Genie took a breath and said in a soft voice, “Hello, Ms. Kelly. I’m calling about the girl you wrote about in today’s paper. She would like to meet you-”

Carrie reached over and hung up the phone.

“What did you do that for?” Genie said, forgetting to keep her voice low.

Carrie cringed and looked up at the ceiling.

Genie scrunched up her shoulders. “Sorry!” she whispered.

They listened for long moments but didn’t hear any footsteps or other sounds coming from upstairs.

Carrie looked at Genie in exasperation. “Why did you tell that reporter I wanted to meet her?”

“Because you need to get more information. What if your real dad isn’t nice? She’ll know. She’s met him.”

“So has Mom.”

“Mom won’t tell you the truth about him.”

Carrie had to acknowledge that this was likely. But what might happen if she met this reporter? “Maybe I could just call her and talk to her about him.”

“Carrie,” Genie said, rolling her eyes. “We are calling her at six-thirty in the morning because we can’t make phone calls at a normal time without Mom knowing. If we didn’t call Grandfather and our aunts and uncles on their birthdays, we wouldn’t know how to use a phone!”

“We call our cousins…”

That got another roll of the eyes.

“How am I going to meet her?” Carrie asked. “It’s harder to get out of the house than it is to make a phone call.”

“Oh, no it’s not.”

“Yes, it-”

“Carrie! Listen to me. Dad is already out of the house. We have Mom outnumbered four to one. When it’s time for you to meet Ms. Kelly, I’ll start a game of hide-and-seek. You’ll just take a little longer to be found than the rest of us. You’ll go down to the corner, let her see that you are the girl in the photo, and come back here. Then hide behind the shower curtain in the downstairs bathroom. The boys will never look there.”

Temporarily distracted from her worries, Carrie said, “They won’t? Why not?”

“Troy and Aaron think there’s a bogeyman who lives in the shower.”

“Why?”

“I told them there was one, of course. It means there’s at least one bathroom I can use without little boys bugging me. Although I think Troy is starting to have doubts.”

“You wonder why you get in trouble more often than I do? What if they tell Mom?”

“They won’t tell Mom because I said that right now the bogeyman was trapped in there by a hex, but that he always knew what little boys said to their parents, and if they mentioned him to Mom or Dad, he’d go live under their beds.”

“Oh, poor Troy and Aaron!” Carrie tried to make it sound the way Mom would, but she ruined it by smiling.

“To answer the first question, I’ve never wondered why I get in more trouble.”

Carrie sighed. “I’m not as brave as you, Genie.”

“You are. You just don’t know it yet.”

“What if I get caught?”

“I’ll take the blame. I’m the troublemaker, remember? They’ll believe it was totally my idea.”

“It is your idea!”

Genie smiled. “See, even you believe it.”

Carrie had to clap her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

Genie dialed the phone again. “Ms. Kelly sounds nice,” she said as she listened to the outgoing message again.

“Hi, Ms. Kelly, it’s me again. I’m sorry about the last time. Please meet me today in Huntington Beach. Please come to the corner of Playa Azul and Vista del Mar Streets at ten-fifteen this morning. Please do not tell anyone else you are meeting me, especially not Mr. Ives. I don’t want to hurt his feelings if I’m wrong. Thank you, and please don’t try to call me. If you aren’t at the corner at ten-fifteen, we’ll just try another day, but it might be a long time before I can do that, so please, please, pretty please try to make it today. Alone. Thank you. Good-bye.”

Genie hung up and looked at Carrie with triumph.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Carrie said.

“No, you aren’t.”

“What do I tell her?”

“Okay, first, you don’t get in the car with her.”

“Even I know better than that.”

“She’ll see that you’re Carla just from the photo.”

“You think so?”

“Well, she might. Anyway, tell her that you want to know about Blake Ives.”

“And that I’m happy and have a good family and I don’t want to hurt them.”

Genie seemed not to hear this. “Tell her about your rememberings. Ask her if a family by the name of Mason is missing a girl my age.”

“Do you remember them?”

She shrugged. “It’s like it is for you. I get these pictures in my head, or remember smells-I remember the smell of paint.” She began snooping around the desk. Genie was always getting into things.

“Paint?”

“Like oil paint.” She looked up from a stack of outgoing mail she had been studying. “Isn’t that funny? Voices.” She shrugged again. “People, but I can’t really see their faces. I wish I knew more about them.” She was studying the big Priority Mail envelopes now.

“I’m not so sure I want to find out more about my father,” Carrie said.

Genie smiled. “You just called him your father. You want to find out. You read that article-he’s sad without you.”

“But Dad would be sad without me.”

“True. So would I. But I think that we’re going to be sad and upset if we keep wondering about this. We aren’t going to be able to hide what we know from Mom and Dad forever.”

This thought didn’t help settle Carrie’s stomach.

Genie put an arm around her shoulders. “Ask Ms. Kelly to help you. She might know how you can live with us but still see your father.”

“Or she might call the police on Mom and Dad.”

“I don’t think so. Don’t worry. I didn’t give Ms. Kelly our address or phone number. Make her drive off before you come back to the house.”

“And if she won’t?”

“Run to another house and hide in the yard.”

“And meanwhile? What will you be doing?”

“Lying like crazy,” she said, and they started to laugh, having a really hard time not being noisy.

But their laughter was cut short as they heard the automatic garage door opener kick into gear.

“Oh no, Dad’s home!”

“Shhh,” Genie said, snapping off the light.

This time, the darkness didn’t seem so friendly.

CHAPTER 38

Tuesday, May 2

7:02 A.M.

HUNTINGTON BEACH

GENIE took Carrie by the hand again, leading her through the dark room with an unerring ability to avoid furniture, making Carrie wonder how many times Genie had been snooping around in the office.

They stopped at the closed door and pressed their ears to it. They heard the sound of the garage door closing again, the motor of the van shutting off. The van door closing. Dad opening the door into the house, his footsteps passing by. They held their breath.

He didn’t hesitate near the office. He walked quickly toward the kitchen. They exhaled.

Genie carefully opened the door, transferred her hold on it to the knob on the outside. She let Carrie step into the hallway and then shut the door silently, slowly rotating the knob until the door latched again with a small snick.

They waited for some reaction to that sound, but in the kitchen, Dad was making quite a bit of noise. If he was fixing his own breakfast, they might be able to pretend they had just come downstairs. They usually got up at around this time to make breakfast for the family.

They had crept halfway down the hallway and were about to turn the corner leading to the kitchen when they heard the boys coming downstairs. Their voices carried to where the girls stood hidden from view.

“Daddy!” That was Aaron.

“Hi, Dad,” Troy said. “What are you doing?”

“Good morning, boys! You’re just in time to help me out. Will you go upstairs and tell Mom we’re going to serve her breakfast in bed?”

“Is it Mother’s Day?” Troy asked, confused.

“No, just a special treat for Mom.”