Cut to the Bone. Joan Boswell

he said or something he did?”

      “He brought handcuffs with him and promised me extra money if I’d wear them. Sabrina and Fatima had both warned me that that kind of kinky stuff, bondage it’s called, could be dangerous, could get out of hand, but I agreed. As soon as the handcuffs were on he smashed me really hard. His eyes were crazy. I screamed before he could stop me, and that put him off. He was a very scary guy.”

      “Do you keep any kind of diary or appointment book? Could you tell me when you saw him?”

      Ginny shook her head. “It wasn’t long ago. I don’t keep anything like that, but Sabrina does. It has a pink cover with a photo of a quilt on the front and she keeps it in the kitchen drawer. She writes all kinds of info in it — computer passwords, addresses, and every day she puts in the name or the initials of the clients and what they like.”

      Rhona felt a flush of optimism. They’d get this guy. “Why does she do that?”

      Ginny shrugged. “If guys like you, they leave a big tip. Sabrina made sure to record what they asked her to do ’cause she wanted to make money. She was saving for something big.”

      “What was that?”

      “She wanted to start her own business, and she figured this was the best way to get enough money.”

      “Anything about friends, family, where she went to school, why she decided to come to Toronto?”

      “I never asked.”

      “I understand, but did she ever volunteer any information.”

      Ginny shook her head. “I’ve only been here for a little while, and we didn’t talk that much.” She leaned forward and whispered, “Do you think the killer is after all of us? Is someone punishing us because of what we do?”

      SEVEN

      After Ginny left with Rhona, Hollis looked longingly at the studio end of the living room, where a commissioned, half-completed four-foot-high papier-mâché giraffe stood waiting for her attention. Right after the Second World War, her client’s father had brought him or sent him a large plush giraffe named Louis Phillipe from France. Now the man wanted a facsimile to put among the palms and ferns in his solarium.

      Not the time to work on it or on her current painting, an abstraction of her Canadian series. Until the police solved the murder she’d have her hands full keeping Jay on even keel and her tenants placated. She could only guess how the over-protective Calum Brownelly would react when he learned that his daughter lived in a building where a woman in the sex trade had been killed.

      Dealing with those issues lay in the future. Tonight they’d scarf down a quick supper before obedience class at seven.

      Jay and Crystal joined her in the kitchen. Hollis asked them to chop peppers for a stir fry. That task completed and rice steaming in the cooker, Hollis poured herself a glass of wine.

      “I think I’ll watch the news. See what they say about what’s happened here. Want to do that?” she asked the girls.

      “No. I want you to give me an answer,” Jay said, moving to face Hollis and block her retreat to the living room.

      Hollis sighed. She’d hoped to avoid the topic she knew Jay wanted to talk about.

      At moments like this she questioned her decision to foster. Had she made a mistake? Was she capable of dealing with a complicated eleven-year-old toting a trunkload of emotional baggage, not to mention a mysterious father?

      Wrong, wrong, wrong. She shook her head to expel doubt, as if the idea were water trapped in her ears.

      Bringing Jay into her life had been exactly the right thing to do. But at this moment when Jay, arms akimbo and chin thrust out, stood eyeball-to-eyeball, she faced the fact that this might be a bigger test than she’d anticipated. She knew a lot about dogs but not much about girls other than what she’d learned from her own experience. And most of that experience probably didn’t apply.

      She’d realized from early childhood as she grew into an almost six-foot-tall, big-boned young woman, that her tiny, perfect mother had expected a carbon copy of herself. After years of dressing Hollis in pink dresses trimmed with lace, her mother finally conceded that the feminine frills she loved looked ridiculous on her daughter.

      No, she didn’t want to emulate her mother and she didn’t have any other role models. She’d read the how to books on bringing up children, talked to her friends, and listened to her heart, the best teacher of all, and she prayed that would be enough.

      From the moment she’d met Jay, Hollis loved the enthusiastic, wiry, dark-eyed child with the mass of curly brown hair. When Jay was happy, her wide mouth curved into a big smile that made everyone around her respond positively.

      Hollis loved Jay’s spirit but, applying dog theory, knew she must establish herself as the alpha dog, the pack leader, the woman who provided love and guidance in equal measure. She had to be up to the task and not allow herself to fail — Jay could not be moved to another foster home.

      Standing toe-to-toe, Hollis waited for Jay to tell her why she had her hands on her hips, her chin thrust forward, and her entire body expressing her outrage.

      “You don’t trust me,” Jay stormed.

      The age-old accusation. If she said she did, she’d be lying. If she said she didn’t, it would confirm Jay’s belief.

      “We don’t know each other well enough for me to know whether I do or I don’t,” Hollis said.

      “That’s crap. You don’t,” Jay said.

      “Tell me why I should?” Hollis answered.

      That stopped Jay, but only for a second. “Because I’m a foster kid and no one trusts foster kids. You think we’re all the same. That somebody gave us up because we’re rotten kids and we lie all the time.”

      “Do you?”

      Jay retracted her chin. A tiny smile curved her lips. “Maybe.” She shrugged. “Maybe not.”

      “I’d like, no make that I’d love to trust you, but you’ve only been here for a few weeks. I’m responsible for you. I can’t let you get in trouble.”

      Hollis wished this was a private conversation. Heaven knew what Crystal thought as Hollis and Jay battled.

      “I only want to go to the Eaton Centre Thursday night to meet my dad. All you have to do is walk me to the subway. That isn’t a big deal,” Jay whined.

      Barlow, the puppy, raced into the kitchen dragging a fuchsia woollen hoodie.

      Jay grabbed for it as Barlow shot toward the front hall.

      Crisis averted for the time being.

      Jay reappeared hugging the hoodie to her chest, then extended it and examined it carefully. She thrust it in Hollis’s face.

      “The asshole ripped it,” she said.

      Hollis ignored the language. She’d pick her battles, and for the moment language wouldn’t be one of them. “Where was the hoodie?”

      “In my room.”

      “Where in your room?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “If it had been hanging in the closet or folded in a drawer, he couldn’t have got it. I’m guessing it was on the bedroom floor.”

      Jay said nothing as she picked at the hole in the cuff.

      Each time the puppy chewed a shoe or clothing, they had this conversation. Cupboard doors had to be shut and clothes put away to prevent Barlow from conducting the search-and-destroy missions he loved.

      “I’ll mend it,” Hollis offered and reached for the garment.

      “I have to go to the Eaton Centre,” Jay