“As for my wife . . . Janet is a person who needs to be in control of her environment. She has good reasons for that. Obviously, I can’t elaborate, but she had to overcome a lot in her early life, and in times of stress . . . She doesn’t always handle that well.”

Anne had no interest in understanding Janet Crane. No matter what she’d had to overcome in her life, Janet was an adult and should have been able to conduct herself in a better way than she had. But she wasn’t Anne’s focus.

“I’m actually worried about Tommy,” she admitted. “I’m afraid he somehow thinks I betrayed his trust.”

“Tommy thinks the world of you.”

“I would feel better seeing that for myself. I would really like to be able to sit down with him and have a talk, one-on-one. I want him to know he can rely on me. Do you think there would be any way we could arrange that without upsetting Mrs. Crane?”

He thought about it for a moment, no doubt weighing the benefit for Tommy against the risk of incurring his wife’s wrath.

“I’ll see what I can do. Can I call you?”

“Of course. I would really appreciate that.”

“I’m sorry if Janet has made your life difficult.”

“I’m fine,” Anne said, getting to her feet. She felt worse for him and for Tommy. Janet Crane could attack her and Anne could still go home at the end of the day. Peter Crane and his son had to live with the woman. “My concern is Tommy.”

The buzzer at the front door sounded, making Anne jump. Crane got up and went past her. When he opened the door the space was taken up entirely by Detectives Mendez and Hicks. Mendez flicked a glance at Anne.

“Dr. Crane,” he said. “We have a couple of things we need to discuss with you. Would you mind coming down to the station with us?”

Chapter 61

61

Dennis went into the woods, not from the park entrance, but from the back, from the service road. On the other side of the service road was the sheriff’s office. Where the good guys worked. That was what his third-grade teacher had told the class when they had all walked over, hand in hand, from school for a field trip.

Mrs. Barkow hadn’t known Dennis’s father beat his wife, beat him. Dennis had always believed his father was a good guy, anyway, that there had to be something wrong with him that he made his father so angry. He was bad, he was stupid, he was brain damaged, and his mother was just a drunk, stupid cunt, and she deserved whatever happened to her.

Maybe that was all true, but he didn’t think the same way about his father anymore.