I finally broke the silence by asking, “Is she okay?”

Barbara, Lindsey, and Amanda all looked at me. It was Cissy who answered, “Yeah, I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

“I know you will,” I told her, more because she needed to hear it than from any belief that it was true.

Barbara turned from Lindsey to look at me, holding tightly to Cissy’s hand, as if any of us might be the enemy. “Why didn’t you notice?” she demanded of me.

Why hadn’t I protected Cissy was her real question. I shook my head helplessly.

Barbara looked around the room. “I don’t really know any of you. I only have your word…” She looked at me.

“Ms. Selby,” Lindsey said, “I’d be glad to show you my credentials, give you references.”

“I know,” Barbara said, but she still looked at me. “I have a lot of things to think about. Right now, I just need to take Cissy home.”

She brushed past me, taking Cissy with her.

“If there’s anything I can do…” I said.

Barbara didn’t answer. Cissy turned back to look at me, then Barbara pulled her through the door and they were gone.

For a moment there was silence, then Amanda said, “Shoot the messenger. She’d do better to take it out on the person who did that to her daughter.”

“She’s angry,” Lindsey replied. “And we don’t know who did it.” Then she added softly, “We may never know. What does a mother do with that kind of anger?”

The front door opened and Lindsey’s next patient came in.

Lindsey shook her head, as if clearing it, then went back to her office. Amanda returned to the reception area.

I didn’t move. I had no idea what to do next. Amanda greeted the newcomers, her face a polite, official mask.

Finally I said, “Ask Lindsey to call me.” Then I left.

I got into my car and headed straight home. I was hoping Lindsey would call, and I wanted to be there when she did.

It was almost eight o’clock when she called. “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Can we meet?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” I replied, wondering what she couldn’t say over the phone.

“Good, I’ve got to get out of this office and I’m starving.” We decided on a Japanese restaurant that was equally inconvenient for both of us and said good-bye.

The rain was still pouring down, messing up traffic and driving the already not-very-stable New Orleans denizens to new heights of vehicular insanity. A Volkswagen and a Mack truck played chicken at a broken stoplight.

When I got to the restaurant, there were only a few parking spaces, the close, convenient handicapped place, and several in the far corner, beyond a few lake-sized puddles. With a sigh, I drove to the far corner.

I stood under the restaurant awning for a few minutes, trying to dry off. Lindsey pulled in, taking the convenient spot.

“Hi,” she said as she got out. “You look wet.”

I nodded. I was wet. She took my arm to walk up the stairs. The women who run the restaurant settled us into a corner, with me next to a heating vent. With any luck, I’d be dry before I had to go out and get wet again.

After we ordered, Lindsey said without preamble, “There’s not much I can really tell you. Sessions are confidential, and without Barbara Selby’s permission, I can’t reveal anything.”

“Okay,” I replied. I felt like saying, “Then I can’t tell you anything either.” But Lindsey was right. She was tired by the sound of her voice. and I needed her help.

“I have a few things for you, but they can’t go beyond this table,” I said.

“What do you have?”

“I traced the matchbook. Real seedy place over by the Desire Project.”

“Shit,” Lindsey interjected. “How did something like that get in Cissy’s pocket?”

“That I don’t know. Yet. This bar is the kind of place where you can get anything you want. Anything,” I added for emphasis.

“Like children?” Lindsey asked grimly.

“Pictures, at the very least.”

“Photos or drawings?”

“Photos.”

“Real kids?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Lindsey was silent for a moment, then said, “If they’ve got to have it, why can’t they draw fucking pictures?”

Since it wasn’t a question she expected an answer to, I continued, “Cissy’s picture wasn’t there. But a classmate of hers was.” I explained to Lindsey about Judy Douglas.

When I finished, she asked, “So what does that tell us?”

“A young girl has a matchbook from a bar that sells kiddie porn. That tells me a lot.”

“But Judy Douglas wasn’t murdered. She was killed in a senseless accident. No link there.”

“Someone took a picture of her. Now Cissy’s been molested.” I made it a statement so Lindsey couldn’t hide it behind confidentiality.

“Yeah, probably.”

“I’m not stupid,” I said angrily. “She was bleeding vaginally. What the hell else does that mean?”

“Estimates vary, but between twenty-five and fifty percent of all girls are molested. On my cynical days I think it might be even higher than that. Certainly there is a possibility that Cissy is a victim of the same pornographer that got Judy Douglas. But there’s also the very real chance that it’s just common everyday sexual abuse—father, brother, uncle, teacher, preacher, friendly neighbor, practically always a man, rarely a woman, but it does happen.”

“Is Barbara going to the police?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Why?” I demanded.

Lindsey sighed, as if weighing what to reveal. “All the police can do is arrest someone. So far there’s nobody to arrest. What’s gained by putting Cissy through the trauma? Even if she reveals who did it, what happens if it’s her word against his?”

“If she doesn’t testify, he walks, if she does…”

“She gets raked over the coals by his attorney,” Lindsey finished for me.