“No, I’m fine.”

He studied her face.

“Carrie, is anything troubling you?”

Suddenly it seemed as if the truth had become a big fish inside of her, swimming hard, wanting to break to the surface. He asked this question so sincerely, so lovingly, she felt the certainty of his love for her, and of her own love for him in return. But she had Genie to think of.

And then, looking at him, she saw the trouble in his own eyes. The big fish changed into a question of her own.

“Daddy, what’s wrong with you and Mommy?”

She hadn’t used these younger child’s terms for them for so long, but she felt small now. Afraid.

He tensed, then looked away. “We’ll be okay,” he said.

“I don’t like Uncle Dex,” she blurted out.

He put an arm around her and hugged her to him. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” His voice sounded funny, almost as if he might cry or something, which made her very afraid. She took his hand in hers and held it. He smiled and took a deep breath and said, “Don’t be mad at Uncle Dex, honey. He’s not a very happy man. Right now…well, your mother’s not very happy, either.”

“Why?”

“Hard to explain. But no one would want to worry you, not me, not Mom, not Uncle Dex. Soon things will work out. I promise you. Everything will be all right, and you and I won’t let anybody worry us or make us get up early in the morning.” His voice had lightened by the end of that, as if they shared a little joke. He squeezed her shoulders again and said, “Think you can get back to sleep?”

“I think so,” she lied.

“Good. Now, I’m going for a little drive, just to clear my head.”

“You aren’t leaving us?” she asked anxiously.

“Never, Carrie. Never. You remember that, okay?”

“Yes.” She hugged him hard, smelled his aftershave, and felt comforted by the familiar scent. He ruffled her hair, then helped her to her feet as he came to his own. She promised she would go back to bed, and he kissed her cheek before he left.

He was gone from the house for several minutes before she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Everybody was acting so weird. Where was he going so early in the morning? What was bothering him?

Genie was waiting for her, her eyes wide and her face pale. She seemed scared, but at the same time wore an expression that Carrie immediately recognized as her most determined look.

“Don’t worry,” Carrie said. “I’m not in trouble. And he doesn’t even know you’re awake.”

It was as if she hadn’t spoken.

“What kind of animal is Squeegee?” Genie asked.

“A lion,” Carrie said.

Genie burst into tears and handed her the A section of the Las Piernas News Express.

CHAPTER 37

Tuesday, May 2

6:25 A.M.

HUNTINGTON BEACH

WHAT are you doing?” Carrie asked.

In the time since Carrie had read the article, they had whispered questions that could not be answered and reassured each other a dozen times that they were “sisters no matter what.” They had cried softly while hugging each other, then sat quietly together. They had made and discarded half a dozen plans. Now Genie had taken her by the hand and was leading her downstairs again.

“We have to call her now, before Mom wakes up,” Genie whispered back.

“Who?”

“Irene Kelly.”

Irene Kelly was the reporter who had written the story about Carrie. Or a story about a girl named Carla, whose picture looked like pictures Mom had of Carrie as a baby, but who seemed to Carrie to be a different girl. The room-the room that belonged to that little girl named Carla-looked familiar.

And a lot of the story was about Mom, whose picture was in the paper, too, even though the color and length of her hair had changed since those photos were taken. The strange thing was, Carrie could remember Mom looking like that, although Genie couldn’t. In the story, Mom’s name was Bonnie, not Victoria.

Carrie wasn’t so sure about the man named Blake Ives. One minute he seemed familiar to her. The next minute he seemed to be a complete unknown.

The man Bonnie Creci Ives ran away with when she divorced Blake Ives looked mean. Reggie Faroe. Apparently he was one of the reasons Bonnie Ives didn’t get custody of her daughter. Reggie Faroe was one of the reasons Blake Ives was scared about what had happened to his daughter. Carrie didn’t blame him.

“I don’t remember Reggie Faroe at all,” Carrie had told Genie.

“You were only two when your parents divorced,” Genie had said. “You were too little. She didn’t take you from your dad until a year later.”

That was the way Genie was talking now, as if it were all about Carrie and not Carla. As if you could believe everything you read in the paper.

But Carrie was finding it impossible to convince herself that the story was about a different girl.

IRENE KELLY’S e-mail address and phone number had appeared at the end of the article. On almost all the local stories in the paper, reporters’ e-mail addresses and phone numbers appeared, with an invitation to readers:

Care to comment on this story?

On this story, the ending part was a little different. In addition to the comment line, it said that if you had information on the whereabouts of Carla Ives or Bonnie Creci Ives, to e-mail or call Irene Kelly.

“I don’t think we should call her,” Carrie said.

“Why not?”

“Maybe I should just ask Mom and Dad about it.”

Genie just looked at her. This was not the first time the proposal had been made. Mom and Dad were angry with each other right now. Bringing this up would only make them turn that anger toward whoever was stupid enough to mention it to them.

“If Mom didn’t make life awful for you,” Genie said, “she would lie about it. And so would Dad. Because they have been lying about you every single day.”

Carrie was silent.

“Doesn’t that make you angry?” Genie asked.

“Yes,” Carrie admitted. And hurt. And confused. But she had already told Genie about those feelings, and didn’t repeat that now. Besides, they had all pretty much turned into one feeling at this point: numbness. Genie pulled her into the downstairs office and closed the door softly behind them. Carrie stood still as Genie made her way through the darkness toward the desk.

Carrie almost hoped the moment in the dark would last forever. She could hide in its nothingness without having to make choices that might hurt people or cause problems.

Genie turned on the desk lamp. As if she could read Carrie’s mind, she said, “We both know that something is going wrong around here. It isn’t just you. And you aren’t causing problems. You didn’t make Mom have sex with Uncle Dex.”

“Genie!”

“Well, she did.” She picked up the phone and started to dial.

“Wait! I don’t think we should call now!”

“Why not?”

“We might wake her up,” Carrie said, knowing that the real reason was that she was so scared, she felt as if she needed to go to the bathroom.

“It’s a number at the newspaper,” Genie said. “See? The reporters’ phone numbers all begin the same way.”

It was the kind of thing Genie was always quick to figure out-relationships of numbers, codes, and visual groupings. Maybe, Carrie thought, I could have figured it out if the story was about Genie. She found that since reading the article, she wasn’t able to think right.

“You’re scared to do it?” Genie asked.

Carrie nodded.

“I’ll do it for you.”

She finished dialing. She motioned Carrie closer and held the phone so that Carrie could hear the outgoing message.

“You’ve reached the voice mail of Irene Kelly at the Las Piernas News Express. I’ll be out of the office on Monday, May first, but I’ll return on Tuesday. Please leave a message after the tone, including a callback number with your area code. If this is urgent, press three to reach our news department or zero to reach an operator.”