She was suddenly certain that Dawn had known this would happen, had known her father was coming to the barn.

And had wanted her to see it.

The tool closet had another door at its opposite end, one that led outside to the yard, and carefully, quietly, Laurie inched toward it, careful not to touch or disturb the scythes and machetes, rakes and clippers hanging on the walls. Her father was saying something, murmuring in a low soothing voice, and she did not want to hear it, she did not want to know what it was.

There was no lock on the rough wooden door, no catch, but the hinges were squeaky, and she pushed the door open slowly, slowly, trying to prevent the escape of a single sound. When there was enough room between the door and the jamb for her to sneak out, she slid through and, just as slowly, closed the door once again.

She hurried across the open yard and was almost to the house when she saw her mother emerging from the garage, carrying what looked like the can of gasoline her father used for the tractor. Laurie was about to call out, but she changed her mind when she saw the look of grim determination and single-minded purpose on her mother’s face.

The feelings of shock and disgust within her were replaced by a feeling of dread, the overwhelming sense that her mother knew what was going on in the barn and was going to do something about it.

Laurie wanted to hide, to run upstairs to her room and pretend that none of this was going on and play with her dolls until her mother called her for lunch, but she knew that ignoring what was happening would not make it go away, and she was not at all sure that her mother would even be making lunch today.

She was not sure that her mother—or her father—would still be alive come lunchtime.

She had no idea where that came from, but it grew from a fear into a certainty as she saw her mother stride over to the barn and throw open the big door.

Laurie dashed back across the trampled grass. Her mother had run into the barn and opened up the can and was furiously splashing gasoline over the bodies of Dawn and her father, now on the dirt floor without their clothes. Her father was sputtering angrily, yelling sounds that were supposed to be words, but Dawn was laughing, and it was that high tinkling musical sound that scared Laurie more than anything else.

“No!” Laurie cried. “Stop!” But no one seemed to hear her, and her mother tossed the gasoline can aside and pulled out a matchbook and lit a match. Screaming crazily, she threw the lit match onto the gasoline-covered bodies.

“You bastard!” she yelled. “She’s mine! She’s mine!”