“Are you taking me to Mr. Hands?” he whispered.

Lucy looked at him and wanted to cry. He looked so broken and scared and alone…but there was also something too-soon-dead in his eyes, infecting the rest of his face. She reached over and squeezed one of his hands. “No, honey, I’m not taking you to him. I’m trying to get you as far away from him as I can.”

Randy’s head snapped around, his eyes wide. “You…you d-don’t th-think I made him up?”

“No.”

His face sparked with something like hope. “You b-believe me?”

“Yes, Randy, I do.”

He tilted his head slightly to the side. “Are you really from…from, uh...”

“Children’s Services?”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, I’m not. I had to lie about that and I’m sorry.” She fumbled in her purse and removed her wallet, keeping one hand on the steering wheel while she flipped through the photographs.

“Here,” she said, holding up the wallet so he could see the picture. “Know who that is?”

His eyes grew even wider. “That’s…th-that’s Sarah! Sh-she’s th-the one who told me that Mr. Hands was coming to get me.”

Lucy dropped the wallet back into her purse. “I’m Sarah’s mother, Randy. My name is Lucy Thompson.”

“Oh.”

She couldn’t quite get a reading on that.

Randy swallowed once. Very hard. Then asked: “Is Sarah…is she dead?”

Lucy swallowed once. Very hard. Then replied: “I don’t really know for sure, but I think she probably is.”

“What happened to her?”

Some part of her wished that she’d just said yes, Sarah had died, and left it at that, but this little boy needed to hear truth and nothing but. “Someone took her.”

“You mean, like, they stole her?”

The bloody underwear, the bloodied toy horse, the stains on Big Bird’s wings...

A deep breath, hold it…there you go. “Yes, Randy, someone stole her.”

“Awww.” There was genuine sorrow in his voice, and he reached over and patted her arm. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“Is she a ghost now?”

“...yes...”

“She wasn’t scary, not really.”

“Not all ghosts are scary, hon.”

“You believe in ghosts?”

A nod. “Very much.”

“Me, too.” He sounded so serious and grown-up.

After a few moments of silence, he said: “Mom and Dad are gonna be mad at me.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I ain’t there. Kylie’s funeral is tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I d-didn’t mean to do it. It was a accident.”

Lucy squeezed his hand again. “Of course it was. Everyone knows that. You were only trying to help.”

“Uh-huh, I was. The grill wouldn’t start and I was hungry, so…so…so I wanted t-to—you know what? I wanted to cook for Dad ‘cause he always does the cooking. I wanted to make the hamburgers for everybody. An’ Kylie, sh-she was standin’ there and giggling at me an’ I said, ‘What’re you laughing at?’ an’ she pointed at the grill an’ she said, ‘Cold!’ on account there was only some smoke an’ everybody knows you can’t cook a hamburger with just smoke, so I got the can of lighter fluid an’…I was real careful, really, I was!” His face was getting red. Tears glistened in his eyes. “Dad always told me that y-you had to be real careful when you squirted the lighter fluid, an’ I was! But all of a sudden it just made this big…this big whoosh! an’ there was all this fire an’ it scared me an’ I didn’t mean to drop the can but I was scared an’…an’ you know what? I fell down, an’ then there was another big ‘splosion an’ then I saw Kylie, sh-she was on fire all over an’ she…she was screaming, I heard her, she even said my name, she s-said, ‘Wandee!’—she always said it like that, ‘Wandee,’ an’ I tried to help but she ran away an’ when I caught up sh-she was too h-h-hot to touch an’…an’...” His face collapsed in on itself and he reached out to her. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” The words came out in thick, wet splutters. “Kylie’s d-d-dead an’…I killed her! I didn’t mean to, it was a accident and I m-m-miss her so much and I’m…I’m...so…s-s-sorry...”