Details at Ten by Ardella Garland Read Free Book Online Page A

what to do. I think they’re trying to scare her to make sure she keeps her mouth shut. They won’t kill her unless they really have to.”
    Doug’s words of hope were like drops of water. I lapped them up with a parched and guilty conscience as I leaned back against the gate. My chin dropped forward.
    “Hey,” Doug said, moving in close and leaning against the gate with me. “None of that.”
    I couldn’t say a word.
    “Georgia, look at me.”
    Our eyes met and we exchanged an urgent look.
    “I know what you’re feeling right now but you can’t blame yourself for what’s happened. Georgia, you weren’t trying to put that little girl in jeopardy. There’s no way you could have known it would turn out like this. How could you? I’ve only known you a little while but my gut tells me that you’re careful and you’re compassionate.”
    Then why was I guilt-tripping so hard? Doug’s firm and soothing words crept inside my soul and warmed it. Drawn to him, I reached out and touched his forearm. He gave me a reassuring smile. Now Zeke was walking toward us carrying his gear but before we drew apart Doug stroked my back and said gallantly, “C’mon, let’s go inside and tackle this thing together.”
    We walked to the door and rang the bell. I was surprised when a minister—a pudgy, gray-skinned man—answered. He had an engaging smile and his large, pointy ears shifted hard each time he flashed that smile. Black freckles lined his forehead, too. He had on a white short-sleeve shirt with jagged perspiration stains on the collar and underarms. A silver crucifix caught the glimmers of sunlight that came in through the open doorway behind us.
    “Ms. Barnett, please come in.” His voice had that preachy, deep, it’s-baptizing-time tone. “I’m Reverend Kyle Walker. The family asked me to come.”
    They were probably crazy with worry and needed to feel that some kind of higher power was working for them. I hoped it was, for Butter’s sake. And mine.
    Four big oval fans stood in each corner blowing into the living room. The connecting rooms were blocked off at the doorways by heavy coal-gray blankets tacked onto the beams. The blankets absorbed the heat but they also killed nearly all of the sunlight in the room.
    “This is the Stewart family.” Reverend Walker motioned with outstretched arms.
    It was so dark I had to squint to see where he was directing us. Butter’s family was sitting quietly on the couch. Calling it a couch is giving this piece of furniture the benefit of the doubt. It was really a small love seat missing an arm and butted up against the wall to keep it from falling over.
    There was a plump elderly woman, clutching a Bible, with hair as white as washing powder, pressed, oiled, and pulled all the way back in a neat bun. She didn’t wear any makeup or jewelry and she had on a blue-and-white-striped cotton pullover dress. She wore fuzzy terry-cloth house slippers with the toes out and beige knee-highs rolled down around her ankles.
    Next to her was a young woman with the same high cheekbones and thick eyebrows, but she was rail-thin with splotchy skin decorated with dark spots and healed-over places. Strands of hair were sticking up here and there, air from the fans trying to comb them into place. She was smoking a narrow cigarette but holding it like a joint, taking deep, burdened-by-the-world pulls off the tobacco. Druggie, I thought.
    Then there was a little boy about nine or ten sitting on the floor between the legs of the old lady and the druggie. He had his right arm wrapped loosely around the old lady’s left leg and he stroked her toes lovingly, all the while looking at me with big experienced eyes. He was a cute kid, slim like the rest of his family, keen-featured, smooth-skinned, wearing a blue T-shirt and shorts with a pair of new Nike gym shoes. He had bandages on his right hand and one on his left knee.
    I looked at the two women. Could one of them be the woman I had talked to