“Who is she talking to?” Brody asked but Lou was already gone. The water bottle that had been clutched in her hand rolled across the porch.
Lou ran down the drive and Brody took off only seconds behind her. They tore down the long winding driveway, dirt flying from beneath their feet in their haste. They reached Sarah at almost the same time, just as the dark sedan pulled away. Dust flew behind the vehicle, making it impossible to get a license plate number.
Lou spun Sarah around, gripping her upper arms tightly.
“Who was that man?” she asked between broken breaths, choked by exertion.
Sarah shrugged her shoulders and looked toward the retreating car. “I don’t know, Mommy. He said he was moving to a house near here and wanted to know if I live at this house. Did I do something wrong?”
“Yes! You did something wrong! You are never, never, never, ever supposed to talk to strangers!”
Brody was much more composed than Lou. He bent down beside Sarah. “Can you tell us what he looked like? Did he say anything else to you?”
“He had on a baseball cap and he smelled like cherry smoke,” Sarah replied after some deliberate thought, tapping her finger lightly on her temple.
“Cherry smoke?”
“Yeah. Like that man who smoked the cigar when he came to see Mr. Jeb.”
“But it wasn’t the same man?” Sarah shook her head. Lou sighed and looked at Brody. “That’s probably all she noticed.”
Sarah looked toward the house and commented, “Why is an ambulance here? Is someone sick?”
Lou patted her gently on the shoulder. “The ambulance just brought Mrs. Wester home from the hospital.”
“But I have not finished my card yet!”
“You’ll have plenty of time to finish after you do your homework. She’s going to take a nap now and you can see her later if Dr. Wester says it’s okay.”
Sarah looked skeptically toward Brody. “Do you mean him?” She squinted one eye at him, as though appraising his appearance. “He’s a doctor?”
“He’s a doctor.” Lou grinned slightly, her eyes smiling as they met Brody’s.
“Cool,” Sarah stated plainly. “Can I go ahead and get my snack?”
“Yeah. Run along.”
As Sarah ran quickly down the drive, Brody looked at Lou, who looked everywhere but at him. “Now why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on?”
Chapter Seven
Lou turned to walk toward the house, throwing over her shoulder, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Brody rushed forward and grabbed her by the upper arm, stopping her mad march toward the house. “You damn sure do know what I’m talking about, and you are going to tell me what all this is about. There’s something going on here, and I want to know what it is.”
Lou jerked her arm free of his grasp. “Don’t ever grab me again,” Lou said calmly as she turned toward the house. Her pace quickened as she walked up the drive, Brody right behind her. She stomped up the steps and slammed through the back screen door.
Brody stopped long enough to run a hand through his hair in frustration. As he reached to open the screen door, he was stopped by Jeb’s voice. “Whatcha in such a hurry for, boy?” Jeb sat in a rocker on the porch whittling with his knife on a piece of wood.
“Nothing, Jeb. I just need to talk to Lou.”
“That why she’s looking like a scared rabbit and you’re looking like the hungry wolf that wants to eat her?” Jeb asked with a short snicker.
“That’s no scared rabbit, Jeb.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, boy. She’s scared of her own shadow, most days.” Jeb nodded his head slightly, indicating that Brody should take a seat. “She hides it well and you just don’t know her well enough to realize it.”
Brody sat down in the rocker, his elbows on his knees. “There’s something going on here, Jeb. First, she has nightmares that are so loud they could shake the rafters on the roof. Then someone who thought they knew her stopped her at the hospital but she denied ever having met her. Then Mom insists on coming home from the hospital because someone was asking about Lou. Now, there’s a strange man stopping to ask Sarah questions at the end of the drive, but he didn’t hang around when he saw me and Lou coming. That seems a little strange to me, and I’d like to get some answers about it.”