Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [93]
Fiona exchanged the necessary kiss on the cheek with her only son and then looked at him closely.
“What on earth happened to you?”
“I had an accident.”
“Good lord! What on earth?”
Kylie looked up him too, squinting in the dim light.
“You have a black eye, Uncle Lee!”
“I ran into a door,” he lied. “It was stupid.”
Kylie was satisfied with this explanation, but his mother was not. She raised an eyebrow at him, but he shook his head and glanced at Kylie. His mother took the hint and changed the subject.
“So where are you two going today?” she asked.
“Can we go to Jekyll and Hyde? Please, can we?” Kylie asked.
“Sure,” Lee replied.
Kylie turned to her grandmother. “It’s the coolest place!” She hopped from foot to foot, humming to herself.
“Well, mind you don’t stay up too late,” Fiona said.
“We won’t, we won’t!”
“Okay, we’d better be off,” Lee said, twirling the car keys in his left hand. He had a tendency toward ambidextrousness, a trait Fiona claimed was inherited from his father.
“Would you like a cup of tea before you go?” his mother said.
Lee glanced at his watch. “No, I don’t think so. It’s kind of a long drive.”
“Very well. Off you go, then,” she said briskly, whisking the two of them out the door after brushing her lips across their cheeks.
“Who’s that?” Kylie asked when she saw the dark sedan parked out in the road.
“Oh, that’s my own personal guard,” Lee replied, nodding to the plainclothes cop behind the wheel.
“Cool,” Kylie said, waving to him.
Lee decided to take River Road—he liked the view as it twisted and wound along the Delaware. As he headed toward the river through the farm fields, he rounded a familiar turn in the road. There, ahead of him, was McGill’s Hill. A wide, steeply sloped incline, it was the prime sledding venue for everyone within miles. People came all the way from Doylestown to sled there. The hill humped steeply at the top; then a sharply angled grade bottomed out into a concave, bowl-like base, followed by a football field’s worth of flat land all the way to the creek that snaked through a smattering of trees.
McGill’s Hill was an exhilarating ride. The top was so abruptly humped that the sled left the ground, only to return with a thump on the fast downhill slope before rising into the air again at the bottom. After clearing the spoon-like hollow, it was straight across the flatlands to the creek. If the creek was frozen, and if you could manage the sharp turn, you could glide along the ice for a while. The trick was not to hit any of the trees lining the bank. He had seen more than one concussion suffered when head met tree trunk, and had banged his own head once or twice trying to make the treacherous turn.
McGill’s Hill was a mecca still popular among local children, who zipped down the hill on everything from plastic bags to fancy hand-steered toboggans—and they still tried to make the dangerous turn, hoping to eke out just a little longer ride.
A thin dusting of snow clung to the brown grasses on the hill’s slope, and Lee was reminded of a mocha cake with vanilla frosting. A lone terrier trotted along the crest of the hill, sniffing energetically at the base of a tree before depositing his calling card, casting a short shadow in the feeble February sun. A young woman followed at some distance, carrying a rolled-up leash and reading a book, not paying any attention to her surroundings.
Lee had to stifle an impulse to stop the car and tell her to be more careful. The sight of a woman alone in an isolated area always brought up these feelings for him now. Laura had loved sledding on McGill’s Hill.
“Does your grandmom take you there to sled?” he asked Kylie, who was sitting next to him, her eyes half closed, lulled by the motion and warmth of the car.
“Sometimes,” she answered. “And she likes to be called Fiona, not grandmom.”
Lee smiled. He didn’t know what his mother’s latest little quirk was about—not about her age, surely. She told anyone who would listen how old she was—usually after asking them to guess first. Then