Free First Daughter by Eric Van Lustbader Page A

slapped in the face, took an involuntary step back.
    His eyes glittered. "I
will
bring Alli back, Nina. You can make book on it."
    J ACK LED her to the right, skirting the shed. There was a swath of lawn, rather narrow by the standards of the rest of the property, beyond which lay a thick stand of fluffy pines and large, gnarled, very old oaks. By the time they reached the trees, Jack had determined that Nina had low-slung hips and a walk that, defying the odds, was distinctly sensual.
    "I want you to know . . ." Nina stumbled over a stone as well as her words.
    "What?"
    "I've . . . had my darkest hours, too."
    Jack, navigating through the rooty trees, said nothing.
    "When I was a kid." Nina picked her way under tree branches, over exposed roots, the knuckles of angry fists. "My older brother . . . he molested me. . . ."
    Jack stopped, turned back to regard her. He was startled at her admission, which couldn't have been easy to make. But then again, it was often easier to confess to a stranger than to someone you knew.
    "And when I fought back, he beat me. He said I needed to be punished."
    Jack felt a ping, like the ricochet of a steel ball bounding from bumper to bumper in his own shameful pinball machine. "You know that's not true."
    Nina's face was pinched, as if she wanted to make the past disappear."He's married, got two kids. Now he's got a whole new family to dominate. How I hate him. I can't stop." She made a little sound in the back of her throat that was either a laugh or a sob. "My parents loved God, they believed in his loving kindness. How wrong were they?"
    "When we were growing up," Jack said, "parents were unconscious when it came to their effect on their kids."
    Nina paused for a moment, considering. "Even if you're right, it doesn't make what they did better, does it?"
    They resumed their trek through the stand of weeping hemlocks and pin oaks. He heard the rustle of the wind through brittle branches, the hiss of faraway traffic, the call of a winter bird. The melancholy sounds of winter.
    At length, Nina said, "Where are we going?"
    "There's a secret path." Jack pointed ahead. "Well, it isn't a secret to the juniors and seniors, but to the adults . . ."
    They had reached the far side of the tree-line. He took three or four steps to his left, moved some brush away, revealing a narrow, well-trod earthen path through brambly underbrush and the occasional evil-looking hemlock.
    "Except you."
    He nodded. "Except me."
    Nina followed him along the twisting path, at times half bent over in order to avoid shaggy low-hanging branches. Their shoes made dry, crunching sounds, as if they were walking over mounds of dead beetles. The wind, late for an appointment, hurried through the hemlocks. Grim bull briars and brambles pulled at them.
    "With all the manicured lawn, why hasn't the school pulled this stuff out?"
    "Natural barbed wire," Jack said.
    "What do the kids do in here?" With a hard tug, Nina pulled her coat free of a tenacious bramble. "Drugs and sex, I expect."

    "I have no doubt that drugs and sex are on the students' minds," Jack said, "but so is escape."
    Nina frowned. "Why escape from the lap of luxury?"
    "Well, that's the million-dollar question, isn't it?"
    "Who told you about it? Emma?"
    Jack's laugh held a bitter edge. "Emma never told me anything." Like so much in life, this was a matter of trust. Edward Carson certainly trusted Nina, and she had bravely trusted him with her secret, and that had touched him in a way she could never imagine. "It was Alli. She was worried about Emma."
    "Worried? About what?"
    "She never said. I got the impression there was only so much she was prepared to tell me. But she did say that several times when Emma thought she was asleep, she crept out of the room. Alli said the one time she followed her, she saw her vanish down this path."
    "Did she go after Emma?"
    "She didn't say."
    "Didn't you ask?"
    "I take it you don't have a teenager. I went after Emma myself."
    "And