He sat there on the couch for a while until he began to get himself back under control. Slowly, he began to come to the conclusion that he really ought to get something to eat – it was possible that having something in his stomach might make him feel better, and might bring his blood sugar up to operating levels or something. Slowly and with great reluctance he levered himself off the couch and made his way to the elevators, and was soon on the ground floor, following the signs to the cafeteria.

It was a slide-your-tray-through cafeteria. There was a lot of different food there, but none of it looked particularly appealing to him just then. Out of habit or desperation or something, he grabbed a hamburger from under a heat lamp; it didn’t look particularly good, but looked like food. There were some fries nearby that fell into the same category; they looked a little better than the crap they called French fries in the high school cafeteria, but not much better. He knew he could survive those, so he could probably manage these. A piece of cherry pie caught his attention, so he grabbed that, and got a cup for the pop dispenser. He paid the older lady in a hairnet at the register, and filled the cup with Coke before plopping down at a table.

The Coke tasted good, if a little funny and watery, but all fountain Cokes tasted funny like that, and the sugar seemed to give him a lift. The hamburger was edible, though far from the best he’d ever had. It was a little stale from all the time under the heat lamp; the fries were soggy and lifeless, but at least edible, as well. The pie was better – nothing like his Aunt Jackie made for things like Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, but not bad. Christmas wasn’t that far off, and he could expect a couple of pretty decent pies when the family gathered for the annual feast, a bigger deal than Thanksgiving in the family. It was only a couple weeks or so, and his mother had been decorating the house for the holidays a little at a time over the last few days.

Had Janice ever had a Christmas dinner like the Archers?

It was a disquieting thought. If she had, it hadn’t been a Christmas within the last several years, that was for sure. He had the impression that while there had once been some love in the family, it was long gone. Shit, she deserved better than what she’d gotten. How could he have been so lucky as to have a good, close family where everyone cared for each other? She’d had damn little of that, if any at all. What a fucking shame.

Even after all she’d been through, Janice still seemed like a basically nice girl underneath it all. Undoubtedly she’d been warped by the experiences she’d had, but maybe not irretrievably so – who knew? There was a desperate temptation to reach out to her, to try to make things better, not that he hadn’t already done a fair amount of it so far. What the fuck was going to happen to her, anyway?

Listlessly he finished the food, dumped the trash in a trash can, put the tray in a stack, and took the Coke with him as he headed for the door. Just outside the cafeteria, he noticed a pay phone. Face it, he thought. You’re over your head, and there’s not much you can do by yourself if you can do much at all. He thought about it for a moment, then stepped into a phone booth, set the Coke on a tiny ledge, and picked up the handset.

It was an incredible amount of messing around to make a collect call to Spearfish Lake Outfitters, and it could have been avoided if he’d just remembered to charge up the cell phone in the car and bring it in with him. Maybe he ought to think about carrying one, he thought as the operator went through the hassle of clearing the collect call.

“Hi, Cody,” his mother said. “How’s it going?”

“Could be better,” he said. “Mom, is there any chance you could come down here and see Janice?”

“I suppose,” she replied. “What’s the matter?”

“The poor girl has gone through an incredible amount of shit with her family,” he reported. “If I had the P226 and knew where the bodies were, I’d go empty a couple magazines into each of them just to make real sure they were dead.”

His mother let out a sigh. “After what I’ve heard today, I guess I’m not surprised. So what is it you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” Cody replied flatly. “If I knew, I’d tell you. I just feel like I’m in over my head and I don’t know what to do. She’s basically a good kid, Mom, but no one should have to go through the shit she’s endured. I don’t know what to do other than listen to her and try to be nice to her. If nothing else, I need your advice.”

“Should I bring your father?”

“It can’t hurt,” Cody said. “I’ll tell you what, Janice needs to know that someone else cares, not just me.”

“All right,” she replied. “I’ll ask him. It might be a couple hours, I don’t know what appointments he might have, and it’s too close to closing to get Tiffany in to watch the place for the short time I have left. Have you eaten?”

“I just had a burger and fries at the hospital cafeteria,” he reported. “The food is better than at the high school, but not much.”

“Maybe we’ll add a stop at a drive through on the way down,” she told him. “Hang in there, Cody.”

Cody hung up the phone and just sat back in the booth. Now just what the hell did I hope to accomplish with that, he wondered. He took a sip of the Coke, then another, then tossed the cup into a nearby trash can, let out a sigh and headed for the elevator.

Candice was just about certain that she had never met Janice Lufkin – or at least, if she had, she didn’t remember it. Either way, she had no idea of what to expect when she walked into the hospital room in front of John.

From the door, it looked like a typical hospital room, plain and functional. Her first sight of Janice was of the girl lying in the hospital bed, bandaged and not looking like much. Given that no one ever looks their best in a hospital bed, she didn’t seem too bad, although with all the bandages and bruises it was hard to tell. She seemed slight, washed out, perhaps a little pathetic. Of course, being in a hospital bed probably added to that.

Cody was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her hand, perhaps looking a little concerned. “Hi Mom, Dad,” he said in a conversational voice, but obviously with a little bit of strain to it. “Janice, these are my folks, John and Candice.”

“Hi, Mrs. Archer, Mr. Archer,” she said softly. “Cody said you were coming. Mrs. Archer, Cody has been telling me about you and some of your adventures. I can’t imagine what it would be like to race a dog sled over Alaska.”

“Please, Janice, call me Candice,” she replied, looking at the hands being held and the way Janice was looking at her. It was clear that the girl had no idea of what to expect, which was pretty much the way Candice felt, too. She had an uncomfortable feeling that there was more to this than a simple hospital visit. “How are you feeling?”

“I hurt,” Janice said weakly, like she was watching from a distance. “But I guess that’s better than the alternative.”

Candice started to reply but before she did, she realized that the alternative Janice had been talking about had almost happened, and would most likely have happened if Cody hadn’t stepped in. “I suppose,” was the reply that she settled for.

“I still can’t quite believe I’m here,” she said, with a little more firmness in her voice. “It seems like a miracle that Cody came to rescue me.” Candice could see the girl squeeze her son’s hand as she continued, “The more I know about it, the more it really seems like a miracle.”

“Are they going to be keeping you here very long?” Candice asked. Somehow, Janice seemed to be in a little better condition than she had expected – which was to say that she’d been expecting to find the girl worse than she did, not that she looked at all good.

“I don’t know,” Janice replied. “A few days, I guess. Thanks for coming to see me. Cody said that he’d come, but I didn’t believe it until after he walked in the door.” She let out a sigh and continued, “I guess I’m surprised that anyone came at all.”

“You don’t have any relatives or anything?” John asked.

“Not that I know of,” Janice replied sadly. “As far as I know my . . . my . . . my father,” she finally spat out, “ . . . lost track of his brother years ago. There’s no one else I can think of. I don’t know anyone in my mother’s family.”

Candice was at a loss for what to say next. She knew from the discussion at the Spearfish Lake Café and from some things that had been said during the day at the shop that the girl had been through a rough time. From what she had been able to pick out from Cody’s brief call it had been even rougher than she’d first heard. She didn’t know anything in the way of details, and really was reluctant to ask – she didn’t want to make things more painful than they already were for the girl. Just be friendly, she thought. “So what have you and Cody been talking about?” she asked as a way to get something started.

“Oh, nothing in particular,” Janice replied. “He’s been telling me about you a little. I’ve been telling him about some of the troubles I’ve had. I’m glad they’re behind me.”

“I had the impression that you’d had some trouble,” Candice said mildly, leaving it up to the girl whether she wanted to open up about it or not.

“More than some,” Janice said sadly.

The story came out in bits and pieces over the next hour or so, much the same as Cody had heard a few hours before. She didn’t go into lots of detail, but it was clear that she’d been abused a lot and not cared for very much, if at all, especially after her mother died. Candice felt herself increasingly dismayed as she heard it. She could look at John and realize that he was feeling pretty much the same way.

It was just simply a damn shame. From what she could tell, Janice was a pretty decent girl, in spite of all she’d gone through. It had affected her, and that kind of treatment would have affected anyone. And the more she heard, the more helpless she felt.

“Janice,” she asked finally, “what are you going to do when they let you out of here?”

“I don’t know,” the girl said in a distant voice. “I don’t want to go home, not that I had a home anyway. There are too many bad memories there. Sergeant Wexler said that the Protective Services people could probably find a foster home for me to go to, but I haven’t heard anything from them. I hope something good will happen, but it can’t be worse than what I had.”

Oh boy, Candice thought. Was this what Cody was up to? Not that the idea didn’t have a certain appeal. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, turning and heading for the door. John was right behind her, and Candice had a pretty good idea that he was thinking much the same thing as she was. Out in the hall, they moved a little ways away from the room, up toward the nurse’s station. “Stray kitten mode, right?” John smirked.

“I don’t pick up stray kittens,” Candice snorted.

“Then what are those three furry couch potatoes that leave cat fur all over the house?” he teased.

“Well, all right,” Candice admitted. “The thought was there. Is there. I think the kid needs a home where she can feel she’s wanted, where she can decompress from all that shit. Cody has said that he feels responsible for her, and in a way he’s right. It doesn’t have to be permanent, but she has an obvious connection to Cody.”

John let out a smile. “I wondered what Cody was up to,” he said in a light tone. “He’s passing the ball to us without asking.”

“You could be right,” Candice agreed. “But my gut tells me that I don’t want to turn my back on her. I think we ought to make the offer. After all, like I said, it doesn’t have to be forever, just for a few days.”

“I seem to remember that statement being made about several kittens,” John smirked again, then got serious. “Not that I think it’s a bad idea either. I could be wrong, but I think there’s a good kid in there waiting to be brought out.”

“I do, too,” she agreed. “But since we seem to be thinking along the same lines, let’s at least do a little more looking into it before we make the offer.”

“Sounds reasonable,” he agreed. “I can think of tons of problems, or at least questions that have to be answered. Like, God knows what her hospital bill has to be already, but I’ll bet this place charges five hundred bucks for ‘take two aspirin and call me in the morning.’ I’ll bet it’s in five figures already.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Candice said after a moment’s pause to consider it. “On the other hand, we wouldn’t be legally responsible for that bill. After all, she’s not our kid. I don’t know where the money would come from. Maybe Protective Services would pick it up, or Medicaid. Maybe she’ll have to come up with it herself, even if she isn’t of age yet. I don’t know. She’s going to have tons of stuff that she’s going to need help straightening out.”

“Yeah, she’s going to need help with that, if nothing else,” John agreed. “It’s going to take some research, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Matt Schindenwulfe got involved somewhere along the way. But whoever winds up paying it, it’s going to be less if she doesn’t have to stay in the hospital any longer than necessary.”

“That was roughly my thinking,” Candice nodded. “That’s what I came out to find out about.”

“I think you’re a step ahead of me,” John told her. “What do you think? Start at the nurse’s station?”

“Yeah, they’ll just refer us to her doctor, but maybe he hasn’t gone home yet.”

They walked on up to the nurse’s station and explained the question to the nurse behind the desk. “I don’t know what the plans are about releasing her,” the nurse said after a quick look at Janice’s records. “It won’t be tonight, that’s for sure. But she seems to be coming along pretty well, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it was in the next couple days, if she could expect proper home care.”

“That was the impression I had,” Candice replied. “When do you think we might be able to know more?”

“Hard to say,” the nurse said. “I’ll leave a note on her file about it. It might help if you were here when the doctor makes his rounds tomorrow. It should be about ten.”

“Thanks, you’ve been very helpful,” Candice told the nurse, and she had been. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Now what?” John asked his wife.

“Let’s uh, go up the hall,” she replied, and walked away from the nurse’s station before she turned to him and said. “That’s about what I expected, I guess. I don’t think she’s ready to be discharged myself, and my medical knowledge runs more toward dogs than people. At the same time, the way she looks it doesn’t seem like she’s going to be in here for a long time. But we probably need to make up our minds pretty quick since there will be stuff that we’ll have to do to get ready. Really, we need to have Cody involved with any solid decisions we make.”

“Yeah,” John agreed thoughtfully. “I’d be interested in his take on the question before we make a decision. He does know her better than we do, after all.”

“All right, that sounds like the next step. Let’s go in and sound her out a little without committing ourselves, and then take Cody for a cup of coffee or something.”

“Sounds like it’ll work,” he nodded. “I think this is going to be a little more complicated than picking up a kitten from on the street.”

“Yeah,” Candice sighed, “but John, I don’t know how to say this, but I can’t get over the feeling that if someone doesn’t rescue that girl that’s just where she’s going to wind up, homeless and out on the street some place.”

“I could see that happening,” John sighed. “And I sure wouldn’t want to be a part of that happening as a result of my inaction. I don’t want to put words in Cody’s mouth, but it sure would be a shame if we let what he did go to waste.”

After a few minutes in Janice’s room they’d learned a little less than they hoped, mostly because they didn’t know how to ask the questions without tipping their hands. Once it was clear that they weren’t getting anywhere, John announced, “We didn’t stop on the way down here for dinner. I can’t believe the cafeteria here is as bad as Cody said.”

“It’s better than high school, but not much,” Cody shrugged unenthusiastically. “The pie was pretty good, though.”

“Right now, food sounds good,” John said, ignoring Cody’s lack of enthusiasm. “How about you, Candice?”

“I could eat something,” she agreed. “Cody, would you like to go along?”

“Not really,” Cody said. “I’ve been there.”

“Why don’t you come along?” his father said. His voice acquired a little edge as he said, “I think there are things we need to talk about.”

Cody glanced at Janice, who looked a little upset. Her expression seemed to indicate that she thought this couldn’t be good. “Will you come back?” she asked softly.

“Sure I will,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be long.”

“Just come back,” she said. “I’m not as scared when you’re here.”

He gave her hand a little squeeze. “Hang in there, I won’t be long.” He turned to his parents. “All right, let’s go.”

The three of them filed out, Cody in the rear. Candice noticed that he gave Janice a little smile and a wave as he left her sight, as if to give her a little more encouragement. “OK, how do we get there?” Candice asked as he came out the room.

“Down the hall to the elevator,” he said. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Let’s let it wait for a minute,” John said, glancing back at Janice’s room to make his point.

As it turned out, there were several people in the elevator, which made it seem like it wasn’t a good place to talk. When they reached the ground floor, Cody led them toward the cafeteria. “It wasn’t this busy when I was here earlier,” he told them. He looked around at the number of people dressed in scrubs and uniforms and commented, “I guess it must be getting near break time.”

From Candice’s viewpoint, the food line didn’t look that bad. She decided on some beef and noodles that looked pretty good under the circumstances, and added a few other things. John took a look at her plate and decided it looked pretty good, too. Cody said he wasn’t all that hungry and just grabbed a piece of pie and a plastic bottle of chocolate milk.

They found a table on the far side of the room that was fairly isolated. “All right,” Cody said, looking at the pie without much interest. “What did you have in mind?”

“Cody,” John said, “did you ask us down here to convince us to take Janice in for a while?”

“Not really,” Cody replied, clearly depressed. “I was just so bummed by everything she told me I felt like I needed the support, or to spread the story around so I wouldn’t feel as alone, or something. I can’t tell you what. That’s all I had in mind, honestly. But I have to admit that the idea sounds like a good one to me. Janice is a nice kid, you can see that, but she’s been handed a plate full of shit.”

“That’s pretty obvious,” Candice said as she worked to get a plastic fork out of its plastic bag – the cafeteria didn’t feature real silverware. “I didn’t think you were setting us up, but I guess we wanted to be sure.”

“Not really,” he said. “I feel responsible for her, there’s no doubt about it. I mean, I said it last night. I killed her whole family. I mean, it was a mighty damn piss poor family, but it was her only family. I suppose they can find a foster home for her, but some of those don’t have the best reputation, if you know what I mean. Even if they do put her in a foster home, she’ll be too old for the system in less than a year, and then what happens? I feel sorry for the shit she’s been through and us helping her out is an obvious idea. But I didn’t feel like it was my place to ask you for it.”

“So you let us come up with it on our own,” Candice nodded as she picked up a fork full of the beef and noodles. “Somehow, I’m not surprised. If we hadn’t brought it up, would you have done it?”

“Probably not tonight,” he said, an honest if sheepish tone to his voice. “It would have taken me longer to get up the guts to ask you.”

“Well, we are considering it,” John told him. “We haven’t made up our minds yet, but we wanted you on board with whatever we decided to do. I guess the big question in my mind is, ‘Is it going to work?’”

“No telling,” Cody said. “Like I told you last night, she was a pretty good kid in elementary school, before her mother died, but she’s gone downhill from there. I think I understand why a part of that happened, maybe a lot of it, but without having been through it I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand it. I think she’s basically a good kid who’s been shit on a lot, and it’s broken her. Can she be fixed? I think so, but it’s going to take showing her that she’s worth caring about. I figured I’d help her with that a little whatever happened, but I think I can do a lot better job if she’s living with us.”

“Cody,” Candice asked, “are you in love with her or something?”

“No, I can’t say as I am,” Cody told her. “I care for her, I care about her, but it’s the way you’d care for a stray kitten you picked up along the street in a rainstorm. You want it to be warm and dry and purring, not all wet and miserable and lonely.”

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