Free Nobody Knows by Mary Jane Clark Page A

your job.”
    Cassie cast around for a way to respond. Hannah had a point, and they both knew it. “Look, if I can’t make it this weekend, I’ll try for the following one.”
    “That won’t work out, Mom. Daddy and I are going away that weekend.”
    “Oh, you are? Where?”
    “Rehoboth.”
    Cassie’s mind quickly made the connection. Gillian Cox, the principal at Jim’s school, had a beach house in Rehoboth. In fact, Cassie and Jim and Hannah had visited there together in happier times. “Are you going to Mrs. Cox’s place?”
    “Um-hmm.”
    “Oh, that’s nice.” Cassie tried to be upbeat.
    “I might as well tell you, Mom. Daddy and Mrs. Cox have been going out together.” As she had been hurt, Hannah wanted to hurt her mother.
    She succeeded.

CHAPTER 15
    “Mom! Mom! I’m going to be on TV!” Vincent ran into the kitchen, panting. “Hurry up, turn it on!”
    Wendy Bayler looked up from spreading peanut butter on Wonder bread, unable to respond before her son spun on his heels and scurried to the television set. She wiped her hands on a paper towel and followed Vincent into the tiny living room.
    “Come on, Mom!” the boy urged. “There’s going to be a story about me.” He hoped she wouldn’t realize that he should have asked her permission to be on the news. It was too late now.
    Mark poked his small head out of the bedroom to see what the commotion was about. Wendy’s first instinct was to tell her younger son to stay in the air-conditioned room, but the excitement on Vincent’s face made her reconsider. For once in her sons’ lives she didn’t want the moment wrecked by the worries of that damned cystic fibrosis. For once they were going to live as she imagined other people lived and just enjoy the moment. She gathered her sons beside her on theworn couch and watched the opening of
The News at Noon
.
    “Siesta Beach was the scene of a gruesome discovery this morning,” announced the anchorman, “as a human hand was found by a Siesta Key boy. Suncoast News Reporter Tony Whitcomb has the story.” Slackjawed, Wendy turned to look at her older son, but Vincent was staring wide-eyed at the TV screen.
    The reporter began his narration. “Most mornings, eleven-year-old Vincent Bayler combs the beach with his metal detector, looking for spare change and metallic treasures in the sand. But this morning was not like other mornings.”
    Vincent’s flushed face popped up on the screen. “The metal detector went off over a clump of seaweed. I pulled back the seaweed and that’s when I found it.”
    “What did you find?” asked the reporter.
    “A hand.”
    Now Wendy wished that she had instructed Mark to stay in the bedroom. The five-year-old grabbed his mother’s arm and let out a phlegmy cough.
    “Sarasota Sherriff’s Deputy Danny Gregg was the first officer to respond to the scene,” continued the reporter’s deep voice. Wendy recognized the policeman who had come to their house that night last year to help Mark.
    “I called my supervisor, and detectives were dispatched to the scene,” said the deputy. “The hand was taken downtown to the forensics lab, where our experts will conduct their investigation. They’ll try to get fingerprints,and we’ll be checking for any missing per-sons reported within the past few weeks.”
    “But,” the reporter continued, “clear fingerprints may be hard to obtain. Vincent Bayler says the hand was in poor condition.”
    “It was all bloated and raggedy and it looked like the fish had gotten at it,” the boy described with a little too much enthusiasm. “Maybe even sharks!”
    The reporter appeared on the screen now, standing on the sand with the Gulf of Mexico lapping behind him. “Police say this does
not
appear to be a shark attack. They told Suncoast News that the wrist had been cleanly severed. Tony Whitcomb, Suncoast News, on Siesta Beach.”
    Vincent looked up expectantly at his mother. “Cool, huh?”
    “No, Vincent, it is not cool.