Free The Cinderella Hour by Katherine Stone Page B

years. His judgment was clouded by grief. The mayor should never have
asked him to come out of retirement to investigate the Kilcannon fire. The
request had been made with kindness: a distraction for Noah, something
useful—and familiar—that he could do.
    Little did anyone know it would backfire so miserably.
    Not that what Noah Williams said, or didn’t say, really
mattered.
    Luke Kilcannon wasn’t prowling the streets of Quail Ridge in
search of the next house to torch. The news from Grace Memorial Hospital was somber. Even if the teen arsonist survived, his prowling days were through. He
would be paralyzed from the waist down.
    It was a punishment that most of Jared’s friends could live
with.
    Rumors were twined with truth at the dinner tables of Quail
Ridge. They were repeated, with occasional embellishments, in the hallways of
Pinewood Elementary. Despite being paralyzed, the rumors swirled, Luke made
physical attacks on the doctors and nurses in the ICU. His legs were useless,
but his arms were strong.
    He had confessed to killing Jared, according to those same
rumors. Bragged about it. He admitted to killing his mother, too. Her bones
would be found beneath the swimming pool, he said. That was why he stopped
swimming. He got tired of doing laps on her grave.
    “But Mrs. Evans saw Luke’s mother drive away,” Snow
would implore. “She saw her take a heavy box from Luke and never even
wave goodbye.”
    Snow’s classmates weren’t interested. The fictions about Luke
Kilcannon were far more delicious than the facts.
    Snow fell silent, retreating into her own desperate worry.
She hid her unhappiness from Leigh, knowing her mother would disapprove of its
cause. But she let Mrs. Evans see. And, with Snow standing anxiously beside
her, Mrs. Evans made phone calls on her behalf.
    Snow couldn’t visit Luke in the ICU, Mrs. Evans was told.
Even if she had been a blood relative, she was too young. But, the ICU nurses
at Grace Memorial told the school nurse in Quail Ridge, Luke would survive.
And, they confided nurse to nurse, his paralysis was not complete. There was a
little movement in his toes.
    Snow heard those glorious truths long before they became
known around school.
    Once Luke’s survival was a certainty, all anyone talked about
was what should become of him. He had no family. No family left. Even
the grandparents he had never met were dead. Quail Ridge could have offered him
a place to stay. It was the sort of noblesse oblige the town’s wealthiest
residents prided themselves on. But the Hilltop elite turned the full force of
their influence against him, a charge led by Trey Larken himself.
    If Noah was wrong—which, with all due deference to the
bereaved widower, Trey believed was the case—Lucas Kilcannon was a cold-blooded
killer. And, if Noah was right, he was the son of such an assassin.
    Either way, the outlook was bleak. Luke belonged in a
reformatory. And in the likely event he committed crimes while he was incarcerated
there, he could be tried as an adult and permanently locked away.
    The reformatory chosen for Luke was as far from Quail Ridge
as it was possible to be without leaving Illinois. Using her own name and Mrs.
Evans’s home address, Snow wrote letter after letter to her friend. All were
returned unopened and stamped Refused by Inmate.
    Snow, who had no weight to lose, nonetheless lost a great
deal. Eating was impossible, as was sleep. Her mind raced around the clock, in
a perpetual sprint with her heart. She raced academically, too, galloping
toward early promotion to seventh grade as if Luke would still be at Nathan
Hale Junior High when she arrived.
    Snow knew he wouldn’t be. Just as she knew, when she hurried
every day to their forest, that he wouldn’t be waiting for her there . . . and
that it was crazy to keep filling their glass jar with rescued coins.
    Luke was gone. Forget about me, he had told her. Go away .
    Sleep became necessary eventually, and so did food. The