Two days had passed… two long days, as far as Sharon was concerned. She watched her mother closely, leaning out the window as Janice pruned the small rose garden out back. Through the bushes, she could hear Hank Harrington's voice booming over the sound of his large Chevy pickup truck. Janice pretended not to notice. But Sharon knew her mother's heart was jumping. Would she be pushed out the next time, rushed from the house on some dumb errand?

Oh, it was maddening. And the rising August temperatures here in Glendale didn't help, either. Sharon wanted to go to the beach to cool off. But that would give her mother the opportunity to do those things again. Sharon felt she had to get to the bottom of this somehow. But what was she supposed to do?

On the late afternoon of the second day, Janice went shopping, calling out to her daughter who lay in the backyard that she would be gone for at least two hours. As the big blue-and-white car pulled from the drive, Sharon felt an odd kind of excitement rushing through her mind and body. Getting up from the lounge, Sharon pulled her sunglasses from her face, blinked in the bright light and squinted into the bushes. She could see movement behind them. Tommy? His dad? Sharon hesitated for a moment, shaking several loose strands of hair from her face. Smoothing her fingers over the oil still glistening on her flesh, she swung her legs over and stood up, pushing the sunglasses back on her head. Sharon knew it was dangerous to go over there, especially with what she knew about that family. But maybe she could yell out for Mrs. Harrington if things became too carried away.