“Hey, Nest,” he greeted.
“Hey, Jared.” She looked quickly away.
They fell into step beside each other, moving along the third-base line of the diamond, both of them looking at their feet. Jared wore old jeans, a faded gray T-shirt, and tennis shoes with no socks. Nothing fit quite right, but Nest thought he looked pretty cute anyway.
“You get any sleep last night?” he asked after a minute.
He was just about her height (oh, all right, he was an inch or so shorter, maybe), with dark blond hair cut short, eyes so blue they were startling, a stoic smile that suggested both familiarity and long-suffering indulgence with life’s vicissitudes, and a penchant for clearing his throat before speaking that betrayed his nervousness at making conversation. She didn’t know why she liked him. She hadn’t felt this way about him a year ago. A year ago, she had thought he was weird. She still wasn’t sure what had happened to change things.
She shrugged. “I slept a little.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, no thanks to me, I guess. You saved my bacon, bringing Bennett home.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Big tune. I didn’t know what to do. I spaced, and the next thing I knew, she was outta there. I didn’t know where she’d gone.”
“Well, she’s pretty little, so-“
“I messed up.” He was having trouble getting the words out. “I should have locked the door or something, because the attacks can-“
“It wasn’t your fault,” she interrupted heatedly. Her eyes flicked to his, then away again. “Your mom shouldn’t be leaving you alone to baby-sit those kids. She knows what can happen.”
He was silent a moment. “She doesn’t have any money for a sitter.”
Oh, but she does have money to go out drinking at the bars, I suppose, Nest wanted to say, but didn’t. “Your mom needs to get a life,” she said instead.
“Yeah, I guess. George sure doesn’t give her much of one.”
“George Paulsen doesn’t know how.” Nest spit deliberately. “Do you know what he did with Bennett’s kitten?”
Jared looked at her. “Spook? What do you mean? Bennett didn’t say anything about it to me.”
Nest nodded. “Well, she did to me,. She said George took Spook away somewhere ‘cause he doesn’t like cats. You don’t know anything about it?”
“No. Spook?”
“She was probably scared to tell you. I wouldn’t put it past that creep to threaten her not to say anything.” She looked off into the park. “I told her I’d help find Spook. But I don’t know where to look.”
Jared shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Me, either. But I’ll look, too.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe this.”
They crossed the park toward the woods that bordered the houses leading to Cass Minter’s, lost in their separate thoughts, breathing in the heat and the dryness and watching the dust rise beneath their feet in small clouds.
“Maybe your mom will think twice before she goes out with him again, once she learns about Spook,” Nest said after a minute.
“Maybe.”
“Does she know about last night?”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I didn’t want to tell her. Bennett didn’t say anything either.”
They walked on in silence to the beginning of the woods and started through the trees toward the houses and the road. From somewhere ahead came the excited shriek of a child, followed by laughter. They could hear the sound of a sprinkler running. Whisk, whisk, whisk. It triggered memories of times already lost to them, gone with childhood’s brief innocence.
Nest spoke to Jared Scott without looking at him. “I don’t blame you. You know, for not telling your mom. I wouldn’t have told her either.”
Jared nodded. His hands slipped deeper into his pockets.
She gripped his arm impulsively. “Next time she leaves you alone to baby-sit, give me a call. I’ll come over and help.”
“Okay,” he agreed, giving her a sideways smile.
But she knew just from the way he said it that he wouldn’t.
CHAPTER 6
Nest and her Mends spent the long, slow, lazy hours of the hot July afternoon fishing, they laughed and joked, swapped gossip and told lies, drank six-packs of pop kept cool at the end of a cord in the waters of the Rock River, and gnawed contentedly on twists of red licorice.