Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

“God, now you’re bleeding, too,” the man said. “Better let me carry her inside. . ”

Jill looked slightly crazed with her unkempt auburn hair and her too-tight black tee and purple pajama pants. She practically pushed Rachel out of the way to tend to her son. “What happened?” she demanded to know, grabbing him by the wrist. She examined his hands. “Who did this?”

“We were just playing!” Darren sobbed. “The dirt had glass in it. . ”

Jill rushed Darren to her house at the end of the block.

Once inside Lynette’s house, the stranger propped Dakota on the kitchen counter near the sink. Molly sat Carson down in a chair at the breakfast table. She carefully peeled off his jacket and checked the scrape on his arm from when he fell. It wasn’t too bad. She kept telling him that he would be all right, and he calmed down a little. His jacket got the worst of it. Then she looked at his hands. Past the blood and dirt, she could see about three little pieces of glass in one hand, and two in the other. His right-hand index finger had a bad cut on it. “We’ll need some tweezers, Lynette,” she announced.

Running water over some paper towels, Lynette didn’t seem to hear her past Dakota’s incessant screams. The stranger held the little girl’s arms down while Lynette cleaned off her scratched, filthy face.

Molly had a pretty good idea of what must have happened. Obviously, the kids were in the vacant lot again, scooping up dirt balls to hurl at passing cars. They must have stumbled upon a patch of dirt with broken glass scattered about.

Molly glanced over at Rachel, standing in the doorway to Lynette’s kitchen, wringing her hands. “Do you need some antiseptic?” she asked, over Dakota’s sobbing. “I have Neosporin at home. . ”

Lynette didn’t seem to be listening. She put down the wet paper towel and reached for her daughter. “You’re scaring her,” she snapped at the man. “I’ve got her now. There, there, sweetie. .”

“That’s Lynette’s way of saying thank you,” Molly murmured to the man. Lynette didn’t seem to catch the remark. Molly led Carson to the sink and ran his hands under the water.

Lynette turned toward her. “Did you do this?” she hissed.

Molly frowned at her. “Of course not, my God. . ”

“You’re always complaining about the kids playing in that lot. Maybe you decided to do something about it—”

“Lynette, I wouldn’t plant broken glass in there. Give me a break.”

Yet Molly wouldn’t have been surprised if someone whose car had been pelted by dirt balls often enough had scattered the glass in that spot — perhaps someone on the cross street. Or maybe some slob had just tossed a bunch of bottles out of a car passing by the lot.

Lynette turned to Rachel and the man. “I’ve got it under control, people. I’m fine. You can go now.”

“Well, you’re welcome, and it was awfully nice meeting you,” Rachel said, with a jaunty little salute. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

The blond-haired stranger just looked baffled as he sheepishly followed Rachel out the door.

“Lynette, that was our new neighbor, Rachel Cross,” Molly said, rinsing Carson’s hands under the cold water. With her fingernails, she carefully picked out some of the bits of glass. The bleeding wasn’t bad, but Carson kept squirming. “And the man was a total stranger who stopped to rescue your injured children. He got his jacket all bloody carrying your daughter around, and all you did was snap at him like he was your indentured servant. I know you’re under duress, but really, a thank-you might have been nice.”

“I’m pretty sure what this is all about,” Lynette whispered, rocking Dakota in her arms. “Well, I’m sorry, but I felt it was my duty to talk to that police detective the other night. I wasn’t looking to get you in trouble.”

“You didn’t get me into trouble,” Molly said. “So don’t worry about it.” She gently dabbed Carson’s hands with a paper towel. “He’s going to need some antiseptic on this scrape from when he fell. . ”

“So — you expect me to believe you’re not upset?” Lynette pressed. “And you’re not the one who called me?”

“What are you talking about?” Molly asked, concerned. “What call?”

Lynette quickly shook her head. “Nothing, forget it. I–I can carry on from here.” She nodded toward the door. “ Thank you, Molly.”

Her tone sounded more like a fuck you than a thank you . But Molly just let it go. She needed to get home to Erin. She quickly dried off her hands and then headed for the door. Outside, she found Rachel standing at the end of the Hahns’ driveway. “Are the kids okay?” Rachel asked.

Molly nodded tiredly. “Where did that man go?”

“Oh, he slinked off into the sunset with his tail between his legs.” She nodded toward Lynette’s house. “Well, I’m not too crazy about her. I can’t believe she actually accused you of cutting up her kids. Who would do something like that? And the other one — with the chubby kid who looks like Pugsley on The Addams Family —she practically gave me a full body check to get at her kid. I guess I shouldn’t judge them during a situation like this.”

“Oh, you’ll find once you really get to know them—”

“That they’re both bitches?” Rachel finished for her.

Molly laughed.

“Seriously,” Rachel said. “I think you’re the only nice person on this block. I mean, look over there at that one.” She nodded toward the Nguyens’ house. “After all the screaming and commotion, it was enough to wake the dead. You’d figure any normal person would offer to help — or at least be curious about what happened. But she didn’t even bother to step outside.”

Molly noticed Natalie in the second-floor window. She was slouched in a rocker with one leg over the chair arm. It looked like she was reading a magazine.

He glanced in his rearview mirror at the turnoff to Willow Tree Court.

He’d known beforehand that it was a cul-de-sac. Lynette Hahn had told him — on the TV news, when she’d talked to reporters in front of her dead friend’s former residence: “We’re on a cul-de-sac here. Angela moved from one cul-de-sac to another. You never think anything like this will happen to someone you know, someone you care about and love. . ”

The brief news clip hadn’t given him a very good idea of the street’s layout. It wasn’t until last night, when he’d done a brief survey, that he realized most of the houses on the street were at the edge of a forest. He liked that. And the vacant lots — two of them with half-built houses — gave him so many places to hide while he studied the habits of the residents.

Of course, the house that piqued his interest the most was the Dennehys’. Angela’s ex-husband seemed like the most logical suspect in the Alder Court murders. The man in the driver’s seat intended to find his copycat — which meant watching the house and following around the ex-husband.

With Willow Tree Court behind him now, he studied the road ahead. It was starting to get dark. He switched on his headlights.

He glanced down at his beige jacket — at the blood on his sleeves.

Lynette Hahn’s little brat had bled on him. That was what he got for being a hero. He wondered if the broken glass scattered through that lot had been planted there on purpose. Perhaps someone had a grudge against Lynette and her children. Did the same person have a grudge against Angela Dennehy?

Maybe he wasn’t the only one with a score to settle on Willow Tree Court.

He rather liked the cul-de-sac. He’d already been inside the Hahns’ place. He thought about coming back. Or maybe he’d find a way to get inside one of the other homes — a night visit.