Emily got out of the cab and gazed up the eight steps to her door. She felt so tired they seemed insurmountable. But she climbed and soon had the front door open. The wonderful aroma of dinner oozed out—along with the song of a Strawberry Shortcake video played at full blast.
“Mommy!” Her six-year-old daughter bounded down the hallway.
Emily knelt and hugged her. “How was school?”
“Good,” said April. “I made you a picture. Esmeralda put it on the refrigerator.”
“I can’t wait to see it.”
She cupped her daughter’s little face in her hands. April had inherited Emily’s hated freckles and upturned nose. But she had her father’s pouting lips, reminding Emily of him, even after six years.
She kissed her forehead. “You’re getting so big.”
“Welcome home, Miss Goodman.” Esmeralda stepped into the living room. Esmeralda was April’s nanny, but she also worked as the housekeeper, cook, and household accountant. “We held dinner for you.”
“Baked chicken,” April said. “I helped.”
Emily stood, smiling. “I’d better get washed up, then. Let me see. Which way is the bathroom?”
“I’ll show you.” April took her hand and tugged her up the stairs.
In the living room, Esmeralda turned off the video.
Emily tossed her purse on her bed as she passed the master bedroom and allowed April to pull her into the bathroom. It was the only bathroom in the house, much to Esmeralda’s dismay. Her room was off the kitchen. April pumped a handful of soap from a purple heffalump dispenser and helped wash Emily’s hands.
“Did you do your homework?” Emily asked.
“Yep. We had math today.”
“That sounds fun. You’ll have to show me after dinner.”
“All right.” April grinned. “Race you.”
They clambered downstairs and into the dining room. Esmeralda gave them both a disapproving glance.
“This looks wonderful,” Emily said, hoping to distract her.
The table was beautiful. Esmeralda had brought out the good plates and lit a tapered candle. The meal was one of Emily’s favorites—baked chicken breasts with gravy, mashed potatoes, and fresh green beans with mushrooms.
Emily helped April sit, and then pushed in the heavy, wooden chair. “Napkin on your lap, please.”
She sat across from Esmeralda, who bowed her head to say grace. Emily never discouraged this, although she didn’t join in. She believed in God, but she felt religion was a man-inspired attempt at social control. However, she wanted her daughter to make up her own mind and encouraged her exposure to many beliefs.
After grace came the clink of plates as they set upon the delicious fare. Emily was ravenous. She started on a second helping before speaking.
“Any problems while I was gone?” she asked Esmeralda.
“None at all.”
“Tommy Bernstein chased me around the school playground yesterday,” April said. “I told the crossing guard on him.”
“Really?” said Emily. “Why was he chasing you?”
“He wants me to marry him. Yuck.”
“Well, you did the right thing, going to the crossing guard. Always tell a grownup.”
“I bet he wouldn’t chase me home if I had a dog.”
Emily and Esmeralda exchanged amused looks. This was a popular dinnertime topic.
“I’ve already explained to you why we cannot have a dog,” Emily said.
“But everyone else gets to have one,” April whined.
“Is that true? Everyone has one?”
Esmeralda cut in. “If you’ve finished eating, you may carry your plate to the kitchen. Bedtime at nine o’clock sharp, young lady.”
“Thank you for the delicious meal.” April slid off her chair. As she passed them on her way to the kitchen, she muttered, “I don’t know why I have to be the only person in the world…”
Emily stifled a laugh. “Maybe we should consider getting a puppy for Christmas.”
“Don’t expect me to train it.” Esmeralda tossed down her napkin and got to her feet. “You coddle her too much.”
“Maybe so.” Emily shrugged, and her smile faded.
She helped clear the table, and then sat on the living room floor with April, doing simple addition. They were having so much fun that when the grandfather clock chimed nine, Emily was almost resentful.
“Come on, I’ll tuck you in,” she told her daughter.
“Can I sleep with you tonight? I don’t want to stay in my room,” April said.
“Why, sweetheart?”
“Because there are monsters.”
Emily paused. For a moment, she flashed back to when she was six years old. She had confided in a schoolmate that a monster lived in her closet—and that friend promptly told everyone in her class. Emily couldn’t remember the little girl’s name, but her face still stung when she recalled the humiliation.
“Well,” she said as she guided her daughter upstairs, “what do you think the monsters want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not all monsters are mean, of course. Some of them want to play.”
“They do?” April’s eyes widened.
“Sure,” said Emily. “The next time those monsters come to your room, you ask them why they are there. I’ll bet they just want to have fun.”
“What if it’s for the other thing? To bite me,” she whispered.
“Then yell for me, and I’ll come running.”
“To save me?”
Emily hugged her. “I will always come to save you.”
THREE
Emily woke smiling. She was in her own bed—not a hotel bed and not, God forbid, another sleeping bag on assignment somewhere. She breathed deeply of the fragrant, gingham sheets, and then sat, dangling her feet to the floor.
Voices traveled up the stairs—April and Esmeralda were in the kitchen. Emily caught a faint whiff of brewing coffee. Follow that smell, she told herself. After she donned her slippers, she went downstairs.
April sat at the kitchen table behind an enormous bowl of Cookie Crunchies. She grinned. “Morning, Mommy.”
“Good morning, sweetheart.” Emily kissed the top of her head.
Esmeralda poured egg batter into a skillet, which sizzled and hissed. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be getting up. I’m making omelets.”
“Sounds good. What flavor coffee is this?”
“German Chocolate Cake.”
Emily poured a cup, chuckling. “You are such an adventurer.”
“Mommy, can you walk me to school?”
“I’m sorry, baby, but there isn’t time. I’m not even dressed.”
“You never want to.”
Emily sat at the table. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll hurry and get ready, and we can share a cab.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Now if you’ve finished your breakfast, go upstairs and brush your teeth.”
“Yes, ma’am.” April put her bowl in the sink and bounded out of the room.
Esmeralda sniffed. “You spoil that child.”
With a shrug, Emily sipped the hot coffee. “This is really good.”
Esmeralda placed two cheese omelets on the table and turned to get the toast.
Emily took another sip. “So, what have you got planned for today?”
“Groceries. Errands.” She sighed as she sat. “I expect you’ll be out on the range.”
“I thought I might.” Emily dug into the omelet.
The range she referred to was Clive’s Archery Emporium. Emily’s grandfather had started her bow hunting as a kid, and she competed in tournaments through college. Let the neighbors take up racquetball or golf if they like—she preferred the skill and concentration needed for a good target shoot.
“Will you be home for dinner?” asked Esmeralda.
“That’s the plan,” she said between mouthfuls. “I doubt Ross will send me out again for a few days.”
“I’d like this evening off, if you don’t mind.”
Emily grinned. “Got a date with Dan?”
“We’re just friends.” Esmeralda blushed, shrugging.
“Of course I don’t mind. It will give April and me some quality time together.” She stood and rinsed her plate. “I’d better get moving. Call a cab, okay?”
She rushed upstairs and dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and a wooly cardigan she could knot about her waist later. She put on her favorite hiking boots—squashed-looking but comfortable.
In the bathroom, she heard April singing
Row, Row, Row Your Boat
as she washed her hands. The tap was open to full force, and Emily imagined water splashing the mirror and down the sink.
“Better not be making a mess in there,” Emily called.
The water stopped, and April paused in her singing. “I’m not.”
Emily smiled. She stepped into her walk-in closet and drew out a long, thin case from an upper shelf—a recurved bow and arrows. She’d received it on her fifteenth birthday—the only gift Aunt Lucy ever got right.
“I’m ready,” April said from the doorway.
“Just in time.” Emily slung the case strap over her shoulder. “Want me to carry your book bag?”
“No. It’s not heavy.”
They went out into the bright morning. The September breeze was cool, but the sun was still strong, making the weather perfect. They were practicing hopping down the stone steps as the cab pulled up.
Emily recognized the driver. “Good morning, Davis.”
“Morning, Miss Goodman. Where we off to so early?”
“First stop, Lincoln Elementary.”
The cab glided forward. Emily settled beside her daughter, who looked mesmerized by their mode of transportation.
“What do you say we do something fun after school?” Emily asked. “Just the two of us.”
“I want to go to the nature trail park.”
“I was thinking more like dinner and a movie. We could go to that video-game pizza parlor you always like. What do you call it?”
“We can go there any time,” April said. “But pretty soon it will be too cold to go to the park. I want to eat sandwiches on the picnic table like we did before and watch the sun set.”
Emily hugged her, touched by her daughter’s values. “You have a wise soul, and I love you very much. And you’re right; it will be getting colder. Pretty soon it will be Halloween, and then Thanksgiving—”
“I don’t want Halloween to come. I hate it.”
“You do?” she chuckled. “You don’t like candy?”
April stared out the window.
Emily nudged her. “You can’t get to Christmas without passing Halloween.”
“I don’t care.”
Emily frowned, realizing her daughter was sincere. “Why don’t you like Halloween?”
In a small voice, April said, “That’s when the monsters come.”
Emily swallowed a groan of exasperation. This monster fixation had to stop. “But, honey, Halloween monsters aren’t real.”
“Yes, they are. I know they are—because that’s what you do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your job. You find the monsters.”
Emily felt her jaw drop.
“Lincoln Elementary,” the driver called.
She glanced out at an expanse of chain-link fence and bicycle racks—the school playground.
“My job,” she said slowly, “is to find monsters that people think are real and prove they aren’t monsters at all. They’re pretend.”
“But what if one of those pretend monsters are real, and they take you away?”
She held her. “No one’s going to take me away.”
“Don’t go today when Uncle Ross calls.”
“Ross won’t call. I just got back. Besides, we have a picnic in the park to attend. Right?”
April smiled.
The cab stopped at the student drop-off in front of the school.
Emily got out, holding the car door open. “You have a nice day. And think of somewhere you want to go after our sunset dinner.”
“Like roller skating?”
“We’ll have to talk about that one.” She gave her daughter a quick hug, and then watched until she disappeared through the school’s wide doors.
“Second stop?” the driver asked.
“Clive’s Archery Emporium.” Emily sat again in the cab. She stared unseeing at passing traffic as they entered the freeway. Was she to blame for her daughter’s fears? She had no idea her job would affect her like that.
Twenty minutes later, they pulled before the archery range. From the street, it looked like just another storefront, but Emily knew the real action took place out back. She found the Emporium shortly after she started at the station two years ago.
“You made good time, Davis. Thanks.” She paid him. Tucking her bow case under her arm, she entered the building.
Clive was a muscular man a few years her senior. He wore his dark hair tied in a ponytail and his bulging arms sleeved in tattoos. He stood at the register with a customer, but when he saw Emily, he flashed a smile and a peace sign with his palm facing inward.
That was his joke. During the Hundred Years War, the French would cut off the index and middle fingers of any English archer they caught, insuring they could never draw a bow again. So on the battlefield, Englishmen flaunted their intact digits in an infuriating gesture of a V with the palm inward.
The customer left with his purchase.
Emily crossed the room. “Morning, Clive.”
He clucked his tongue. “When are you going to upgrade yourself to a modern bow? I have a nice compound on sale this week.”
A compound bow had pulleys at either end, allowing the bow to be held fully drawn, giving more time to aim.
She laughed. “Not my style. I’ve carried a recurved since I learned they’re the only bow allowed in the Olympics.”
“I didn’t know you were interested in the games. Ever try out?”
She nodded. “It was exciting, even though I never made the team.”
“Let me see. That would have been the year archery was reinstated as an event. Nineteen seventy-two, Munich.”
She slapped his arm, grinning. “I was born in seventy-six, thank you very much.”
“You should try out again. You’re good enough.”
“I’ll stick to recreation. Do you have any room for me?”
“Sure. It’s been quiet this morning.” He checked a chart. “Why don’t you take lucky seven?”
Emily grabbed a paper target from the counter and stepped out the back door to the range. Clive wasn’t joking when he said it was a quiet morning—she was the only person on the field.
She pinned her target face to a straw mat at 240 feet. The target rings were gold, red, blue, black, and white, with ten points for gold down to one point for white. She remembered target practice as a kid—Grandfather would think of a number, and it was up to her to score the right amount of points.