Lucy gave her a cheery good-bye wave, then checked her watch and sighed. It was already one-thirty, and the meter was running over at Kiddie Kollege. She shifted the car into gear and turned onto Main Street, the most direct route to the preschool. As she passed the church and the rectory beside it, she glanced at the piece of black sculpture Carol had placed on the front lawn. Impulsively she pulled the car over and stopped in front of it.

The sculpture was made of automobile parts—at least Lucy assumed the odd metal forms came from automobiles. As she studied the sculpture, she could make out two human forms: a muffler and a transmission made one, a piece of twisted fender the other. The whole piece had been spray-painted black, and a length of sturdy black hose wound the two figures together. Lucy decided she’d better take a closer look at the hose.

She turned off the ignition and climbed out of the car. She slipped as she scrambled up the steep, grass-covered bank, and as she got back to her feet the sculpture loomed over her. The piece generated a sense of pain and anguish that made Lucy uneasy. She paused to read the handwritten label that had been placed at the base of the statue and then jumped back as if she’d been bitten. “Bondage of Love,” it read.

Lucy leaned forward to examine the hose, reaching out and wrapping her fingers around it. It felt just as she expected it would. For now there was no doubt that she had tried to pull a piece of the exact same hose from Sam Miller’s car window.

Carol worked in an old barn behind the house, and that’s where Lucy went, her ankle smarting. She didn’t want to go, but she had to talk to Carol. Things were beginning to add up, and she didn’t like the way her thoughts were headed.

The big barn door was unlatched and yielded to her hand with a noisy scrape. She stepped into the dark and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. She looked up toward the loft window, and there she saw Carol’s limp body, swaying slightly, silhouetted by the bright afternoon sun.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

#3335 Magnetic slate is a copy of the slates used by students in one-room schoolhouses but can be affixed to the refrigerator and used as a noteboard. A useful memory jog. $12.

“This is getting to be a bad habit, Mrs. Stone,” said Lieutenant Horowitz as he sat down opposite Lucy at Marge’s kitchen table. He made an odd snorting noise; he was obviously enjoying his little joke.