She shivered as the emotions began to rise inside her once more. She got up and began to pace, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

She wished her mom was home. She wondered where she’d gone. What if she’d done something crazy again? Leah had been terrified to see her attack Ballencoa at the tennis courts. It had seemed like something out of a terrible movie, like her mother had been possessed or something. What if something like that happened again? What if she’d gotten arrested?

The idea made Leah angry. No one had arrested him. No one seemed to care that he’d taken Leslie. No one seemed to care about what was right. They only cared about what they could prove. It was like a game, and he knew how to play it better than anyone.

Frustration and anger rejoined her other emotions, and the pressure inside her built and built. She wanted it to go away. She thought about the razor blade hidden in the book on her nightstand. She could cut herself. She didn’t want to, but she hated this feeling so much. It scared her so badly. But what would happen if she cut herself and the pressure didn’t go away? Then what? Would she cut herself again and again? Would she cut herself so badly she might bleed to death?

It scared her that she would even think that could happen.

Why couldn’t her mom come home?

Suddenly the telephone rang and Leah jumped a foot in the air. It wasn’t the normal ring of a phone call. It rang three times in quick succession, which was the intercom for the front door.

No one could come to the door without first coming through the gate. Only people with the code could come through the gate. But no one with the gate code would ring the doorbell.

Leah stared at the telephone on her nightstand, afraid to answer it. But as it rang again, she thought again of her mother. What if something had happened to her?

On the third ring she picked up the phone. The man on the other end spoke with authority.

“Leah, I’m with the sheriff’s office. There’s been an accident. I’m here to take you to the hospital.”

The sheriff’s office probably had some kind of code to get through gates, Leah thought. That made sense.

“Was it a car accident?” she asked, thinking a million things at once. Was her mother dead? Was she alive? Had she been drinking and driving? She drank too much. Leah had told her.

“Yes, a car accident,” the man said.