Crimes by Moonlight

House of Horrors by S. W. Hubbard

“That’ll be fifty-eight seventy-five with tax,” the greasy guy at the ticket window said. John winced as the clerk drew the credit card out of his reluctant fingers.

“You’re buying a happy family memory,” his wife murmured in his ear.

Happy my ass. Day one of the Harrigan family-togetherness weekend at the Jersey Shore: blistering sunburns for all.

Day two: jellyfish attack.

Day three: riptide warning.

So Miriam declared a boardwalk excursion. No problem. Give the kids fifty bucks and let them have at it. He and Miriam could walk on the beach and watch the pounding surf. But no, this was togetherness weekend. So each person had to choose one activity, and everyone else had to go along cheerfully. John swore if his wife didn’t stop reading these damn parenting advice books he was going to cut up her library card.

Christopher had chosen the bumper cars, Grace the spinning tea-cups, Miriam the Ferris wheel. But for a jaded teenager like Gordon, only one thing would do.

The House of Horrors.

Blood oozed from the house’s masonry. Hideous shrieks blared from its cracked windows. A vulture hovered over the spiked door. Before the clerk brought the credit card slip to be signed, John made one last bid to dodge the cheesy tourist trap. Crouching down so he could look their skinny little girl in the eye, he asked, “Grace, do you want to go into this haunted house? It’s just pretend scary, but if you’re afraid, I could take you somewhere else.”

“Dad!” Gordon protested. “That’s not fair! I did Grace’s lame tea-cups. She has to do this.”

John opened his mouth to scold, then closed it again at Miriam’s warning look. This beach weekend was their first significant outing since they’d gotten Grace. They were supposed to be celebrating the expansion of their family, not squabbling and sulking.

John studied the nine-year-old. There was a transparent quality to her, she was so slight. Could something scary possibly be good for her after all she’d been through? Her pale green-gold eyes stared at him unblinkingly as the wind whipped her fine hair into a staticky halo around her head. She conveyed neither anxiety nor eagerness, just a steady trust in him as a father.

A trust he’d done nothing, as yet, to earn.

Miriam had connected with the child from the moment she’d seen her picture on the website of foster children awaiting permanent homes. For John, the paternal attachment hadn’t formed quite so readily. He worried it never would.

Not that Grace was a difficult child. In fact, she was almost absurdly easy to take care of. She ate what she was served, went to bed without complaint, and did her homework with painstaking attention to detail. John found her compliance unnerving. On top of that, she was so damn quiet! She’d slip into a room so silently he never knew she was there. He’d look up to find her watching him. Last week he’d nearly sawed off his thumb when she appeared out of nowhere in his basement workshop.

“She does it because she craves your attention and doesn’t know how to get it,” Miriam explained. Insert knife and twist. He wanted to do right by this little girl, he really did. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel for her the visceral bond he felt for his two sons. “Don’t worry,” Miriam had assured him. “You’ll grow to love her. Give it time.”

The clerk slapped down the credit card slip and slid a pen across the ticket counter. John watched as Grace carefully studied each person in her new family. She would see annoyance on Gordon’s face, concern on Miriam’s, and finally, fear on Christopher’s. Only a year older than Grace, Christopher was a sensitive soul, upset by life’s smallest tragedies-signs for lost pets, roadkill, a stranger’s passing funeral procession. The haunted house had him looking decidedly queasy.

Grace turned back to John. “I want to go. If it gets too scary, I’ll grab on to Christopher. He’ll protect me.”

John and Miriam exchanged a smile. Grace had succeeded in bolstering Christopher and appeasing Gordon in one move. She’d learned quite a bit about managing brothers in just three weeks.

PURCHASE YOUR SOUVENIR PHOTO AS YOU EXIT. YOU’LL KNOW WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE WHEN YOU’VE SEEN A GHOST! The signs hung over a bank of computer monitors in the entranceway to the House of Horrors, each screen showing a different group of gullible tourists, their eyes opened wide, their mouths perfect Os of shock. John hustled the younger kids along, and they joined a line of teenagers waiting to pass through Purgatory’s Portal.

Rowdy and eager to call attention to themselves, the older kids swarmed around a lean boy with droopy jeans and a mop of blond hair that he repeatedly flicked out of his eyes. The biggest fish in this little school of minnows, he let his hand rest suggestively on one girl’s hip, while shoving the other boys around and insulting their manhood.

“Hey,” he called out to the ticket taker, “what should we do if my friend shits his pants in there?”

Miriam shot them a ferocious look, and the boy made a show of apologizing.

“Oh, pardon me, ma’am. I didn’t mean to use profanity in the presence of women and children.”

The gang of friends howled with laughter, as Gordon tried to disappear into the woodwork. Meanwhile, Christopher was busy reading the signs posted all around them. IF YOU’RE PARALYZED WITH FEAR, STAND STILL AND SCREAM. SOMETHING WILL COME AND GET YOU! BE ALERT FOR FLYING KNIVES. DON’T WORRY-THE BATS DON’T BITE.

“Dad.” Christopher tugged on his father’s sleeve. “Maybe we shouldn’t go in there. Bats can spread rabies.”

“Ooo, maybe we shouldn’t go in,” the blond kid said, imitating Christopher’s earnest, high-pitched voice. “Ya hear that?” He shoved one of his crew. “You might get rabies and start foaming at the mouth.”

Christopher flushed bright red, as Gordon tried to pretend he didn’t know his family. But Grace stared the teenager down, her pointy chin thrust forward, sixty pounds of defiance. While John weighed whether saying something to the teens would make matters better or worse, a green light flashed and a recorded voice intoned, “Next group-prepare to meet your doom!” The gang of kids stepped into the House of Horrors, their screams echoing back into the waiting area.

“DAD? Dad? Where are you?”

They’ d only taken about twenty steps into the House ofHorrors, and already Christopher sounded like he was heading for a meltdown.

“I’m right behind you, buddy. Don’t worry-you can’t get lost.” The “tour,” John belatedly understood, took place entirely in the dark. It was so completely black they couldn’t see one another, although John knew Gordon was in the lead, guided by tiny pinpricks of red light. Miriam followed, then Grace and Christopher. John brought up the rear, keeping a reassuring hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Augh! Something grabbed me!” Gordon screamed.

Christopher clutched his father’s hand. “Help him, Dad!”

“He’s okay. There are people behind curtains who reach out and touch you, that’s all.”

Indeed, Gordon was now laughing. “This is insane. Wait’ll you guys get to this next part.”

A bright light flashed, revealing a noir tableau: a man in a grave, covered by writhing snakes.

This time John choked back a scream. He hated snakes, even fake ones. His heart rate ratcheted up; beads of cold sweat broke out on his neck. “How are you doing up there, Grace?” he asked when his blood stopped pounding in his ears.

“I’m fine.” Her reedy voice sounded steadier than anyone else’s.

Next the solid floor gave way to something squishy that sucked at their shoes.

Christopher reared back. “What’s that?”

John nudged him forward. “Soft plastic. You’re imagining something worse. That’s what makes it scary.” John congratulated himself on sounding so calm. Truth was, he hated not knowing what would happen next, hated feeling out of control. Whoever designed the House of Horrors knew what they were doing. He was afraid.

Bang! Another brilliant flash revealed a leering face and a smoking gun.

“Aieee!”

Miriam, screeching like a banshee. John wondered how close they were to the end. He listened for sounds of the teenagers ahead of them, but heard nothing. Maybe it was almost over.

More grasping hands, more slimy surfaces. They felt their way across a rocking bridge, squeezed though a passageway where growling animals exhaled on them, and finally turned a corner into the light.

“We made it!” Christopher shouted as he stepped into the lobby.

“Awesome! That rocked!” Gordon said.

“Yeah, it was really cool.” The daylight restored Christopher’s bravado. “What was your favorite part? I bet yours was the snakes, Dad.”

“Oh, definitely the snakes.” John put his hand on Grace’s shoulder. “How about you, honey? Are you mad at the boys for taking you into that awful place?”

She looked up at him soberly. “I’m not mad. None of it was real.”

“Let’s see our picture,” Christopher shouted, running over to the computer monitors.

John followed his wife and children, passing the group of now-quiet teenagers waiting restlessly near the exit. The blond boy wasn’t with them. The prettiest of the girls complained to the others. “Oh my God, can we just go? Shane’s stunts are getting so old.”

“There we are. Number seven.” Gordon pointed out their group.

They studied the monitors, laughing and pointing out their ridiculous expressions.

John stood silent. There was something off about that picture. Then it clicked.

Grace wasn’t in it.

MIRIAM and Grace napped in the back of the minivan; Christopher played with his Game Boy; Gordon rode shotgun with John, controlling the radio as they drove home.

John still stewed over Grace’s absence from the House of Horrors photo. “Why does it bother you so much?” Miriam had asked as they packed to leave. “We weren’t going to buy the picture anyway.”

“I just don’t understand how she could have gotten cut out. She was right in the middle of the group.”

“She must’ve slipped ahead of Gordon at one point.” Miriam’s voice held no concern. “It was so dark, and things kept brushing up against me. I wouldn’t have noticed.”

John wanted to accept the logical explanation, yet remained troubled. Of the five of them, why did it have to be Grace who was omitted from the family photo? It was as if the House of Horrors knew she was a foster child, not a real Harrigan. She didn’t act like it bothered her, but who knew? She held her emotions close. No drama queen, Grace.

Is that why he had trouble warming up to her? Because she was so unlike his image of what a little girl-a daughter-should be? Where were the giggles and hugs and silly songs? The tears and pouts and stomped feet? Maybe that’s the daughter he would have gotten if he had let Miriam go through another pregnancy as she pushed forty. But John was a student of statistics, and he simply couldn’t accept the risk. Down syndrome… prematurity… respiratory failure… cerebral palsy-the “Advanced Maternal Age” chapter in the pregnancy handbook offered twenty pages of nightmare scenarios.

They had argued for months about having a third child. And Grace had been the compromise. Perfectly healthy, obviously bright, in need of a home after enduring some hard knocks. A chance to save a life instead of create a new one that might go horribly awry.

John remembered how she looked when they first brought her home: hair that seemed to have been cut by a blind man with a dull penknife, pathetically skinny ankles sprouting from outgrown jeans, her only toy a mournful one-eyed stuffed dog. Of course he felt compassion for her-anyone would. But love? Even after Miriam spruced the child up and made her look, outwardly, like every other little girl in the neighborhood, there was something off-putting about Grace. Something that kept John at bay.

“Hey, Dad, listen to this,” Gordon’s excited voice brought John out of his funk. His son cranked up the radio, and a newscaster’s voice filled the minivan.

“New Jersey State Police are investigating the disappearance of sixteen-year-old Shane Malone. The teenager was last seen at a popular tourist attraction, the House of Horrors, in Seaside Heights. According to authorities, Malone apparently entered the dark, mazelike haunted house and never emerged. A search of the building revealed no signs of foul play. Pretty strange stuff, folks. Please keep an eye out for Shane. He’s five ten, one hundred fifty pounds, blond hair, blue eyes. And now, here’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers…”

“DID you see how much Grace ate for breakfast this morning?” John said as he helped load the dishwasher the following Saturday morning. “Three big pancakes and four strips of bacon, and she’s still as thin as a rail.”

“It must be a holdover from her babyhood. Do you think she remembers being hungry?” It wasn’t the first time Miriam had asked this. She was plagued by what she knew of her foster daughter’s past. The five days Grace had spent as a toddler alone in her apartment with Mittens the cat, sharing dry kibble from a bag Mittens had resourcefully clawed open. CAT SAVES ABANDONED TYKE-John and Miriam remembered reading the headlines six years ago, never suspecting at the time that the traumatized child in the story would one day live with them.

If Grace remembered, she never spoke of it. She acted as if her life began when she walked through their door.

“Just keep pumping her full of food, honey,” John told his wife. “Buy her a hot dog at the game today.”

“I don’t like baseball,” a light voice piped.

John spun around to find Grace standing the in kitchen doorway.

“Can I please stay home?” she asked.

“Not all alone.” John grabbed the Windex and started spraying the counters.

Miriam and Grace both stared at him quizzically. “She wouldn’t be alone,” Miriam said. “You said at breakfast you were staying home to do some yard work.”

“Oh. Yeah, right.” John scrubbed at a sticky spot. “I just meant she wouldn’t have anyone to play with, since I’ll be working.”

“I don’t want to play. I’ll help you work.”

“Isn’t that nice! Daddy’s little helper!” Miriam beamed.

“Great,” John said.

“There you are.” Christopher charged into the kitchen and grabbed Grace by the arm. “Let’s go out to our clubhouse until it’s time for me to go to my game.”

“Grace is so good for Christopher,” Miriam said, watching the kids run out to the patch of woods behind the house. “She gives him a chance to be the leader, instead of following Gordon around like a lost lamb.”

“Do you think they should be out there alone?” John asked. “Is it safe?”

The police had called earlier in the week looking for any information the Harrigans could provide about the House of Horrors and the group of teenagers with Shane Malone. John had answered all their questions, even put Gordon on the line since he had been the first person to follow Shane’s group. The detective had seemed disappointed in what little they had to offer.

Miriam gave him a quick hug. “I know. I’ve been feeling overprotective lately, too. I keep thinking it could have been one of our kids, snatched away in the dark while we were right there beside them.”

John stared through the kitchen window. “You’re right. It could just as easily have been Gordon or Christopher.”

“Or Grace,” Miriam said. She shivered. “I can’t imagine how horrible it would be not knowing where your child is.”

John put his arm around Miriam’s shoulders. “You’re right. Nothing is worse than not knowing.”

JOHN got so absorbed in trimming the ivy in the side yard he didn’t notice when the boys and Miriam left for the baseball game, and he forgot about Grace’s offer to help him. Then he ripped up a particularly ornery vine, staggered backward, and there she was, staring at him expectantly from the edge of the lawn.

“Do you want to load the ivy clippings into the garden cart?” was all he could think to offer.

She didn’t answer, didn’t even smile, but ran off to get the cart at lightning speed. They spent the next hour working as partners. He showed her how to use the garden shears; she stopped him from chopping down an azalea. Grace’s keen eyes missed nothing-she pointed out a bird’s nest in the rain gutter and a praying mantis eating aphids off Miriam’s roses. And as skinny as she was, she was strong, wheeling cartloads of clippings to the curb.

While Grace was off with the last load, John admired the manicured border. Some ivy leaves trembled, and a garter snake came slithering out. It crossed inches away from his sneaker and curled on the flagstone path to soak up some sun. As John stared at it, the tiny snake lifted its head and shot its forked tongue out at him. John felt a revulsion so deep the trees and lawn seemed to melt away. The whole world was the snake. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t force a sound from his constricted throat.

Then a fragile hand slipped into his. “Don’t be afraid,” Grace said.

John smiled down at their clasped hands. When he glanced back at the walk, the snake was gone. He scanned the ivy. No movement there.

“Where did it go?” he asked Grace.

The doors of the minivan slammed, and running feet pounded down the driveway.

Grace’s pale green-gold eyes met his without hesitation, and she smiled. Then she pivoted and scampered off to meet Christopher, shouting the answer over her shoulder.

“Away.”

JOHN rolled through the channels after the kids went to bed, while Miriam stretched out beside him reading a book. The Mets were busy blowing a lead. He’d seen this episode of Friends so many times he could practically recite the dialogue. Despite Miriam’s dirty look, he kept clicking until a sound bite brought him up short.

“… missing teen, Shane Malone. Authorities are calling this a true locked-room mystery,” the voice-over said as the camera zoomed in on the House of Horrors. “There are only three doors in the building, and all three were manned on the day of the disappearance. No one saw Shane leave, and the honor student and high school quarterback remains missing even as police work round the clock to find him.”

The screen flashed to a yearbook photo of Shane in a shirt and tie, hair neatly trimmed, smiling confidently at the camera.

“Kid was kind of a jerk, wasn’t he?” John asked as he stared at the TV. “He made fun of his friends and mocked Christopher, a kid he didn’t even know.”

“He was rude, that’s all,” Miriam said. “No worse than Gordon can be.”

No worse than Gordon, except Gordon was here, and Shane had disappeared.

John studied his wife. Her hands, still so slender and delicate, were never still, even when she was reading. Absently, she looped a strand of honey-colored hair behind her ear. The summer sun had brightened it, but some of the highlights were silver, not gold. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated on her book. How much Christopher looked like her! How similar was Gordon’s nervous energy! Suddenly John felt crushed by the love he felt for Miriam and for his sons. No harm could ever be allowed to come to them. Never.

John flung back the covers.

“Where are you going?” Miriam asked.

“To check on the boys. And Grace.”

GORDON slept flat on his back with his hands at his sides, a carving on a royal tomb. He was as tall as his mother; his feet were as big as his father’s, but to John, Gordon looked as innocent as he had the day they’d first laid him in his crib. Christopher sprawled diagonally across his bed, one foot dangling, one arm hugging the pillow. John rearranged the blankets and listened to the sweet harmonic breathing of his sons. Reassured, he backed out of their room and opened the door across the hall.

Miriam had gone off the deep end with the princess motif. Bubblegum-pink walls, frothy white curtains, pink shag rug, and, in the center of the floor, a canopy bed. He squinted, trying to make out Grace’s tiny form in the midst of all those pink covers. Finally he spied her curled on the far edge of the bed, as if she were sharing it with a sumo wrestler, so insubstantial she barely dented the pillow.

As John watched, Grace rolled over and slowly sat up. Her eyes were wide open, and although she faced him, John could tell that she didn’t see him. When Christopher had episodes of sleepwalking, this was what he looked like-awake and asleep at the same time.

Grace stretched out one arm, palm flat like a crossing guard stopping traffic. “You can’t come back,” she said distinctly. She was quiet for a moment, as iflistening. John felt an irrepressible urge to look over his shoulder. Then Grace spoke again. “He’s not like you, that’s why.”

Who? Who was different? Who was she talking to?

“Grace!”

The sharpness of John’s voice jolted the little girl. She blinked, and her eyes came into focus. She yawned. “Is it time for school?”

“No, it’s the middle of the night. You were talking in your sleep, so I came to check on you.”

“What did I say?” she murmured as she sank back into her pillows.

John shifted his weight. His bare feet felt terribly cold, even standing on the fluffy rug. “You were saying someone couldn’t come back.”

“That boy.” Grace burrowed into the covers. “He’s been asking, but I won’t try.”

John lowered himself onto the foot of the bed and rubbed his sweaty palms on the quilt. “Try what?”

Grace rolled onto her side and drew her legs up. She was wearing pajamas printed with a pattern of cats and mice having a tea party. Her voice was soft and groggy. “To bring him back.”

John leaned closer to hear. A sweet smell of shampoo and fabric softener and sleep enveloped Grace. “Back from where?”

A hand touched John’s shoulder. He leapt off the bed, wild-eyed.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, honey.” Miriam patted his arm. “What’s going on?”

“Grace was dreaming,” John said, trying to steady his breathing. “She’s going back to sleep now.”

“GOOD news!” Eyes shining, Miriam flung her arms around John the minute he walked in from work. He danced around with her, enjoying her happiness without knowing its source.

“I just got the call from Social Services,” she said. “Grace has been cleared for adoption!”

John froze.

“Honey? Isn’t that great?”

He slipped out of Miriam’s embrace. “Uh, yeah. I didn’t think it would be so soon. I thought they needed to get her biological parents to sign something.”

“The police weren’t able to track them down. Why even try? They were drug addicts-the social worker says their parental rights have been terminated.”

“What about the aunt who Grace lived with for a while?” John asked.

“She’s not claiming Grace, either. She’s so stressed out by her financial problems since her husband abandoned her and her kids, she can’t cope with another child.”

“Doesn’t he pay child support?” John asked.

Miriam shrugged. “If the government doesn’t know where you are, they can’t make you pay.”

John was silent, staring at a spot somewhere to the left of the refrigerator. All he could see was the brown and green garter snake.

There, and not there.

THE sinking sun cast long shadows over the backyard. John sat in the family room nursing a beer. A cool breeze blew through the sliding doors, carrying voices into the room.

“I shouldn’t have done it. I made a bad mistake.”

John cocked his head to listen. That was Grace.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”

Christopher was reassuring her about something. What wasn’t her fault? What didn’t she know?

“Well, I know now,” Grace said impatiently. “It’s not the same as when I sent my parents away. I have to try to fix it. Otherwise it’s just not fair.”

“Don’t worry,” Christopher said as he slid the screen door open. “I’ll help you.”

“Don’t worry about what?” John’s newspaper trembled in his hands.

Christopher and Grace stood side by side. “Nothing,” they chorused, and ran off.

Watching their sneakered feet pumping in unison, John felt a strangling vine of dread twist around his heart.

He went into the kitchen. All Things Considered played on the radio. Five yellow plaid placemats waited on the table. Miriam stood at the counter chopping vegetables.

Where to begin?

“Honey? I’m… I’m a little worried about Grace.”

Miriam stopped chopping.

“She seems to think… I mean, I just overheard her tell Chris that she… she sent away-”

“Oh, that.” Miriam waved a carrot. “Lately she’s been telling me all about how she sent away her parents.”

“You know about this?”

“She was abandoned by the two people who were supposed to love her more than anyone else in the world. This fantasy is her way of coping, gaining control,” Miriam’s voice took on a tone John associated with his fifth-grade social studies teacher. “It’s called magical thinking, and it’s actually very normal for a child in her circumstances.”

John squinted at his wife. “Normal? I call that weird, Miriam.”

“If she can believe that she sent her parents away because they hurt her cat-that’s what she says, that she sent them away to protect Mittens-then she doesn’t have to accept the reality that they abandoned her.”

“Does she think she can send other people away, too?” John’s mouth tasted sour. Had Grace told Miriam what she’d done to Shane Malone? Would Miriam have some kind of child psychology mumbo jumbo to explain that away?

“Yes, she says she had to send her uncle away to protect her aunt and cousins. He was abusive, you know.” Miriam’s hand pumped the knife up and down, reducing the carrot to an orange mound. “That’s how she rationalized the fact that her aunt couldn’t afford to keep her when the uncle abandoned the family.”

“Anyone else?”

Miriam eyed him. “Of course not.”

“So, when she tells you these things, what do you say?” John asked. “Do you try to reason with her?”

Miriam smiled and shook her head. “What good would it do? The books all say that once she feels safe and secure, she’ll gradually let go of her magical thinking.”

John rubbed his temples. “What if she doesn’t let it go? Maybe there’s…” He took a deep breath and chose his words carefully. “Maybe her problems are too big for us to handle, Miriam. Maybe we’re not the right family for Grace. It wouldn’t be fair to the boys-”

Miriam’s eyes widened, and she stopped chopping. “You get one thing through your head, John.” She wagged the knife to emphasize each word. “We are not abandoning that child. Grace has found her forever home, and it’s right here with us.”

JOHN slipped out to the back deck with the laptop and Googled magical thinking. What he read seemed to confirm Miriam’s theory. Small consolation-if the kid wasn’t dangerous, she was crazy. Something in the computer’s browser history caught his eye: garter snakes. He clicked on it and a picture of a green and brown snake filled the screen.

Recoiling, he rushed to close the window. Before he could, a skinny arm reached around him, and a short finger tapped the screen. “They’re not dangerous at all,” Grace said. She pursed her lips disapprovingly. “You were silly to be scared. Because of you, I did something unfair.”

John’s hands clenched the arms of his chair.

“Unfair?”

“I sent the little snake away because he scared you. But he wouldn’t have hurt you. I’ve been trying to bring him back, but I can’t.” Grace’s head drooped, and she scuffed her sneaker across the deck. “That makes me sad.”

John forced himself to relax his grip on the deck chair. Miriam said to humor her. He spoke softly. “Can you send anyone away, Grace?”

She looked at him through her wispy bangs as if he’d asked if she could fly. “Of course not. It only works if I need to protect someone.”

Like Christopher.

John looked into her fierce, righteous face, and he knew fear. Would he wake up one day and find Gordon gone because he called his little bother a twerp or trounced him in a video game?

“Grace, Shane Malone was just a rude teenager. He didn’t hurt Christopher.”

She regarded him with that special look children use when they’re astounded by the stupidity of the adults who control their lives. “I wasn’t protecting Christopher. I was helping the girl with Shane. When the bright light flashed, I saw Shane hurting her, trying to do what my uncle used to do to my cousin, Lori, when he sneaked into her room at night. The girl screamed, but no one came to help, because everyone screams in that place. So I sent Shane away.”

“There you are,” Miriam appeared at the sliding glass door with the phone in her hand. “It’s the detective working on the Shane Malone disappearance.”

John accepted the receiver. The mild summer air felt as treacherous as a riptide.

“Sorry to bother you again, Mr. Harrigan,” the detective said. “I happened to notice a discrepancy. The credit card records indicate you paid for five admissions, but your family photo shows only four people. Who’s missing?”

John’s hand tightened on the phone. “Uh… Grace. She’s nine. She was hiding behind me because she was scared. When the flash went off, she must’ve jumped back and got cut out of the picture.”

How quickly the lie had formed in his mind. How glibly it flowed from his lips. John realized he was holding his breath, waiting to hear if the detective accepted this explanation.

“That’s what I figured, but I had to check.”

John could hear the disappointment in the detective’s voice.

“Just for the record, Grace is your daughter?”

John looked across the deck. Grace stood by the railing, her fair hair illuminated by the rising moon. She’d caught a firefly in her hand and was studying its rhythmic flashing. Then she shook her hand and smiled as it flew into the night.

“Yes,” John said. “Grace is my daughter.”