Mask Of A Hunter. Sylvie Kurtz

burn you before she gives you the time of day.”

      It wasn’t until he grabbed his gloves and sunglasses that he remembered there was a good reason he hadn’t become a firefighter. Fire made him choke, and he was partial to breathing. “Give me a chance to get back before you send her out.”

      “Candace will call the Division Child, Youth and Family if I don’t get there before her shift.” Rory scraped her chair back and collected her belongings.

      For a second, the image of kindling flashed across his mind, and he sighed silently. “If she knows you’re coming, she’ll wait.”

      “How do you know?”

      He slid the sunglasses over his eyes. “Because I deal with people, not names on a computer screen.”

      He could feel the scorch of her gaze long after he’d fired up the Indian and opened the throttle as far as it would go. That couldn’t be good. Not at all.

      Chapter Two

      The instant Rory saw her niece, a pool of guilt filled her to near drowning. Why hadn’t she come to visit in the past nine months? Why hadn’t she dragged Felicia and Hannah home with her? Why had she let all the painful memories stored in the granite bed of this state turn her into a coward?

      Across the cramped living room, Hannah sprawled in a mesh-sided travel crib swaddled in a pair of pink footed pajamas. Her arms were splayed at her sides, and her loose fists showed off smooth palms and tiny fingers. A nine-patch quilt in shades of pink lay beside one hand. One corner looked gummed as if Hannah had used it as a pacifier. Flyaway curls of a soft brown with red highlights surrounded her face. A face that, in sleep, spelled innocence and vulnerability, and at once made Rory feel as needed as a calculus book in a poetry class.

      She was used to order, to things done her way, to being the master of her days. This baby, who didn’t look much bigger than a library edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, actually had her pulse skittering as if she were facing an armed madman demanding she produce plans for a nuclear device. She swallowed hard. “I don’t know anything about babies.”

      She hadn’t realized she’d spoken out loud until Candace’s voice grated against her ears. “Hannah’s an easy baby.”

      Which meant next to nothing to Rory. Easy was an instruction manual, and she didn’t see one lying conveniently around. She let her tapestry tote bag slip from her shoulders to the rust-carpeted floor and peered farther over the edge of the crib at the creature sleeping there. What did Hannah eat? How long did she sleep? How did one entertain a nine-month-old child? Then there were diapers and baths and tears. The responsibility of it all gave her legs the sturdiness of wet sponges. She’d never worn helplessness well. “Tell me about her routine.”

      Candace, dressed in black stretch pants and a light-blue sweatshirt with a sledding snowman printed on the front, finished tidying up the coffeemaker in the kitchenette and moved to the tiny living room where a soap opera played on the television. “Felicia usually covers the breakfast and lunch shifts at the diner, so Hannah goes to the sitter’s around 5:00 a.m. and gets picked up around 3:00 p.m.”

      Candace headed to a pile of knitting on the seat of a faded lime-green armchair. She stuffed the balls of light-blue yarn and steel needles into a yellowing canvas bag with a Summersfield town centennial logo. Then hands on hips, she frowned at the floor as if she were looking for something. “Other than that, Hannah pretty much leads the way. She still takes a couple of naps a day, but sleeps through the night. She’s a good eater. It doesn’t take much to keep her happy.”

      With a humph, Candace bent at the waist and picked up a glossy magazine, featuring a snowflake sweater and a rosy-cheeked pre-schooler, that had somehow strayed beneath the armchair. The map of lines on the older woman’s face placed her age on the strong side of fifty. Her short, bristle-stiff hair was still brown, although gray roots showed. Rory had not seen her stand in place for longer than a second since she’d arrived—and even then, her knitting needles had clicked like an old-fashioned typewriter manned by manic fingers. There was nothing soft or sweet about her, yet there was a spirit of generosity Rory found hard to ignore.

      “Thanks for waiting for me.” She could handle Hannah on her own. Felicia had done it. So could she. How hard could it be?

      Candace humphed again as she grabbed her black Mary Poppins handbag from the half wall separating the narrow kitchenette from the living room. “She’s a good kid.”

      Rory wasn’t sure if she meant Felicia or Hannah. “Have you heard from Felicia?”

      “Not a word.”

      “Aren’t you worried?”

      Candace slid the handles of the canvas knitting bag over her shoulders. “I learned a long time ago to mind my own business.”

      “But—”

      “Summersfield ain’t no Currier and Ives postcard, honey. It’s all I know, and I don’t want to cause myself any grief. Felicia, well, she made some decisions that are hard to undo. And if you want my advice—although somehow I doubt you’ll take it—I’d wrap that pretty baby up and take her away.”

      “I have to find Felicia.” For all her faults her sister had finally done something right.

      “It ain’t going to change anything.”

      “You think she’s…hurt?” Rory could not bring herself to say dead out loud.

      Frowning, Candace rummaged through her bag. “What I think don’t matter.”

      “If Felicia’s in danger, I have to help her.”

      Out came a purple bear with one ragged ear. Candace handed the plush toy to Rory. “Have you ever thought that maybe it’s too late to help her?”

      Rory blinked in surprise. “No, I hadn’t.”

      Not really.

      At least she’d discounted that dire possibility. She still thought of Felicia as the headstrong kid who had a knack for checking out when the going got tough. She’d run away from school on a regular basis. She’d run from summer camp. She’d run from home. Rory had thought Hannah’s arrival had changed Felicia…and on the trip up to New Hampshire, she’d talked herself into believing this was just another one of Felicia’s disappearing acts that would resolve itself within a few days. Once she worked herself out of the quagmire of her emotions, Felicia usually returned.

      Except that Candace’s phone call asking her to come get Hannah had spooked Rory. It was so premeditated an action for a girl like Felicia who lived for the moment. Sebastian’s assertion that Felicia was working undercover for the ATF hadn’t helped. That, too, was out of character. It just didn’t make sense. Felicia would never have done that. Not after what had happened to their parents.

      Except maybe for a chance to stay with Hannah.

      Rory kneaded at the tension hiking her shoulders to her ears.

      Then when Ace—really, what kind of name was that for a grown man?—had brought up his theory that Felicia was hiding, she’d jumped at the saving grace of the probability that she wasn’t too late. Because if something had happened to Felicia, then that long-haired Italian pirate with his show-off muscles was right, and Rory had waited too long to find her courage. And if she’d failed Felicia when Felicia needed her most, Rory wasn’t sure she could live with the guilt.

      Felicia was alive. Scared, but alive. Rory had to believe that.

      Candace jerked her head toward the kitchenette. “My number’s on the memo board on the fridge. Penny Webster sits for Hannah. She’s right upstairs. Her number’s there, too, if you need her. So’s the number of Hannah’s doctor.”

      “Thank you for all you’ve done.” Rory rubbed her arms against a core-deep chill that shivered through her in spite of the warm afternoon sunlight pouring through the bay window.

      Candace