Excerpt of Included!

JOHN HARTThe cops got nothing.Back in the hall, Grantham crowded me again. “I think that we need tostep outside,” he said.“Why?”“You know why.” His hand settled around my arm. I jerked it away and hegrabbed for it again.“Just a minute now,” Dolf said.Grantham got control of himself. “I told you not to piss me off,” he said.“Come on, Adam,” Robin said. “Let’s go outside.”“No.” It was all settling upon me: Grace’s lost innocence, the suspicionsthat dogged me, and the darkness that hung above my return to this place. “I’mnot going anywhere.”“I want to know what she said.” Grantham stopped short of actually touchingme. “She said something to you. I want it.”“Is that true?” Robin asked. “Did she speak to you?”“Don’t ask me, Robin. It’s not important.”“If she said anything, we need to know what it is.”I took in the faces around me. What Grace had said was for me, and I feltno need to share it. But Robin put her hand on my arm. “I have vouched foryou, Adam. Do you understand what that means?”I pushed lightly past her and looked in on Grace. She had curled into aball, her back to the world outside. I still felt the hot slide of her tears as she’dpressed against me. I spoke to Grantham, but put my eyes on my father. I toldthem exactly what she said.“She said that she was sorry.”My father slumped.“Sorry for what?” Grantham asked.I’d told them the truth, exactly what she’d said; but interpreting that apologywas not my problem. So, I offered an explanation that I knew he would accept,even though it was a lie.“When we were at the river, she said that she hated me. I imagine that shewas apologizing for that.”He looked thoughtful. “That’s it?” he asked. “That’s all she said?”“That’s it.”60