Kisscut

"No," Sara assured her. "I think that Mark had a lot of other problems that led him to think that was his only choice."

"Can I see him?" she asked in a small voice.

"If you want to."

"I want to."

Sara sat back, watching the girl chew her fingers. Lacey's hair had been cut almost in a buzz cut. Dottie had probably pla

"Is my daddy coming back soon?" Lacey asked.

"Do you want to see him?"

"He didn't know," she said, as if she could read Sara's mind. "I knew about Mark and Mama, but Daddy didn't know."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "If he found out, he would've killed Mark."

"How about you, honey?" Sara asked. "Did Mark ever touch you?"

She looked away.

"Lacey?"

She shook her head vehemently, but Sara did not believe her. She was still torn on the subject of Mark Patterson. On the one hand, he had been a victim, and on the other, he had obviously been an abuser.

Lacey said, "Mark was nice to me."

Sara let this pass. "Did Dottie ever make you sit for pictures?"

"No," she said. "Mark and Je

"But you never did?"

Lacey put her hand back in her mouth. "Mark said if he ever caught me doing any of that he would tell Daddy."

"Mark didn't want you to do it?"

"I wanted to," she countered, taking on a petulant child's tone. "Je

"Do you think Je

"I tried it once, and Mark found out." She dropped her hand into her lap. "That's when he hit me."

Sara let this sink in. She had never even dreamed that Mark was trying to protect his sister.

"This was when Mark got arrested, right?"

Lacey seemed surprised that Sara knew this. "Yeah."

"But, he didn't tell your father?"

"I told him if he did that I would tell about him and Mama."

She said "him and Mama" in a singsong way, as if the phrase had been practiced over and over. Sara imagined that Lacey had used this as a threat on more than one occasion. She was still a child at heart, and most children would do anything they could to get their way.

"I didn't like it anyway," Lacey said. "I told him I wouldn't do it anymore. I didn't like it." She frowned. "Dottie was mean when she was like that. Not like she was when we were playing."

"You played with her?"

"She would baby-sit us sometimes." Lacey smiled. "She had this game we would play, where we would get all dressed up, and she would take us to the movies and let us stay dressed up."

"That sounds nice."

"She wasn't like that all the time, though." Lacey started to pick at a scab on her leg. "She was mean sometimes. I didn't like her then."

"I don't blame you," Sara told her. "Was she the one who talked about purity?"

Lacey jerked her head up. "Where did you hear that?"

Sara decided to lie. "Mark told me."

Lacey shook her head. "He wouldn't have told you about that."

"Are you sure?"

She shrugged, but Sara could see that she wasn't. "Dot-tie got mad at Je

"Obsessed with what?"

"What they do to little girls over there," she mumbled. "Je

"Do you believe that, Lacey?"

She ignored Sara's question. "Dottie was mad. Je

Sara took a deep breath, trying to get her head around what the child was revealing. She asked, "So your mom and Dottie told Je

"They were worried she'd get in trouble at school. They had to move before because of it. A guidance counselor came to the house. Dottie said he was go

"About girls being cut like that?" Sara asked, wondering at a girl obsessed with self-mutilation.

"Je

"Why would Dottie cut her, Lacey?"

"She didn't," Lacey said. "After the Christmas trip, Je

Sara shook her head, not accepting this. "There's no way she could have done that to herself, sweetie."

"But, she did," Lacey insisted. "She used a razor, only she started screaming, and Dottie ran upstairs and started screaming, too."

"You were in the house?"

"I was downstairs with Mama because it was payday."

Sara knew she should not have been surprised that these women had a regular payday, but it made sense that they ran their sick little publication like a business. They had been doing this for at least thirteen years, and knew what they were doing.

"Je

Sara nodded for her to continue, because that was all she could do.

"They couldn't take her to the hospital, so Mama said the best thing they could do was finish what she started…" Lacey paused. "So, they did."

"Did they anesthetize her?" Sara asked.

"Mama gave her some of her pills so she wouldn't get an infection."

"That's not what I meant," Sara told her. "Did they knock her out before they finished cutting her? Or make her go to sleep so she wouldn't feel it?"

"I think she fell asleep on her own when they started," Lacey provided. "At least, she stopped screaming after a while."

Sara chewed her bottom lip, trying to think of a response. She asked, "What made Je

"Carson and Rory were making fun of her when we went skiing, like she would go with them, and she wouldn't."

"Go with them, meaning sex?"

She nodded. "She said she wouldn't, that they weren't clean, and they got mad at her and called her a whore, and she didn't know why, but when Cooper told her that she had before, this time she went over to their house with Mark." She shrugged. "Mark put something in her drink to make her act fu

"Do you know what it was?"

"Something that makes you feel really bad the next day," Lacey answered. "She got sick to her stomach and had to stay home from school for two days, and Dottie said she had the flu."

Rohypnol, Sara thought. The date rape drug.

Lacey continued, "She did what she did, you know. Mark says that drugs just make you do the things you want to do anyway."

"That's not true," Sara told her. "Especially with the drug he probably gave her."

Lacey shrugged as if it didn't matter. "She liked Cooper Barrett anyway."

"Was he on the ski retreat?" Sara asked.

"Him and Rory and Carson," she said. "They slipped notes under the door at the hotel, and when we got up one morning, there was a sign over the room number that said some mean things." She looked up at Sara. "I guess they were the ones who stole stuff out of her locker at school."

"What kinds of stuff?"

"Pictures and things. They tore them up, so she had to stop keeping stuff in there except for books."

"I guess that upset her a lot."

Lacey shrugged, but Sara could tell it had bothered her.

"Why did Mark do that to her, do you think?" Sara asked. "Did Dottie ask him to take her to the party?"

Lacey nodded, and Sara put her hand to her stomach, thinking about Mark pimping out Je