Free One Scream Away by Kate Brady Page B

closed her eyes on the word, her lids so heavy she wished she didn’t have to open them again. Alone was the key to survival. Alone was the way to never experience such loss again. Alone was the way to protect secrets only Adam had known.
Never tell. Trust me, Beth; I’ll handle everything…
    “Ms. Denison.”
    She jerked and found Neil Sheridan standing in the open passenger-side door. His fingers smoothed a strand of hair from her face. “You slept for twenty minutes,” he said, answering her unvoiced question. “Abby’s here.”
    Beth got out of the car, still muddled. They’d stopped in a nice neighborhood, in a driveway lined with red and yellow tulips. “Where are we?” she asked.
    Sheridan’s hand settled on the small of her back. “Sacowicz’s house.”
    The lieutenant had taken Abby to his home? A spark of anger ignited, then she remembered the alternative: protective custody. And Abby, on the phone, saying,
Mommy, puh-leeze… Can’t I stay and play longer?
    Before she’d decided whether she should be angry or grateful, the front door opened.
    “Uncle Neil! Uncle Neil!” Three boys spilled past a woman, racing down the steps and lunging for Sheridan. He hunkered down in his coat and tie, scooped up the first boy in a bear hug, then rolled him over his back just in time to field the next attacks. They wrestled and laughed until Sheridan called a halt, then he ruffled their heads and smoothed a hand down his cockeyed tie. He came up to the porch. “Thanks for helping out today, honey,” he said, kissing the woman’s freckled cheek.
    “No problem.”
    Beth’s mind reeled.
Uncle Neil. Sacowicz’s wife. Honey.
    “I’m Maggie Sacowicz,” the woman said, holding out her hand to Beth. “Come on in. Abby’s in the family room.”
    Abby dived into Beth’s arms. “Mommy, there’s a little baby girl here. I helped change her diaper. And wait’ll you hear all the jokes Ritchie told me.” She whirled to Sheridan, whose crisp blue eyes showed the briefest flicker of panic. “Hey, why did the butterfly get kicked out of the dance?”
    “Uh… Because he didn’t know the jitterbug.”
    Abby thought about that for a second, then frowned. “It was a moth ball. That’s why the butterfly got kicked out.”
    Sheridan grunted. “Mine was just as funny,” he said and followed the boys outside.
    Abby dragged Beth into a playroom. Tonka trucks and bulldozers lay wrecked all over the floor, a baseball bat and Superman cape littered the sofa, and the computer idled on some sort of shoot-’em-up space invaders game. In the far corner stood a playpen, and in it an eight-or nine-month-old baby girl sat wearing a baseball hat, gnawing on a half-human, half-beast action figure. She was the pale spitting image of her mother.
    “Abby’s been taking care of the baby for me,” Maggie said. “Playing mommy.”
    “That sounds like Abby. I’ve tried to get her interested in ball games and trucks, but she likes the girlie things.”
    “We need another double-X chromosome in this house. I’m way outnumbered, especially now that Neil’s here.”
    Beth couldn’t resist. “Are you his sister?”
    Maggie raised her eyebrows, then shook her head. “Neil was married to my sister, Heather. A long time ago.”
    Beth blinked. So, Mr. Screw-the-World had loved someone once? Couldn’t be.
    The French doors opened and a woman with a crew cut blew a puff of smoke and came inside. A county employee tag hung around her neck, the letters CPS at the bottom.
    “Mrs. Denison?” she asked, coming straight to Beth. “Aw, never mind. Abby looks just like you.” She headed for the front door, waving Maggie off when she started to follow. “I can find my way out. Maggie, tell that husband of yours he owes us both.”
    Maggie chuckled, a dry sound. “You tell him. You’ll see him before I will.”
    “Whoa!” An earsplitting wail came from outside. The boys had conned Sheridan into another round of wrestling.
    “Go on,