Farmed and Dangerous by Edith Maxwell

the hallway that led to the cells. Last time she’d visited here, Lucinda had been locked in one of them. Cam hoped she wouldn’t be next.
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    Cam stopped by the Westbury Food Mart after she left the police station to pick up a few items. The warm air smelled delectably of fresh baked goods. She browsed the cracker selection in the small local grocery, searching for her favorite rice-flour-and-seed crisps.
    â€œI told you not to touch.” A thin woman slapped her son’s hand off a package of cookies at the other end of the aisle. She wore a fashionably styled blue coat and a matching beret on shoulder-length blond hair, but dark patches under her eyes gave her a haunted appearance.
    Cam watched the scene. The boy, who seemed about six, burst into tears. A somewhat older girl in a puffy pink coat punched the boy in the arm.
    â€œYeah, Mom said not to touch,” she said in a taunting tone.
    â€œDon’t you be hitting him,” the mother said. She slapped the girl’s arm, hard.
    â€œWell, you did.” The girl turned her back and grabbed a bag of gingersnaps off the shelf.
    â€œPut those back. Now.” The mother raised her hand at the girl, who obeyed but glowered. The mother glanced down the aisle and caught sight of Cam. She lifted her chin and held Cam’s gaze for a moment, then hustled the children toward the registers.
    The girl had nailed it. Her mother was modeling behavior she told her children not to follow. Cam watched the children jostle each other while their mother paid for her purchases. A sadness dragged on her heart. As a teenager on one of her summer visits, she’d witnessed an even worse scene right here in the Food Mart. A father had rapped his little son’s hand so hard, he broke it. Cam had resolved right then never to hit her own children, whenever she had some. Or assault anybody, for that matter. She knew parenting wasn’t easy, but physical violence wasn’t the solution to anybody’s problems. Ellie’s friend Vince had had his share of violence at home before he finally got free of his abusive father. He seemed to have overcome that trauma so far, at least according to Ellie.
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    Cam, watching three of the hens peck in their yard, shivered with her hands deep in her coat pockets. A biting wind sliced at her cheeks. An icy cloud blew over the sun, which already hung low in the sky. She thought about shutting the hens in early for the night. She checked her phone: barely three o’clock. The temperature was dropping fast. She hoped the girls wouldn’t freeze inside the coop if the temperature kept dropping, but they seemed to be able to puff out their feathers to insulate themselves. Tiny birds, like chickadees and sparrows, lived outside all winter long, after all. She’d already covered the hoop-house beds, and depending on the temperature tomorrow, she might just leave them covered.
    The crunching noise of tires came from the driveway on the other side of the barn. A door slammed, then footsteps approached. Cam’s heart raced. She wasn’t expecting anyone. She whirled in that direction.
    â€œWicked cold, isn’t it?” a cheery voice called out.
    Cam let out a breath. She greeted Alexandra and DJ when they came into view. Alexandra, a recent college graduate living with her parents while she figured out what came next in her life, was a committed locavore, an artist, a whiz at Web design, and lots more. DJ . . . Well, Cam didn’t know much about his life. He seemed to be in his mid-twenties and was infinitely talented with animals, carpentry, and good cheer.
    Alexandra waved a gloved hand, her flaxen braids trailing out from under a Nordic knit hat with pointed earflaps. Her other hand was linked with DJ’s. His scruffy light-brown beard bore ice crystals near his mouth, and his blue eyes looked happy. He held a big bag of chicken feed on his shoulder.
    â€œThought we’d stop by and see if