchen window and stared out at the backyard. The police had, of course, cleared away the abomination that had soiled her property the previous day. But somehow every time she looked outside she thoughtshe could still see it there, like an afterimage burned on her eyes.“Disrespectful,” she muttered. “If someone wanted to murder some worthless girls, then they should have left them somewhere else. Not in my yard.”She could only imagine what Mr. Schneider would have said about this. He’d fenced in the yard so they would be protected from this kind of harassment—from any kind of harassment, really. Mr. Schneider had understood that People Would Impose On You if you didn’t make it clear that under no circumstances whatsoeve
Night of shades 22
Lauren knew she shouldn’t have yelled at her mother like that. Mom was the revenging type. She was probably downstairs thinking up every possible thing she could take away from Lauren—her allowance, her telephone privileges,her television time.No more meetings under the ghost tree. No more riding her bike wherever she wanted to go.But Lauren had been biting her tongue for days, suppressing her irritation at Mom’s constant nagging. When they were sitting there at the table and she asked Mom about magic, Mom had given her that slightly superior look that she always gave when she thought Lauren asked a stupid question.And it had just been the last straw.But it wouldn’t have happened at all if Mom had just left her alone the way she’d asked her to.
Night of shades 23
Lauren fully expected her mom to flip out over her behavior the night before, and that might have happened if she hadn’t needed her mom’s assistance finding the sanitary pads.Mom had taken one look at Lauren’s red face and the clean pair of underwear clutched in her hand and said, “Well, that explains a few things.” Then she went into her clothes closet and pulled down a box of Stayfree maxi pads. She handed the box to Lauren. There was a woman walking on a beach in a white dress. Her dark hair blew in the wind and she looked unreasonably happy for a person who presumably had her period, Lauren thought. Across the bottom corner of the box it said Beltless.“Do you need any help?” Mom asked.“Uh, no. I think I can figure it out,” Lauren said.&ld
Night of shades 24
Alex really was not in the mood for the fair. The captain decided that Alex and Miller would rotate shifts with Hendricks and Pantaleo and that there would be at least one pair patrolling at the fair at all times from open to close—which wasfrom eleven to eight every day, and until ten p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The chief tried to soften the blow with the promise of overtime pay (“already authorized by the mayor, who’s grateful for our presence”), but Alex didn’t care about the money.He cared about the hours he was going to spend walking in the heat, dealing with out-of-towners who lost their kids in the crowd or got their pockets picked by teenagers. And when he wasn’t dealing with petty theft and children distracted by the sight of balloon vendors, he’d be gi
Night of shades 25
Lauren went out after lunch, leaving her bike at home. She could cut into the woods from the cul-de-sac at the end of the road. Mrs. Schneider, of course, never let anyone through her yard—not even a raccoon—but pretty much everyoneelse expected the neighborhood kids to use their yards as access points and didn’t mind.She only needed her bike if she was going straight to the ghost tree, and she didn’t want to start at the ghost tree today.Lauren had a small green canvas duffel bag that used to belong to her father slung over her shoulder. She had carefully packed this bag with all the things she thought she would need if she actually came across the crime scene.It was easier for her to think of it that way, to consider it in a distant and scientific manner. If she di
Night of shades 26
Jesus, I think one of my eardrums is bleeding,” Jake said, holding his hand to his right ear. “What are you doing here?” Lauren asked.Her voice sounded shrill to her own ears. Her hands shook and she’d dropped the duffel bag when she’d spun around.She felt ready to dash away at the slightest provocation, a trembling little rabbit in sight of a fox.Jake reached back and rubbed the back of his head in a sheepish gesture. He’d gotten his hair cut, Lauren noticed now.It was short in the back and a little longer on top.Kind of like Matt Dillon in The Outsiders, she thought, and wondered if Miranda would agree.But Jake’s new haircut was not the point. The point was that he was standing there in her woods (my woods???) very close to a m
Night of shades 27
The last person Miranda expected to see in that part of the woods was Lauren. She hid behind an old oak wide enough to keep her body out of sight and peeked around the edge. Lauren and Jake Hanson were walking back in the direction ofLauren’s neighborhood, carrying large plastic bags. Were they out here picking up trash?Miranda snorted to herself. Real romantic, Lauren. Why don’t you take him down to the pharmacy and ride the mechanical pony for a dime while you’re at it?But the sight of them together, and this deep in the woods, annoyed her. She and Lauren almost always stayed near the ghost tree, and she hadn’t imagined that Lauren would even enter the forest without her. She was such a little mouse.Miranda thought that without her friend, Lauren would sit
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