Stay (Dunham series #2) Read Free Page A

tell if he was mad or not.
    “Because it’s the truth,” she whispered. “People
were burned at the stake because no one told the truth.”
    Mr. Hilliard got a funny look on his face. “What
people?”
    “The witches. In Salem. A long time ago. People died
because mean girls told a lie. I read about it.”
    “I see,” he said slowly and looked down at the book.
He pointed to it. “How do I know this is the truth?”
    She hadn’t thought about that. To her, it was so
clear. Her forehead crinkled. “I guess— Well, I don’t know.”
    “Now, you know I’m going to have to ask about this
and that I’ll have to say how I got it, right?”
    Vanessa nodded. “Yes,” she said, and gulped again.
She began to tremble because now that Mr. Hilliard hadn’t shot her
in the head like he did Tom Parley, she knew her mother and her
sister would make her wish he had.
    He wiped a hand down his face and didn’t talk for a
long time. Finally, he handed her a pen and paper. “Write down your
grade and teacher’s name, Vanessa.” She did, and then he took a
business card, turned it over, and wrote on it. When he handed it
to her, he said, “If anything happens to you, if you’re afraid at
home for any reason, you call me and I’ll come get you, even if
it’s three o’clock in the morning.”
    “Where would you take me?”
    “To my cousin Giselle’s house until social services
could come get you.”
    Foster people. That sounded worse than home, if that
was possible. She bit her lip yet again in indecision.
    “Well, okay. I can see that might not seem fun.
Right now, I’m going to take you to school. Have you had anything
to eat this morning?”
    She shook her head again, understanding what he
intended and that it would mean a ride in a car with a strange
adult man, yet she was too hungry to let the possibility of a free
meal pass her by.
    So she went with him and she stood by his pretty
dark green car while he unlocked and opened the door for her, then
closed it once she had climbed in. She didn’t think much of it
until he parked at McDonald’s and murmured, “Stay there.” Now
simply curious, she watched him get out of the car, walk around to
her side, and open her door for her. He offered her his hand as if
she were an adult! A real lady! And then he opened the door of
McDonald’s for her!
    He let her pick whatever she wanted and eat at the
picnic table (he didn’t say much because he seemed to be busy
thinking), bought her more (enough for dinner tonight, breakfast
tomorrow, and possibly lunch too, if she hid it well enough), then
took her to school. The high school girls were outside because it
was their lunchtime and they could go off campus if they wanted.
She was very conscious of them because they thought Mr. Hilliard
was handsome and dangerous, and they had stopped to stare when they
heard, then saw, his car.
    What would Laura do?
    Laura would hold her head high and ignore the people
who stared.
    They parked and she reached for the door handle.
“Stay there,” he reminded her, and again she waited, feeling very
grown up and sophisticated. The senior girls watched Mr. Hilliard
open her door for her and help her out the same way he had at
McDonald’s. A strange, nice feeling went through her, like how the
word “dignity” might feel. They watched him walk her across the
lawn away from the lunch quad to the entrance of the elementary
school. They watched him hold the front door open for her, again,
as if she were an adult and a lady.
    The school secretaries gasped when they saw him walk
in behind Vanessa and they shrank away from him. He seemed not to
notice.
    “Vanessa Whittaker’s been at the courthouse for an
interview,” he said to the principal, who came out of his office to
see what the commotion was all about. “I’m sure you won’t put her
down as tardy for today.”
    “Oh, of course not, Mr. Hilliard. Of course
not.”
    Wow. She had never thought Mr. Roberg could be
afraid of