Dance for the Dead by Thomas Perry Read Free Book Online

fence, lifted Timmy and lowered him to
the lawn. She could see that the other two children were still
watching television downstairs. She led him to the tree, hoisted him
to her back, and climbed. When they walked to the open window, Timmy
was seized with a panic. “I don’t want you to leave.”
    “I have to, Timmy,”
she said.
    “But what am I going to
do? I mean after you’re gone.”
    Jane hesitated, then accepted
the fact that she had to try. “Go to school. Make friends. Play
games. Try to grow up strong and decent and healthy. That’s
plenty to do for now.” She helped him in the window and sat on
his bed while he put on his pajamas.
    “But what happens after
that? What will I be then?”
    “I think that’s why
it takes so much time to grow up. You don’t really make a
decision; you just find out when the time comes.”
    “What would you do?”
    Jane shook her head and smiled
sadly. “I’m not a good one to ask.”
    “Who is?”
    Jane had an urge to tell him
everything she knew, because this would be the last time. No words
came into her mind that were of any use, but she had to push him in
the right direction. “Well, when I was in college I knew a boy
who was in a position sort of like yours. He didn’t know what
to do, but he knew that if he wasn’t careful, he would be lazy
and wasteful and selfish.”
    “What did he decide?”
    “He decided to become a
doctor. It was the hardest thing he could think of to be, so he knew
that would force him to study. And when he had done enough studying,
he would know how to do something worthwhile. At the time I thought
he was being very sensible. I still can’t find anything wrong
with the idea.”
    “Is he a doctor now?”
    “As it happens, he is, but
that isn’t the point. The real reward was that he got to be the
kind of person he wanted to be. It doesn’t matter whether he
ended up a doctor or something else. He had decided to try. That made
him special.”
    There were noises. She heard the
first complaints from little voices downstairs. The children were
being sent to bed.
    “I’ve got to go now
or I’ll get caught,” she said. She leaned down and kissed
his cheek. “Sleep well, Timmy. Remember that people have loved
you before and others will love you again, because you’re worth
it.”
    As she slipped out the window
she heard a whisper. “Jane?”
    “Yes?” She stopped
and leaned on the sill.
    “Thanks for the bear. I
knew it was from you.”
    “I thought you would.”
    “Are you one of the
people? The ones who love me?”
    “Of course I am.”
    “Will you marry me?”
    “Sure.”
    She drifted across the garage
roof like a shadow, and seemed to Timmy to fly down the tree without
moving a leaf. He watched the back fence, but even in the light of
the moon he didn’t see her go over it. After listening for a
few minutes, he fell asleep.
     
3
     
    Jane
returned the car to the airport rental lot and caught the shuttle bus
to the terminal. As she stepped off, she smiled perfunctorily at the
efficient skycap offering to check her luggage through to her
destination and shook her head. She didn’t have luggage and she
didn’t have a destination. She had made a stop at a Salvation
Army office on the way to the airport and disposed of the clothes
that had remained in her suitcase that weren’t torn or
bloodstained, and then had donated the suitcase too. She had known
that she would never wear any of the clothes again because they would
have reminded her of all that had happened.
    She had spent her three days in
the county jail ruminating on failure, and her nights remembering the
faces of dead people. She should have been quick-witted enough to
save Mona and Dennis. There had to be some better way to stop a court
case. If nothing else had come to mind, she should have called in a
bomb threat to make the police evacuate the courthouse, then arrived
during the confusion and attached Timmy and Mona to a squad of
policemen. She had not