Naresha sighed. "You get out often enough. More than your share, actually, you hog."

"I do not!"

"Do so. You spend gobs of time down there at the diner, flirting with Amelia."

"I can't help it. She's the first girlfriend I ever had."

Naresha frowned, but her voice was kind. "Acacia, you aren't falling in love with her, are you?"

Acacia stopped pacing and gave her sister a puzzled look. "What? Of course not."

Now Milda chimed in. "Why 'of course not'? You could fall in love with her."

Acacia shrugged. "I dunno, maybe. But I'm not going to."

"But why not?" Milda's expression was dreamy. "Love is so nice."

"Yeah? How would you know, squirt?" There was rough affection in Acacia's tone. The same comment from anyone else would have earned a derisive snort.

Milda smiled gently. "Well, it sounds like it in the books I've read."

Naresha stretched. "I'm not sure I can love. Outside familial bonds, anyway. I'm far too selfish."

"Now Naresha," Milda chided. "You shouldn't talk about yourself like that, or it could become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Love may come when you least expect it."

"You're such a child, pet." Naresha's tone was just as indulgent as Acacia's had been. They were both already extremely fond of their new little sister, but neither could figure out how she'd managed to get such a naive, good-natured personality. They'd discussed it together, and decided that she must have been shielded from most of the hell that The Bastard had put them through the last couple of years. They were glad for her, but it did make it rather hard to explain certain facts of life: like 'Trust no one.'

"Anyway," Milda continued, "I really like Mrs. Wellworth."

"You would." Acacia nudged her over and sat beside her in the window seat. "She treats you like a lost granddaughter." Acacia looked around the small, pleasant room. "I know damn good and well she could get twice as much as she charges for this place. It's a bargain, even if we do have to sleep three in a bed sometimes."

She rubbed her neck. "It's just that I can't be myself around here. It's killing me, us having to try to pretend that there's only you. She's going to catch wise one of these days, and we'll be out on our collective asses. Though she might not realize for awhile." Acacia grinned. "You know, she mistook me for you yesterday, Milda. Said she had no idea I'd cut my hair, and that it looked very becoming, even if it was a little short."

"Maybe she needs glasses." Milda said.

"Um, no, dear. I don't think glasses would help." Naresha hugged her knees, trying to figure out the best way to explain their situation to their little sister. "There's just something wrong with the rest of the world. They can't see more than one of us at once. I've given up trying to understand it, and I just accept it. That's why we told you no talking to each other in public. They just think you're talking to yourself, and that can get you in the booby-hatch."

Milda frowned. "Just for talking to myself? But Mrs. Wellworth does that. Don't most people?"

Acacia got up and started pacing again. "You can generally get away with it if you're, like, doing something. Especially something most people find frustrating. They can relate to it then. But this is off the topic, kiddos. I'm tired of having to sneak in and out for fear of meeting the old gal in the hallway and having to act like Milda. No offense meant, sweety, but you know damn good and well what kind of a strain that would put on me." Milda nodded in understanding. It would be like asking a Bengal to act like a tabby kitten.

"I don't know what else we can do, except introduce you to her."

"Won't work." Acacia shook her head. "Remember the one-at-a-time thing. She'll just think your cheese has slid off your cracker. We're gonna have to move."

"Move?" The distress in Milda's voice was plain. "But... But it's almost Mother's Day. I'm going to make her a special cake."

Naresha looked pointedly at Acacia. "I told you she was becoming too attached. We should have left a month ago, but no--you were too busy trying to put the moves on your hash-slinging sweety."

"Shut up, Nar. You have boyfriends whenever you want, it was past time for me to get a girlfriend. Milda, baby, we talked about this, didn't we? We're not going to be able to settle down in one place for another couple of years. And..." she sighed. "Oh, hell. Naresha is right. I've been pussy-blinded."

"Casey!" A pink tide crept up Milda's cheeks, and her sister chuckled.

"No other word for it, Milda. If I know my own weaknesses, I can try to fight them."

There was a tap on the door, and Naresha and Acacia went very still and quiet. Milda called out, "Come in?"

Winifred Wellworth opened the door and peeked inside. "I thought I heard you talking, dear."

Without hesitation Milda pointed to a thick book on the seat beside her. "Shakespeare, Mrs. Wellworth. It was meant to be spoken, not just read." She recited, "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun..."

Winifred smiled. "Very nice, dear, but that's Romeo's part." Unseen by the elderly woman, Acacia smirked. "I was wondering if you'd mind going by the post office for me today. I'll give you the key to the box."

"Sure, no problem."

"Thank you so much." She placed the post office box key on Milda's dresser. I'm busy getting the place ready for the summer boarders."

"Mrs. Wellworth, you could rent this room to one of them for a lot more than you charge me, couldn't you?"

"Why, yes, I could, but don't you worry about that, Milda. I'm happy to have you here for as long as you like. You're one of the nicest guests I've ever had." *Even if you are one of the most peculiar,* she thought as she closed the door.

"You see, Milda?" Naresha spoke as soon as the door was closed. "We'll be taking money out of her pocket if we stay."

"I'd still like to stay a little longer." Milda folded her arms.

Acacia and Naresha exchanged glances. Milda was usually the most peaceable and pliant of people. This gentle defiance meant that she was putting down roots here, and it just couldn't be allowed. It was too risky.

Acacia picked up the key. "I'll get the mail."

"On you way to or from the diner?" Naresha asked tartly.

"None of your beeswax," Acacia retorted cheerily. She took Milda's wig and put it on with a martyred sigh. "These things are so hot sometimes." She turned to her sisters. "How do I look?"

To anyone else, anyone on the outside, she would have looked like Milda. To Milda and Naresha, she looked like Acacia in a cheap wig. "Only slightly ridiculous," Naresha snickered.

Acacia flipped her the bird, but without any real heat, and hurried out. She managed to make it out of the house without running into Mrs. Wellworth. As soon as she got down the block the wig came off and went into her handbag. She quickly smoothed her short tresses into order and set off at a brisk pace to walk the two miles into the center of town.

*And it's gonna be on my way back from the dinar, Little Sis, because I don't feel like hauling mail when I go to see Amelia.*

The diner was busy: there were more and more travelers as the weather warmed. Acacia caught Amelia's eye as she came in. Giving her a wink that made the older girl blush, she found a booth near the back and slipped into it.

Acacia watched the blonde girl as she worked, swiftly carrying trays and pots of coffee. *Naresha shouldn't worry about me falling in love with her. It's not going to happen, because she's not capable of falling in love with me. Oh, she's havin' fun with me, but way back in the corners of her mind she's still planning on getting married to someone, and settling down and having a house, and kids, and a dog.* Acacia could feel her lip curling. *Unambitious little thing.*

Amelia didn't even have time to greet Acacia properly when she came in. She wouldn't have been exactly sure how to do it with all these people around, anyway. If it was dead, she would have given her a kiss, but... Well, it was all right for women friends to drop a kiss on each others' cheeks. Heck, her mother did it all the time with her bridge buddies. But Acacia kissed on the lips--hard, and that would have raised a few eyebrows.

She wasn't ready to have to try to explain something like that to her parents, since she was still living at home, and she didn't want to have to explain it to her steady man, Lewis, either. Lewis was tolerant of Acacia, though he didn't like her much, and the feeling was mutual. Amelia had started dating Lewis in her junior year, and they had kept it up, more or less, even when he went off to college.

She knew that he dated other women while he was away, probably slept with them, too. Heck it was almost a certainty, since she refused to go to bed with him. As frustrated as he got, he almost had to be getting it elsewhere. It wasn't that she didn't want to sleep with him, but a woman had to be careful these days. Her mama had taught her well. You didn't give in, you held it over their head, dangling the promise like a carrot on a stick. Once they got it, they were probably going to want to go off and sample someone else, for the sake of comparison if nothing else.

Now, with Acacia, there wasn't that problem. Marriage was out of the question for the most obvious of reasons. She didn't have to worry about preserving her virtue, so she hadn't. There had been a few fumbled groping in the dark with friends at cheerleader camp, but never anything like Acacia. Acacia was bold and forceful, knew exactly what she wanted and was obscenely plain in asking for it. Amelia slid her a glance as she slapped another ticket up on the kitchen counter. Acacia was watching Amelia's legs with a single-minded appreciation that would have made her want to slap any man who directed such a look at her. Coming from Acacia, it just made her feel warm.

Amelia would have been astonished to find out that she was Acacia's first lover. The girl had been so assured that she thought that surely she had vast experience. And Acacia did have experience in the physical aspects of sex: all learned at great pain. But this was the first time she was turning the hard gained knowledge to her own benefit, thus it was the first time she had ever had a lover.

A bus driver sat in the booth in front of Acacia, and Amelia hurried to wait on him, glad that he'd sat at her station. The drivers were a little crude, but they always tipped well. She stood at the divider between the two booths and said brightly, "Hey, fella! Just gettin' off?"

"Not yet." Sitting with his back to Acacia's booth, he gave Amelia a lascivious grin, then smirked, "But I wouldn't mind gettin' off. Is that why you're here, darlin'?"

Acacia was sitting just behind him, with her back to his booth, and Amelia noticed her turn her head with a jerk to stare at the back of his head. Amelia shook her head warningly, smile still in place. "I'm just here to take your order."

He laughed. "Oo, she takes orders." His tone was oily and suggestive. "This is what you call a food service job. What other kinds of servicing do you do, little lady?"

Acacia's eyes flicked up to Amelia's face. Her expression clearly said, "Well? DO something?"

*Oh, crap. She wants me to stand up for myself. I hope she doesn't make a scene.* "The cook has a real nice lemon pie, just baked." *C'mon, guy, quit screwing around and order, before she does something stupid.*

"I'm not much on lemon. Now cherry pie, I'll eat all of that I can get." He put a hand on the back of her leg, high up on the thigh. She wasn't wearing stockings, and her skin crawled at the rough touch. "You gonna give me a piece?" His hand started to slide up under the hem.

Before she could say anything or step away, he yelled, jerking his hand back. He stared in astonishment at the four thin welts on the back of his hand. As he watched bright beads of blood bubbled up along each one and began to ooze down his hand. "What the fuck? Do you have a bear trap under there, or what?"

Amelia couldn't help it. She looked sharply at Acacia. Her friend was watching the man with narrowed eyes. She was flexing the fingers on her right hand, and Amelia saw blood. But it was not on the tips of her nails, it was around the bases, as if the cuticles had been split.

Seeing where the waitress was directing her attention, the driver looked also. Acacia stared back into his eyes from a distance of only a few inches. Her voice was rough as she said, "A man who puts his hand where it doesn't belong is likely to draw back a stump."

"What did you do? Rake me with a fork? Hell," he stood up grabbing his hat off the table. He sneered at Amelia. "Why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend?"

Acacia's lips were drawing back from her teeth, "Well, she just thought that you were such a sorry excuse for a man that you'd just instinctively know that she'd rather be with a woman than with you."

"Why, you bitch!" He moved toward her, ready to intimidate her with his bulk.

Complete failure. Acacia rose up to meet him. She bumped aggressively, pushing her own flat belly against his small beer gut, going up on her toes. Her voice was a snarl, "You want a piece of me, dickwad?"

He hesitated, taking a closer look at her. There was a soft, almost inaudible pattering sound, and he looked down. Her small hands were clenched into fists, so hard that he could see the muscles in her forearms trembling. And blood was seeping between her fingers, dripping around her feet. He looked quickly back at her face.

*Motherfucker. She's crazy.* He backed up slowly. "No harm meant, ladies." He nodded at Amelia. "Sorry about that," then turned and hurried out.

"Damn it, Casey! I could have gotten a five dollar tip from him!"

Acacia looked at her with a peculiar expression, one she hadn't given her before. "You mean you were letting him paw you because you expected to get money from him?"

"Hell, a little grope and some dirty talk, and I pull down a load in tips."

Her lover's expression was closing up, going cold. "You don't have to put up with that."

"Acacia, what's the big deal? Everyone does it."

"Not everyone." She reached up to touch Amelia's cheek. "I can't understand you choosing to."

Amelia flinched at the warm, liquid feel of Acacia's fingers. "What did you...?" She gasped. "My God! What did you do to yourself?"

Acacia looked at her hand disinterestedly. Blood seeped from each ragged cuticle, and there were four deep punctures across her palm. "I don't know."

Amelia had a clean rag tucked in her apron, and she whipped it out and wrapped it around Acacia's wounded hand. "Oh, damn, you did it to the other one, too. Casey, are you one of those girls who hurts themselves when she gets mad?"

"No." Acacia was very calm, staring at the tips of her nails as if the answer lay there. "I hurt other people when I'm angry. I think the blood is stopping."

"Look, you ought to go home and tend to that. I'm going to be busy tonight, anyway." Her eyes shifted away uncomfortably.

"How is Lewis, anyway?"

"I... he..."

"I'm going to go wash this."

Acacia went to the diner restroom and used the pungent antiseptic soap to wash her hands. She was right, the bleeding had stopped, though it might be a good idea to bandage it up when she got home. She remembered Naresha complaining about aching and split cuticles before. Was this some sort of medical problem they needed to look into? She'd hardly noticed the pain. But then, she tended to shut pain out when she was pissed.

The busboy was mopping the floor by the back booths, muttering to himself about whether or not someone was going to sue the diner for some reason. That much blood had to involve something someone could sue for.

Amelia, behind the counter, lifted her hand in farewell to Acacia. She was ignored, and hesitantly dropped her arm after the girl had left. Somewhere, deep inside, she knew that she had been dismissed. Suddenly the date with Lewis tonight didn't look all that appealing.

Acacia walked the next two blocks to the post office, studying her hands with concentrated interest. They ached up under the tips, too. It was like someone had pried them up. pulling them loose from the living flesh beneath. The ache would increase, then ease, whenever she flexed her fingers.

At the post office she used the key to open Mrs. Wellworth's box and extracted a handful of mail, then took it over to the little side table to sort. Her landlady had asked that whenever Milda (well, any of the girls, but she wasn't aware of that) retrieved the mail, she would discard any junk mail before bringing it home.

Acacia tucked a fresh stick of gum into her mouth and started flipping envelopes into the trash, muttering, "Circular, circular, begging letter." She looked at one, snorting. *Aluminum siding coupon. They gotta know that shit is going to rust like crazy. Maybe they'll come up with something plastic that will work without looking too crappy someday. That's be a good investment.*

She tapped the remaining few items into a neat bundle, and let her eyes wander to the bulletin board on the wall behind the table. It always gave her a kick to check out the wanted posters. *There are really some butt-ugly crooks out there.*

There was something a little different from the usual mug shots, though. This one didn't have the usual government seals on it, though it looked a lot like the others: headline, picture, then text. Acacia looked at the picture, then froze.

The headline said, "MISSING--PLEASE HELP US FIND OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER" The picture under it showed a slender girl in her mid-teens with long, streaky hair and a timid expression--Kathleen.

Acacia could feel her scalp prickling as she read the rest of it. Missing since such and such a date from such and such a place after family quarrel. Last reported headed in this direction. Emotionally unstable, possibly a danger to herself and others. If located, please call... That wasn't their home number, but she had a feeling it wasn't to any police department, either. Yes, there under it in tiny letters were the words 'Contact Finnegan Private Investigations.' So The Bastard had set dogs on them, just like they'd thought. And the worst part, the most frightening part, the most dangerous part of the poster was that single word at the bottom: REWARD.

Acacia looked around. The lobby was empty. She ripped the poster off the thumbtack and folded it, stuffing it in her purse. She prayed that someone had just dropped this off a day or two ago and left. *Because if they have an operative in town, we're in even deeper shit than I thought.*

She left the post office at a pace just short of running, and she couldn't run, because running was suspicious.