Read Online House Arrest by Ellen Meeropol - Free Book Online

been arrested and will be arraigned tomorrow morning—the mothers of the two dead children, and a man allegedly the father of both. Law enforcement consultants from Boston deny any known association between Isis cults and child abuse or ritual sacrifice. But Mahon warned that “any cult must be approached with extreme caution and the expectation of bizarre behavior.”
    Zoe rushed into the kitchen, her stuffed purple rhino gripped under her chin. “I cathed myself again, first try.”
    Sam scooted his chair back to the table. “Good work, Poose.” He rescued the rhino and kissed the top of her head, letting her sandy curls mix with his own. Poose was her old nickname from the days before she mastered the crutches, when her preferred means of transportation was the papoose carrier on Sam’s back.
    Zoe grabbed one waxed tip of Sam’s mustache and tugged. “Papa, I walk now.”
    “You’re still my papoose.” Sam opened the bag of carrot sticks and dumped them into the bowl on the table while Emily scooped peanut butter onto Zoe’s plate.
    “That’s three times in a row, all by myself. So I get a treat. Right?” She looked at her plate. “Hey, what about baking cookies?”
    “No time to bake today.” Emily poured grape juice into Zoe’s plastic cup. “But, you’re right about the treat. I bet you’ve earned a trip to the Toy Palace this weekend.”
    It had taken months of patience to teach his daughter to catheterize herself. Sam suspected Emily had done most of the work. Having Emily live there had turned out pretty well. He had been dubious when Anna’s Aunt Ruth called to say that Emily was moving from Portland down to Springfield, and could use some family. Just for a few months, while she got settled. That was four years ago. By the time Emily arrived, he had already moved into the upstairs apartment, so he didn’t have any say in the decision. He admired how the cousins arranged their work schedules so that Zoe always had supervision. Sometimes, he wished they needed his help more often.
    “I’d rather have a kitty.” Zoe clasped her hands behind her back, leaned over her plate and licked the peanut butter off a carrot stick. “Meow.”
    Emily rescued the rhinestone headband slipping down over Zoe’s nose. “Don’t push your luck. Finish eating, so we can do your stretching exercises, okay?” She sat at the computer and leaned towards the screen.
    Sam stood up. That was probably his cue to leave. But he couldn’t help looking over her shoulder. “Why are you interested in this stuff?”
    “It’s work-related. Confidential.”
    She took those rules awfully seriously. Always saying she couldn’t talk about her patients because of the new federal HIPAA privacy regulations. Sam couldn’t help teasing.
    “I get it,” he said. “Top secret.”
    “Sop tecret.” Zoe echoed, and then slapped her hands over her mouth, looking at Sam.
    Emily didn’t seem to notice. Sam brought his index finger to his lips. He wasn’t exactly sure why he insisted that the spoonerisms be their private language, but he liked it that way.
    “Do you know anything about this Isis group?” Emily asked.
    Sam shook his head. “I just remember reading the stories when the bodies were found, and then they arrested some cult members. But that was a few months ago, right?”
    “Uh huh. It says that they found the bodies on August 23.” Emily clicked on the next entry. “But it took the cops a couple of months to track down the family.”
    “Wasn’t there something about an orgy, dancing around a bonfire on the winter solstice? Isn’t that when the kids died, in that big snowstorm last December?”
    Zoe twisted to look at her father and the carrot missed her mouth, landing a splotch of peanut butter on her cheek. “What kids died?”
    Emily rubbed the peanut butter off with a napkin, kissed the cleaned spot on Zoe’s cheek, her lips pressing there until the girl squirmed. “Never mind, Zoe,” she said.