Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe. Nancy Bush

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      “Did you see anything when you were in the kitchen?” he’d demanded. She didn’t know he was a policeman at first. He didn’t have the clothes of a policeman.

      “I saw Mama.” She forced the words out. Her lips quivered uncontrollably.

      “Anything else? Something?” He threw an impatient look toward the woman who’d come with him. A social worker of some kind, she knew now, but she hadn’t understood at the time.

      Livvie’s quivering lips were replaced by out-and-out sobs.

      “Useless,” he muttered.

      “She’s just a child,” the woman responded tautly.

      He turned back to Livvie. “The back door was open. Did you notice that?”

      She nodded jerkily.

      “Did you walk outside? Look outside?”

      “NOOOOOOOO!”

      “Calm down,” he told her. “Was there anyone—anyone—around?”

      “H-Hague was in his bed,” she stuttered, plucking at the covers. “He—he started crying. . . .”

      “Any adults!” His mouth was smashed together like he was holding back something mean to say.

      She felt the tears rain down and the woman walked over to her, patted her hand, glared at the man and said, “Let the poor child be!”

      “Maybe her mother killed herself because she knew something about those dead women out in the field behind her house.”

      “Shhhh.” The woman’s mouth was a flat line, too, but Livvie was glad to see it, understanding that it was for him, not her.

      “Or, maybe somebody thought she knew something and decided to take care of her himself ?”

      The woman marched right over to him and said in a low voice, “This child found her mother! It was suicide, and it was tragic, and she’s been terribly traumatized. Try to remember that.”

      He gave her a mean, mean look, and said, “I’m trying to catch a killer. You should try and remember that.”

      With the hindsight of age Liv now realized the man had been a plainclothes policeman with the small Rock Springs police force and completely out of his realm working with children. But that didn’t excuse him. And he hadn’t given up after that first interview. Oh, no. He’d come back to the house as soon as she’d gotten out of the hospital. By that time she and Hague had a neighbor woman taking care of them but Liv would not go into the kitchen. She was in the den when the officer came to interview her, and this time she was on her own with him . . . and the panic started to rise.

      He tried a little harder, but Liv had lost trust completely.

      “Try to think back to the night your mom died,” he told her, smiling at her through his teeth. She recognized that he was trying to be kind, but his smile just creeped her out all the more.

      “Okay,” she said in a small voice.

      “Don’t think about your mom. Think about the kitchen.”

      Panic swelled. She saw the table and the sink and the window. “It was really dark. The outside was coming in,” she said.

      “Yes. The back door was open,” the officer said, nodding. “Do you know who went out the door?”

      “My dad?”

      “You think your dad went through the door?”

      “Mama was holding her face.”

      “Your dad told me they had a fight. Do you know what the fight was about?”

      That made Livvie think hard, but she shook her head.

      “Have they fought before?”

      “Yeah . . . Mama hit him once.”

      “Your mama hit your dad?”

      “I think he hit her, too,” Livvie said solemnly. “That’s why she was holding her face.” Then, remembering Mama, she started shaking and hiccupping.

      “Now, be a big girl and stop crying. I need your help. Your mama needs your help.”

      “Mama’s dead. Mama’s dead!!!”

      “You can help her.”

      “You’re lying! Mama’s dead!” Livvie wailed and clapped her hands over her ears and the policeman left the den, said something mean to the neighbor lady and slammed СКАЧАТЬ