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then?”
    Miss Taffy waved a hand as though she was done wasting her time with us. “Get on, then, and see for yourself. I got work to do.”
    Luke and I treaded across the perfectly manicured lawn, being careful not to step on anything important.
    “Too much work takin’ care of all these plants,” Luke muttered. “Ain’t a body got enough to do without foolin’ with flowers?”
    “They ain’t got to do it themselves,” I countered quietly. “They pay somebody to do it. Ain’t no big deal when youain’t got to do the work and you have enough money to pay for anythin’.”
    “Bein’ rich don’t guarantee an easy life, Jessie.”
    “I didn’t say it did.” I took another long look around the grounds and sighed. “Sure would make it a sight nicer, though.”
    “Depends on who’s got it. Money in a good person’s hands can be a good thing, but money in a bad person’s hands can do no end of evil.”
    “I s’pose. But look at these,” I said, holding my hands out for inspection. “These are the hands of a good person. I think I could do some good with it.”
    He smiled and tugged at a lock of my hair. “Sure enough, Jessie. They’re good hands. Now, whether or not they’ll be filled with money someday, we’ll have to see.”
    We came upon a short, sprawling brick building, and I peeked into one of the low windows. “Don’t see nobody. You see anybody?”
    Luke moved around the other side of the building, and I waited a minute for him to come back.
    “Don’t see anybody back there,” he told me.
    The window was slightly open, so I leaned close to it and hollered for Gemma. There was no answer.
    “Guess we’d better head on back to the road and wait for her there,” Luke suggested.
    “If she ain’t already started for home before we got here.”
    “We’d have passed her on the way. Come on. Let’s get on out front before we do miss her.”
    We had just started walking back when we heard a door slam behind us. I turned around and waited a few seconds before I saw someone come walking quickly around the corner of the summerhouse. Dusk was settling in, but I identified her right off.
    “Gemma?” I called. “Gemma, over here!”
    She glanced up at me with color in her cheeks. “What’re you two doin’ here?”
    “Come to carry you home, is all. There somethin’ wrong?”
    “No,” she muttered, though she didn’t look at us as she walked on past. “Just been busy. Too much to do around here.”
    “Well, Daddy said you were supposed to be done by now, so we came to walk with you.”
    “Ain’t ready to go home yet.” She still hadn’t taken the time to look me in the eye and was twisting her hands in front of her. “There’s more work to do, and I got to stay to see it done.”
    “But how will you get home?”
    “I got two legs, ain’t I?”
    I was frustrated with her tone, and I made a move to say so, but Luke’s hand on my shoulder stopped me.
    “Mr. Lassiter don’t want you walkin’ home alone so late, Gemma,” Luke said in a nice, easy tone. “If you got to stay late, why don’t you ring him up when you’re ready, and he can come by and get you in the truck.”
    Gemma didn’t say anything; she just stared at her feet,still holding her hands tightly together. I heard someone rustling across the grass toward us and looked past Gemma to see Joel Hadley coming from the direction of the summerhouse. I watched him stride across the lawn with that arrogant bounce of his and felt my body break out in a chill. There was no mistaking where he’d been, and I pulled my gaze from him to Gemma in one quick motion.
    But she couldn’t look at me, and I wasn’t too young to figure out why. “I think you best come on with us now,” I said quietly but sternly. I knew my Gemma, and I knew Joel Hadley. If there was trouble, I knew where it came from, and I wanted nothing more than to get her away from the whole lot of them. “I bet they got lots of help in there anyway.