The Final Kill. Meg O'Brien

      “No,” Alicia answered quickly, shaking her head. “Trust me, that wouldn’t work right now.”

      “The thing is, I just don’t think I can help you with this.”

      “Abby, please! I—it’s just that he’s in New York, and he’s up to his ears in major business negotiations.”

      “But surely he’d want to help.”

      “Absolutely not!” Alicia said even more vehemently. “I want Gerry kept out of this as long as possible. Believe me, Abby, it’s for his own good.”

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Jancy said angrily, “why don’t I just stay at the house in Big Sur alone? I’m sixteen, after all. I’m not a kid.”

      Alicia said, “Jancy,” reprovingly, while Abby just looked at the girl until her gaze fell away.

      “Okay, I’m fourteen,” Jancy snapped. “But I’m more grown up than most kids my age. If you only knew…”

      Alicia looked at her in desperation, as if to say, “See what I have to put up with?”

      Jancy turned away, her angry gaze pretending to examine the air.

      Abby studied the two of them and thought a minute, while Jancy fidgeted and Alicia looked over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to jump out from a corner at any moment.

      Despite whatever other factors there might be, Abby’s strongest urge was to help. Alicia and Gerry had supported her when her job at the Los Angeles Times was on the line, years ago. Abby had written a story about a brilliant fifteen-year-old boy who, after having been orphaned at the age of five, had lived alone in an abandoned tenement building. The little boy had taken care of himself by stealing food off the streets and living with homeless adults who took care of him as best they could. Still, the situation he’d lived in was undeniably perilous.

      The kid had talked to her only on the condition that she promise never to tell anyone who he was. Abby made the promise but vowed to do everything she could to help him after the story broke. She’d get a promotion and have plenty of money then, she reasoned, to do whatever was needed for him: high school, college…who knew what heights a kid that bright and self-sufficient might reach?

      Abby shook her head now at the memory of those youthful fantasies. Instead of being promoted, she was fired for not giving up the boy’s name, and accused of making the story up. Stone-cold broke, she was on the verge of being homeless when Gerry, a young legal aid attorney at the time, represented her in court pro bono, while Allie took her into their house until her salary started coming in again. Abby won the case against wrongful firing, kept her job, and once the story hit the wires she won awards around the world. Not only was her career saved, but she was able to help the kid just as she’d hoped. He was now a resident MD at Swedish Hospital in Seattle.

      None of that would have happened without Alicia and Gerry. She owed them a lot.

      But her job now, first and foremost, was to protect Paseo. When Lydia Greyson, a good-hearted Carmel philanthropist, became ill and sold the Prayer House to her two years ago, she had trusted Abby to keep Paseo going. And Abby did, using the money that came out of her ill-fated marriage to Jeffrey, and the sale of the multimillion-dollar house on Ocean Drive. She had been still recovering from the monstrous act that killed her best friend, Marti Bright, though—and the attack that nearly killed her, as well. So at first, more or less sleepwalking through life, she just plowed money into Paseo, giving it little thought otherwise. It was her plan, indeed, to do that and no more.

      It didn’t take long, however, to become emotionally involved. Some of the stories of abuse she heard—stories the women who came to the Prayer House for help had told her—were horrendous.

      So, protecting Paseo was her first priority. And to take Alicia and Jancy in without knowing what kind of trouble they were in might risk the secrecy and safety of the other volunteers, and the moms and kids as well.

      While she was considering all this, Allie picked up her purse and motioned to Jancy. “C’mon, honey, we have to go.”

      “Al—”

      “No, it’s all right, Abby, I never should have come here. I’m sorry.”

      Her voice was shaking and her stride unbalanced, as if she were too tired to walk straight. She took Jancy’s arm, though, and pointed her in the direction of the door. Abby hesitated a few seconds more, but Allie’s condition and the sudden expression of fear on Jancy’s face was what settled it.

      For some reason, the girl was afraid to leave here. But why?

      Abby could still hear Lydia Greyson’s voice: People don’t listen to children. They pooh-pooh their fears, as if a child can’t possibly have all that much to worry about. Don’t do that, Abby. Don’t ever, ever do that. You don’t know how much harm you could be doing to that child.

      “Allie,” she said quickly, “don’t go. Of course you can stay. For tonight, at least. All right? You can sleep here, both of you.”

      Tears filled Alicia’s eyes. “Oh, Abby, thank you so much! I promise, you won’t regret—”

      “Wait,” Abby said, interrupting. “Don’t make too much of this. You need to understand that I can’t keep Jancy here alone, as much as I’d like to help you with that. The fact that she’s a minor could be a problem. And since I don’t know what’s going on, I have no idea what might come up.”

      “Tonight, though?” Alicia said with the first glimmer of hope in her voice. “You said, both of us? And no one will know?”

      “Absolutely no one,” Abby said firmly. “I don’t know what you’re running from, Allie, but you’ll be safe here.”

      And God help me if I do end up regretting this.

      Allie let out a long breath, as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Jancy didn’t say a word, but sat biting her black-painted fingernails to the quick. Abby noted that otherwise they looked freshly done, and now that the first moments were over, she also recognized Jancy’s black jeans jacket as being from a famous designer.

      She looked at Alicia’s shoes and recognized them, too, as having cost somewhere in the neighborhood of seven hundred dollars. Back in the days of her marriage to Jeffrey, Abby had learned to have an eye for fashion like that. At least one thing seemed certain: Allie and Jancy wouldn’t suffer from a lack of funds, wherever they ended up.

      There was a bellpull by the doorway into the reception room, a leftover from the days when the cloistered Carmelites lived there. Preserved for history’s sake, it also had a functional use. Within a minute or two of Abby’s gentle tug, Helen appeared from her room near the front door. Abby asked her to have someone take Alicia and Jancy to the second floor.

      “There’s a room prepared?” Abby asked.

      Helen shot her a look as if to say, “Isn’t there always?” To Alicia and Jancy, she said, “All right, then, come with me.”

      But Helen was limping, and Abby didn’t want her to climb the stairs. “Sister Liddy is probably up already. Why don’t I ask her—”

      “I’m not that useless yet,” Helen grumbled, lumbering to the door with a frown.

      Abby knew when to fold ’em, so she contained her usual smile at Helen’s crustiness and turned to Alicia. “Okay, then. You and Jancy go with Sister Helen. She’ll take you to your room.”

      Alicia hugged her. “How can I ever thank you enough?”

      “A donation would be nice,” Abby said, with a laugh. “A big one, for the Women’s Center for Learning.”

      “It’s a promise,” Alicia said, squeezing her hard.

      Abby took her by the shoulders. “No, seriously, just take care of yourself and Jancy. Do you have a cell phone with you?”

      She