Free Strawgirl by Abigail Padgett Page B

another world—the world of child abuse investigation, its legality. That world makes assumptions based on previous cases. That's the way law works. In your world it's assumed that the perpetrator in a molest is the mother's live-in boyfriend because very often it is. But what if somebody from another world falls into yours? Will you bother to try looking through his eyes before deciding what's real?"
    "You seem to have forgotten that I have a rather special relationship with this issue," Bo bristled. "I have a psychiatric disorder, a passport to more worlds than most people see on a three-continent tour. In addition to that, my undergraduate degree is in art history. Sophomoric lectures on cultural perspective are scarcely necessary. I've already considered the possibility that this case isn't typical. But how do you explain the fact that Paul Massieu ran?"
    "What about his world, Bo? What if he ran because something in his reality, and that of Bonnie and Samantha and Hannah, demanded that he return Hannah to it?"
    Bo's ears flattened against her skull as a strand of awareness spun out ahead of her. She couldn't keep up with it, but its message was clear. "What did Bonnie Franer tell you?" she asked, watching him now as closely as he had watched her.
    "The woman loves her children, Bo. She's weak, a longtime victim. That love is her only strength. She has literally nothing else. She allowed Paul Massieu into her life precisely because he would never hurt the girls. He offered them love and protection. She didn't care what else he did, or what he believed in—"
    "How can you ...? " Bo interrupted. "Bonnie Franer is an extremely fragile personality, prone to depression, probably self-destructive at times. You can't have had time to interview her in any depth, anyway. How can you trust her assessment ...? "
    LaMarche kicked an exposed root of the cottonwood. "What if Paul Massieu has simply returned Hannah to a world, the only world he knows where she'll be safe?"
    The knowledge racing ahead had taken on form. Bo felt her eyes widen in the dark at what he was telling her.
    "You know where Massieu is! Bonnie Franer told you, and you're withholding the information!"
    There was no denial.
    "Think about what I've said, Bo. Just think about it. Looking at things differently may just make it possible for you to stay in this line of work. You're good. But without a broader view the pain and disgust will break you. I don't want that to happen."
    "Andy," Bo said as the senselessness of a child's death took on even more sinister ramifications, "if you're right and Paul Massieu really isn't the perp, then who is? Who destroyed that little girl? What world does he live in?"
    Andrew LaMarche stretched his angular hands at his sides and turned the palms slowly skyward. "I don't know," he answered.
    From the door of the sprawling shed a sonorous waltz drifted liquidly on violin strings. Bo hated the warm flush that crept up her cheeks at his earlier compliment, and the dismay that accompanied any possibility of Paul Massieu's innocence. Domestic child sexual abuse was nothing unusual; it was her turf. But the notion of a "stranger molest" opened doors on a bewildering darkness. She wondered why the idea of a child eviscerated by the sexual demands of a trusted, familiar adult seemed less horrific than the same crime perpetrated by a stranger. The answer lay in LaMarche's words. The familiar, however repugnant, constituted her world. But what if this crime had its origins in a different one?
    "That's the last dance." LaMarche gestured toward the spilling light. "Would you do me the honor?"
    In his arms Bo felt an odd sense of kinship, as if they were compatriots in some film noir struggle involving World War II resistance fighters. Dim lighting. Frenchmen in berets and baggy shirts. Edith Piaf singing "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" from a cabaret stage. The feeling was smoky, warm ...
    Snap out of it, Bradley. You're tired and your brain's