“I’m sorry,” Vince said, coming back to her. He shrugged out of his suit coat and draped it around her shoulders. It swallowed her up and smelled pleasantly of sandalwood soap and man. “You’re cold. Let me get you out of here. You’ve had a long week.”

“Yes. Starting right here.”

“It must have been quite a shock to you.”

“I suppose you’re used to it.”

He shook his head. “You never get used to it. You learn to close a door on it emotionally, but it’s never easy. I don’t want it to ever be easy.”

Something rustled in the dead leaves that covered the floor of the woods. Anne strained to see into the gathering gloom on the far side of the grave. She thought she could almost make out a shape half-hidden by a tree trunk.

“Somebody’s watching us,” she murmured. Probably Franny, she thought, though the feeling that crawled over her skin was creepy, and that wasn’t right.

The somebody must have felt their stares as well. There was another rustling sound and a figure darted from behind one tree to behind another. A smallish figure. A child.

“Dennis?” she called out, walking toward the grave. “Dennis, is that you?”

More rustling, and the figure streaked behind another tree. Anne started to jog, Vince’s jacket slipping off her shoulders.

“Dennis, come out! It’s all right. Come out!”

Another flash of movement. She was picking up speed, dodging branches. Her heart was pounding out of proportion to her effort. She wanted to catch him—needed to catch him—figuratively, literally, before he got away.

“Dennis!”

She caught a glimpse of him, never more. He kept running. She ran harder.

“Anne!” Vince called, gaining ground on her. “Anne, let him go!”

It seemed everyone had let Dennis go, not for the good of Dennis, but because it was too hard to deal with him. Someone needed to hang on to him or he would truly be lost.

“Anne!”

The toe of her loafer stubbed an exposed root, and she found herself falling. Losing him. She hit the ground.

“Anne!”

Vince was beside her instantly. “Are you all right?”

No, she thought. She began to tremble as the weight of it all settled hard on her shoulders—a rotten week culminating with the suspension of the one child in her class who needed the most help. And that child was now running in the woods like a wild animal, haunting a gravesite where he had somehow managed to steal the finger of a dead woman.

“Hey,” Vince said, his hands cupping her shoulders as he helped her up. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” she murmured.

She was fine, but tears rose in her eyes and she wished to God it was too dark for him to see them.

“Let me take you home, honey,” he said softly, brushing leaves and twigs from her hair. “You’re exhausted.”