Free You Can't Escape by Nancy Bush Page A

hands. He just wanted to go to the playground, that was all. “I just”— hiccup —“wanna go”— hiccup —“to the playground!”
    “THERE IS NO PLAYGROUND!” Buddy thundered and stomped out of the room. But Boo knew he was lying again. Buddy just didn’t want him to have any friends. He wanted to lock Boo away forever and ever. He could feel his anger again, knew his mad face was getting madder. After a seething moment or two, Boo pulled down his pants and let his fingers find the slightly raised mark on his right buttock. He could visualize it even though he’d only seen it in the mirror. A “C,” that’s what the doctor had said, then, “Looks like a C. How’d you get it?”
    “I don’t ’member.”
    The doc had looked down at him and said, “It looks like a branding.”
    “It’s a scar,” Boo had answered, feeling proud that he knew.
    The doc had eyed him in a way that had made Boo real uncomfortable, and he’d wanted to say something else, something that he maybe remembered . . . maybe . . . but the way the doc looked at him had made his stomach feel squirmy so he hadn’t.
    He wondered now if he should tell the doc that Buddy was lying.
    Boo had trouble thinking things through. His mama had told him that so many times he accepted it as truth. If Mama were still around, she’d be saying it again, he was pretty sure, so when he wandered closer to the window and looked out at the stretch of farmland that swept toward the mountains, he thought of his mama, could almost see her in the shadows out by the apple tree that her grandpa had planted. Could almost hear her again . . .
    “You be careful, Boo. Be real careful. Sometimes people are going to be mean to you. I know you have trouble thinking things through, so I’m gonna tell you something right now and you need to remember it. Think you can do that?”
    “Yes, Mama,” he’d answered, even though his heart hurt ’cause he was afraid he couldn’t.
    “If they come for you and I’m not here, you need to protect yourself. There’s a floorboard in the shed. It’s loose. Back by the wall with Old Nickel’s leashes. You find it, and there’s something inside for you. But don’t look unless you have to, you understand?”
    “Yes, Mama.”
    “I mean it. Don’t look. Better if you don’t know until you have to, okay? Promise.”
    “P-p-promise,” he’d stuttered. “But you won’t leave me!”
    “No, honey.” And she’d hugged him close and he’d clung to her, but she’d lied, too, because she was gone before Santa came that year, and Santa didn’t bring Boo any presents so he knew it was his fault.
    He hadn’t looked for Mama’s treasure. She’d told him not to, and he’d sort of forgotten about what she’d really said anyway. It was a big jumble, which Buddy had explained was just the way his “screwed-up brain” worked. But the last few nights he’d woken up and seen Mama by the hawthorn tree and her words were back inside his head.
    Buddy was being mean to him, that was for sure. Maybe he was going to come for him and be meaner. Maybe now was the time to find Mama’s treasure in the shed beneath Old Nickel’s leashes.
    Boo’s eyes and nose got all hot and burny as he thought about the old, gray mutt with the thumping tail who’d been his friend. Now he was gone and so was Mama and Buddy wouldn’t let him go to the playground.
    Yep. Maybe now was the time....

Chapter Five
    The old, once-white farmhouse looked foreboding in the evening light, its windows balefully watching the car as Jordanna pulled around the back behind the long, long woodshed that connected the house to the listing carport at the far end. “It’s a walk from here,” she said, “but I don’t want anyone seeing us. You can lean on me.”
    Danziger threw a glance toward the woodshed, which was all you could see from this point as it sheltered the house. “No one’s going to see us,” he pointed out.
    Jordanna nodded, slightly