HARVESTLAND

By

Meldrick Carter

FINAL

10.31.20

ONE

Riggsboro, Iowa

October 29, 1994

A cold wind swept through town like a flood. Autumn leaves danced. Naked tree limbs quivered.

Winter was coming. Charlee could feel it even now as she worked up a decent sweat, riding her bike through the neighborhoods looking for a hidden street called Sleepy Hollow.

Though it was a long and winding road, you could pass it without realizing, shrouded as it was most of the year behind the lush green of tall oak trees, vines and ivy that clung to fences, bushy hedges that lined the sidewalks.

This time of year the amber-burned leaves would have the street blanketed. And come winter, snow would take over and bury it all.

Charlee knew she had seen the road before. She could picture the green street sign which itself always seemed obscured, be it by shadow play or the surrounding flora. But whenever she gave it some thought, she could never place where in town it actually was, as elusive in her mind as it was in real life.

For a long time she had it confused with South Hollow Drive, a street on her side of town she could actually give directions to, that she had been on several times and could name a few kids from school who lived there. When she was younger she used to mistakenly call that street Sleepy Hollow, thinking about the story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.

She stopped calling it that when her mother actually insisted on it, one day when she was eight or nine. "No, Charlee, South Hollow. Sleepy Hollow's a different street, a little, well…a little farther away. So don't call it that."

Thinking back on it Charlee saw it as a silly reason for a parent to get upset, hardly worth the exchanged glances her mother and father shared as they all sat at breakfast. But she made no more mistakes after that and since then had only vague memories of times she had passed by in a car or on her bike.

All this came back when she had seen the address that her friend had written for her just yesterday in school. 7 Sleepy Hollow Drive, scrawled in Alison's bubbly girlish handwriting, the 'i' actually dotted with a heart.

This afternoon Charlee had gotten out her bike and left a note for her parents saying where she'd be, why she'd be there, when she'd be home, and a phone number where she could be reached—always the demand of the wardens. Before leaving she opened up a map of the town and spent several minutes looking at it before she found Sleepy Hollow, lost in labyrinthine suburbia, a winding road in a neighborhood across town called the Valley.

Riggsboro was a valley town in general, nestled in the heart of Poweshiek County hill country. It lay lower in elevation than the rest of the county, but its outskirts had more hills than the whole of this flat state. And despite the flooding that rampaged through town every spring, Riggsboro thrived. It was one of the fastest growing towns in the county behind Grinnell and Montezuma. A powerful development company had owned all the real estate in Riggsboro for generations, and they were ever-expanding.

The actual Valley neighborhood itself was the lowest part of town, and the most protected, surrounded by the highest floodwalls—steep levees built out of earth by the Army Corps of Engineers to prevent the rise of river water that raged outside its shores during the spring storms.

Charlee biked over to the Valley in about twenty minutes, the map grasped in her hand and pressed hard against the handle. She liked the exercise she got from the bike but at the same time was looking forward to when she could get her learner's permit, then a license, maybe save up some money for her own ride.

She shook off another chill as she turned onto Sleepy Hollow and pedaled to house number seven, fallen leaves getting caught up in the spokes of her tires. Parking the bike next to the mailbox, she took off her helmet and ran a hand through her messy, boyishly short hair.

There was a scarecrow on the front lawn with a menacing jack-o'-lantern for a head. Charlee liked it. Very macabre. The trees were adorned with fake cobwebs, and sheets made to be ghosts hung from the branches and billowed in the wind.

She trotted up the stone pathway and rang the doorbell several times in rapid succession, giving the screen door a rhythmic drum roll. While waiting she looked behind at the quiet of the street, the Victorian houses and yards all similar and neatly kept. She saw a twister of leaves and pine needles swirl across the front yard in a passing breeze. From up the road she heard a barking dog and the wail of a leaf blower.

She had a sudden feeling of déjà vu that was gone as fast as it came. Before she could think on it she heard the door open and turned around, surprised to see a forty-something woman opening the door instead of Alison.

"Charlee," the woman said. Not a question, an assumption. Giving her a not so subtle once-over.

"Yeah. Charlee McCool." She'd gotten that look before, that quick judging of character and personality based on her less than conventional appearance, not helped either by her less than conventional name. She figured it was the hair they took notice of first—short, uneven, choppy, dyed black from its original brunette. Then it was the clothes—pajama pants, thermal undershirt, man's t-shirt with the sleeves intentionally cut off. It always prompted the look, the look that said this girl is no good, maybe even a lesbian (no thanks to her name), but most definitely with that smartass rebel attitude all them kids got today, walking around like they just got out of bed. You got to watch this one.

Charlee stuck out her hand first, and the woman seemed surprised by the polite gesture. Already Charlee was feeling bad for her antics with the doorbell; she hadn't figured any parents would be home, given that was what Alison had told her.

"I'm Alison's mother, Kathy," the woman said, shaking the hand extended to her. "Alison told me you'd be here about now."

Charlee walked in and slipped off her Converse sneakers. That was when peppy little Alison plopped down the stairs. She was a cute thing, her blonde hair in pigtails like a child.

"Hey Charlee. I saw you coming up outside my bedroom window."

"Hey Alison." Charlee was still amazed the two of them had remained friends. They had hit it off last year because of their shared interest in writing, and had kept in touch a bit over the phone during the summer months.

"So you and Charlee have a class together, Alison?" Mrs. Brown asked.

"No, creative writing club," Alison said.

"Yeah," Charlee said. "I started coming to the club, uh, the end of the year last year." She thought about adding that it was at the request of her nagging mother who said it was time to start joining clubs and stop being anti-social. So she picked the one that sounded like it would suck the least. And that was creative writing, despite being terrified about anyone else coming near her work.

After escaping Mrs. Brown, who insisted that each of the two beautiful girls have a slice of her fall apple pie—"especially for you, Ms. McCool, you are so skinny"—Charlee and Alison went upstairs.

"She's right, you know," Alison said. "You are too skinny. Skin and bones."

"Flat-chested is all," Charlee said. "Makes me look skinnier. My mother calls me the queen of the itty bitty titty committee."

"You're not anorexic, are you?"

"If you saw the way I eat, you wouldn't even ask."

"So you're just one of those lucky girls who can eat all she wants but still stay thin, huh?"

"I guess so."

"And you're very tall. Tall and spindly. Like a spider."

"Uh…thank you?"

Walking into Alison's room, Charlee wasn't surprised at all to see a flowery pink bedspread covered with stuffed animals, or the open closet with Barbie dolls strewn about the floor. This girl was for real, the type who just couldn't help but hold on to the last vestiges of childhood.

"I didn't know your parents would be here," Charlee said. "I felt like an ass the way I rang the doorbell. I thought it was just gonna be you."

"Me too, I'm sorry," Alison said, her whine just like a little girl's.

"It's fine," Charlee said.

It was weird to be at Alison's house, in her room. Most of Charlee's friends her whole fifteen years of life had been guys. Her main friends Eddie and James had rooms like Charlee's, messy displays of blatant geekdom. In her own room Charlee proudly exhibited Doctor Who posters, Transformers action figures, Megadeth album art,and even Star Wars bed sheets she insisted on keeping despite desperate pleas from her mother.

Right now she was missing out on a Magic tournament in Eddie's basement, but the prospect of female companionship was new and exciting to her. Alison might have been her closest female friend, but they had only talked together at school or on the phone. Being at her house took their friendly acquaintanceship to actual friendship.

Charlee made pointless conversation. "So, uh…how are you doing?"

"I'm good," Alison said. "You?"

"Good. So…you wanted to show me something for our assignment?"

Alison nodded like an excited little girl. Charlee thought for a moment she was going to pull out her Beanie Baby collection. Instead she said, "It's kind of down the street. We have to go on a walk."

"I just biked my whole way here, now you want me to walk somewhere?"

"We don't have to go just yet. You want to watch a movie downstairs or something?"

"Long as it's not a Disney movie."

"I'm not as obvious as you think."

"I'm beginning to find that out about you. You write some pretty good love stories. A bit too Harlequin romance for me, but not bad."

"Well, thank you."

"I'd like them better if it wasn't for that awful cliché of, you know, busy lonely city girl going out to the country to meet some cowboy with a big dick who shows her true love. The only ones worse are when busy lonely city girl goes to Europe and meets some foreign long-haired muscle-bound pretty boy with an accent. There's always some jack-hole on the cover with no shirt on and some pathetic female swooning in the background. All that nonsense makes us girls seem horrifically predictable."

"Oh really. Well how about you? I'm sure the superhero graphic novel thing has never been done before."

"Hey," Charlee said. "It's not just a graphic novel, it's a series. And the character I'm working with is not your conventional superhero. She's a vigilante but in a very realistic setting. No super powers, no money for a bunch of crazy gadgets. Plus I'd like to mix some genres, you know, some superhero action, but also crime drama and tragic love story. Make it into a long running thing, you know."

"How about happy endings?" Alison said. "Why does it always have to be tragic in your stories?"

"Because that's real life."

"Whatever. The point is, my stories are better."

"Yeah, well, you're a bitch."

Alison gasped. "You just said the 'b' word!"

For a second Charlee thought she was serious.

"I'm just kidding," Alison said. "Bitch."

They laughed.

"Hey, did you see that guy behind you?" Alison asked.

"What?"

"When I saw you out the window, I saw this guy a little ways behind you. He was really tall. Just walking. Couldn't make him out clearly, he just looked creepy. Like he was following you."

"I didn't see anyone."

"Oh."

"Maybe I have a stalker."

"Could be."

Charlee jerked her head to the cowboy hat that sat atop Alison's desk. "Do you honestly wear that thing?"

Alison jumped up and donned the hat, tipping it to Charlee. "Yes, ma'am. Yee-haw." She whipped around an imaginary lasso.

"You're not serious."

"I have a guitar down in the basement too. Last year I won second place in the talent show at the Poweshiek County Fair."

"They crown you pork princess too?"

"I wish."

"Tell me you didn't sing a country song."

Alison smiled big.

Charlee shook her head. A proclivity toward country music was an unfortunate character flaw of many a soul in Iowa. "I thought we could be friends. I was wrong."

"Oh hush, partner."

"Stop talking like that."

"Like what? Howdy!"

"That doesn't even make sense."

Alison drifted off in contagious laughter. "Hold on, hold on, hold on!" She jumped off the bed and turned on a small stereo, turning up the volume.

Charlee recognized that repulsive twang of a country-western song, full of fiddles and drawls, cheating wives and honkytonks. Alison sang along and strummed an air guitar.

"Turn that shit off!" Charlee said.

Alison turned it up.

Charlee laughed and got up herself, found the volume control and turned it down to silence.

"George Strait, man," Alison said. "You just shut off George Strait."

"Want to see me do it again?"

"You're terrible."

"Take off that thing." Charlee took the cowboy hat off Alison's head and tossed it back on her desk.

"I know, I know, what can I say?" Alison said. "Country girl at heart."

"You loved horses and the whole bit when you were younger, huh?"

"You didn't?"

"Nope."

"Oh, I loved horses, still do. My grandparents have a farm. I used to ride Rosie, she was my horse. But she got sick, passed away a few years ago. I still ride every now and then though."

"The thing you wanted to show me," Charlee said, "it isn't a farm, is it? That's the main reason I want to escape this fuckin' state the minute I graduate. Too many farms."

"No, it's not a farm."

"What then?"

"You'll see. It's more of a story, actually."

"I thought we had to write the stories." The reason Charlee was here with Alison this day was because of their creative writing assignment for the week. They had to find a place, say a building or a house or a hill, and create a story surrounding it. Alison had said she knew a place and was being annoyingly secretive about it.

"Well, it's more of a…foundation for a story," Alison said.

"Really. What kind of story?"

Alison smiled. "Horror."

After Mrs. Brown delivered two plates of warm apple pie that smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, Charlee and Alison ate hungrily and went downstairs and surfed aimlessly through the channels. Charlee stopped at Mystery Science Theater 3000.

A few seconds passed. "Really?" Allison said.

Charlee handed her the remote. Alison put it on a re-run of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. A few seconds passed. "Really?" Charlee said.

They laughed.

"Let's just see this mystery place already," Charlee said.

Pulling on her hand in another little girl gesture, Alison led Charlee out of the house, through the backyard, and into the woods.

They wandered off the remnants of what looked to be an old bike trail and went deeper into the woods behind the houses of the street. Charlee wondered if this was a shortcut she could use on the way home.

Then Alison stopped and looked around.

"We lost?" Charlee asked.

"No. We're close."

"What are you showing me?"

"It's a surprise."

"I hate surprises. I'm missing a Magic tournament for this."

"A magic show?"

"No, the game."

"Uh…"

"Magic, you know, cards? The Gathering?"

"Um…no."

"Never mind."

Suddenly there was a loud crack.

Alison screamed, a high-pitched girly squeal. She backed up and looked around.

"Okay," Charlee said, "my ear drums just exploded."

"What was that?" Alison asked.

"I mean, literally can't hear a thing."

"Charlee!"

"I see lips moving, but no sound."

"Come on…"

Charlee took a look around for Alison's sake. "We're in the woods," she said. "It was probably just a squirrel, something like that."

"I don't know."

"Tomorrow's the night before Halloween," Charlee said. "Mischief Night. Maybe some kids are getting started early."

Alison shrugged it off, taking Charlee's hand again. "Let's go. I remember."

Crunching over leaves and stepping over tree roots, brushing past tree trunks and branches, the girls continued to maneuver through the woods. Alison led Charlee down a landing, into a field of tall grass, and finally up a tall slope they couldn't see over.

"Is this the floodwall?" Charlee asked.

"Come on!" Alison said.

When they got to the top Charlee froze. They stood on top of a sprawling hillside, enchanted almost, lush acres of fields and meadows lying before them, the houses of other neighborhoods lying beyond.

Alison looked over at Charlee with a huge grin on her face. "Right?"

"Beautiful," Charlee said, "gotta admit."

Alison said, "I gotta bring you back at night sometime too. It's pretty to see the lights of the town. Creepy to make the walk by yourself though."

"Apparently in the day too," Charlee said, motioning back to the woods behind her. The autumn leaves on the tall trees rustled, a force moving beneath them that seemed much more sinister than a passing breeze or even a violent wind. The woods looked bigger up here, a forest, haunted, easy to get lost in, lost and never found.

"It's just, you know," Alison said, "the old town stories…"

Charlee looked at her blankly.

"You don't know?" Alison asked.

"Know what?"

"What I have to tell you, come on." Again Charlee was yanked onward. Alison dragged her down the hillside and back through some woods into the lowest depths of the Valley. Finally they came across a hidden old road full of potholes and half-covered with weeds, a road that seemed to curve away from the actual Sleepy Hollow Drive.

"This used to be part of the street up until about ten years ago," Alison explained. "I took you through the old bike trail from my backyard, but you can find this road if you keep going down past my house a little bit. It's just a little hidden."

A hidden street off a hidden street, Charlee thought. She asked, "Why isn't it part of the street anymore?"

"The floods. We're deep down in Valley territory now, this end of Sleepy Hollow. Most everything down here was ruined in the flood of '83. At least…" Alison paused for effect, hemming it up, "…the floods were the excuse the town used to close this section of the street. It was good timing after, well…the murders."

"What murders?" Charlee said.

"You know, the couple that got killed a long time ago? We were probably one or so?"

Charlee still kept the blank look. "No, I haven't heard about that."

"You're kidding me, everyone's heard. Look right up there, there's a house. The only one that survived the flood." She pointed into the distance through the woods. "That's where it happened."

Charlee looked. She could see it, a run-down old house through the trees. They started walking closer. It was a small ranch-style home, completely abandoned, the windows boarded up and the structure severely beaten down from obvious flood damage. An old mailbox stood at the end of a driveway that was barely noticeable, littered with cracks and weeds. Next to the lowered rusty red flag, Charlee could hardly make out the faded surname on the old residence: PHELAN.

"What happened?" she asked.

Alison said, "This couple that lived here, they were killed one night. I think it was, uh, yeah, fourteen years ago. 1980. It happened on Halloween, and they never found the killer. No one knows to this day who it was. Police apparently searched these woods for a good few weeks after it happened."

"Did they find anything?"

"I still can't believe you've never heard this. I thought I was sheltered. It's like the infamous Riggsboro ghost story. But no, yeah, after it happened, the stories were, people would see some guy lurking in the woods. Then every Halloween you'd hear about it again. Police would come out and never find anything. Others would break into the house on a dare, you know, kids, run out claiming the house is haunted, that they saw the ghosts of the couple who lived there or the killer himself."

"Huh," Charlee said, wondering why she never did hear this story. "How did they die? The couple."

"Stabbed," Alison said. "Not just to kill them either. They were stabbed like a hundred times. Throats cut open, just…sliced all over. I mean, I don't know how much was made up later on or through legend, but it's what you hear."

Charlee fought off a chill she had a feeling didn't come from the autumn cold. She heard another rustling in the woods and actually looked behind her to see if anyone was there, a strong feeling coming over her suddenly like she was being watched.

"Shit," Charlee said. "I want to go in."

"What?"

Charlee was already making long strides toward the house, filled with perverse excitement.

"Charlee, no!" Alison yelled. "You can't go in there!"

"Why not?" she asked, reaching the porch and tugging on the sides of the large slab of wood that covered the front door. She turned around just as Alison caught up with her.

"Are you scared?" Charlee asked.

"Hell yes, I'm scared!" Alison tugged on her arm. "It's a spook-house, it's haunted!"

"Haunted? Please. And even if it is, that would be pretty fun."

"No," Alison pleaded, and from what Charlee could tell there was real fear in her eyes.

"Just me then," Charlee said. "You can stay outside, I'm just gonna have a quick look around."

It took awhile, but finally, wearily, Alison said, "Okay." She took a few steps back. "But be careful," she added.

There was no way around the bolted front door, so Charlee tugged on some pretty firm two by fours nailed over the window next to the door. She tried to peek through the slits as she pulled on the wood, but all she could see was darkness. But she could hear something, something like the vastness of an ocean in a seashell, something like the echoes of a thousand whispers, something like heavy muffled breathing—

"Agh!" she cried, falling back.

"Charlee!" Alison yelled, hurrying back up to her.

"I'm okay," Charlee said, letting Alison help her back up from where she had fallen on the porch. She had lost leverage on the wood as she pulled and hadn't regained her footing in time.

"Let's go," Alison said. "See, it's dangerous enough from the outside."

"Fine," Charlee said. "But I'm coming back with a crowbar."

"Such a tomboy," Alison said as they walked away from the house.

"Such a girly girl," Charlee said.

They laughed, and suddenly Charlee heard the faintest of scuffles from behind her. She looked back at the house and saw nothing, nothing except—

The window. The two by four she had tugged on had finally given way, sliding down a bit until the edge rested on the bottom of the window frame. A cramped dark hole opened up.

Alison didn't notice. And while Charlee could have run back to explore now, she didn't. She didn't want to tell Alison she felt a little scared now too.

On the walk back Alison asked Charlee, "You going to the harvest fair on Halloween?"

"No," Charlee said. "I never go. What do they got? Haunted hayrides, corn field mazes, shit like that? I'll pass. I've never even been one for trick-or-treating, personally. Not in years."

"Yeah, you aren't the traditional kind of girl, are you? Too McCool for school."

"Shut your mouth, Alison Brown."

"Was that supposed to rhyme? 'Cause that kinda sucked."

"Shut up."

There was another crack behind them, causing them both to spin around, look in all directions.

Charlee spoke just to fill the unnerving silence: "I think I just saw my stalker."

"What, really?" Alison said.

Charlee smiled and Alison hit her for the joke, laughing nervously.

Charlee went back to the issue at hand, their assignment. "Not too bad though, Alison. Definitely a good idea for a story you got here. I got some ideas already."

"Charlee McCool," Alison said. "Got some ideas."

"Why do you do that? Say my first and last name. Everyone does it."

"It's a cool name. Charlee McCool. You have to say the whole thing."

"You're insufferable."

"I try. I keep meaning to ask—that's your real name, right?"

"As opposed to…"

"It's not a nickname for Charlotte?"

"Nope. My dad picked my name. My mother didn't like it, but she went along with it begrudgingly. She was more agreeable back then, I guess. I can't imagine my dad winning any argument these days. But he liked that the name was unique. I do too. Is Alison your real name?"

"Nope. Princess."

"What about Ally?"

"I hate Ally."

"Hmm. Ally."

"Don't even."

"Ally."

They walked back atop the floodwall and stared up at the sky, a near perfect blue beside a series of heavy clouds looming on the horizon, and coming closer. The sun was pleasant, weakening as the afternoon hinted at evening.

Charlee turned to face the opposite side of the floodwall, looking back at the wooded area she and Alison had emerged from and the deeper darkness of the forest beyond.

"Stop for a minute," Charlee said.

"What?" Alison stopped.

"Listen."

Charlee held up a loose finger to the air as a passing gale rustled over the canopy of leaves and pine needles looming from the tall trees of the forest. The trees swayed as if a slithering behemoth moved among them. It came closer, closer, closer, until suddenly it burst forth—the wind thrusting forward and hitting Charlee's face. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deep.

"What is it?" Alison asked, the gust fading into a cooling breeze.

"Whoosh," Charlee whispered.

"The wind," Alison said.

"No." Charlee turned back around toward Alison. "What's behind there? Beyond those trees further down the floodwall."

"Uh…" Alison had to think. She stared far beyond Charlee into the distance. "The Lost River."

Charlee turned back around. She stared, imagined the crashing of the river currents against the banks as they cried out against the encroaching clouds, the coming storm.

Then she turned around again and continued walking, a perplexed Alison trailing behind her.

"So?" Alison asked when she caught up.

"So…"

"The harvest fair. You up?"

Charlee was never one to give into friends, by no means a people pleaser. But something about the way Alison looked at her and maybe how close one afternoon had brought them together—either way she couldn't say no. Alison was proving to be a pretty good female friend. Maybe a real good friend in general, even if Charlee had never let any friend get too close, not once in her life, male or female. She'd never had a long-term friend, a best friend, a boyfriend of any sort. She had been a loner as long as she could remember.

"All right," Charlee said. "I'll go. But you're paying."

"Paying? This isn't a date. Go find your stalker and have him pay for your ass."

"You should stick to being the good girl, Alison. Swearing doesn't suit you. Plus we're in the Midwest. We're supposed to be friendly and use only nice words."

Alison laughed. "We should probably get going. Looks like it's gonna rain the way those clouds are moving in. Don't want you to get too soaked on your bike ride back home."

They walked back through the woods as the sky began quickly moving toward an overcast gray. Back at Alison's house Charlee got her helmet on and jumped up on the pedals of her bike.

"So, Charlee McCool?"

"Yeah, Alison Brown?"

"How do you like it?"

"The house you showed me?"

"No. Hanging out with a girl for once."

Charlee made it look like she was thinking really hard. "Eh, not really a fan."

Alison playfully jumped toward her as if to hit her.

Charlee laughed. "I guess you're not too bad."

"This tough, rebel girl thing you have going, Charlee," Alison said, "are you lonely?"

"What?"

"I mean, you pull off this look, like you're a lesbian, and all your friends are guys, but based on your…tragic love stories, and the sex scenes you write that make Mrs. Kerry cringe, I can see you're obviously straight. And a romantic on top of that."

Charlee didn't know what to say. She'd never been spoken to so honestly in her life, wasn't sure whether to feel refreshed or offended. "Well," she stammered, "I'm a virgin, but I can still write about sex. I could be gay and write about straight love." She gave Alison a telling look before leaning forward suddenly and touching her shoulder tenderly. "In fact I had…some other reasons about wanting to come over here, if you know what I mean…"

Alison swallowed and Charlee tortured her for a moment before she started laughing hysterically. "Oh shit! You thought I was for real!" She droned off in a roll of laughter.

Alison made a face and pushed Charlee gently.

"No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding," Charlee said when she calmed down. "I'm straight, don't worry. Straight as the day is long."

Alison smiled, then frowned a little. "You just seem…lonely to me, Charlee McCool. Do you have a boyfriend?"

"No. I've never even dated. Not yet at least. I mean I'm only fifteen. That's not bad, right? How about you, Miss Nosey?"

"I've had some boyfriends in the past. Nothing too serious really." She paused. "I'm just curious about you, that's all. I don't mean to pry. Anyway. Get home before it starts to rain."

"All right. I'll see you on Monday."

"Yeah, see you then."

Charlee pedaled away and around the corner just as it started to sprinkle, feeling a little weird, hearing for the first time about this Sleepy Hollow slasher, and then Alison's psycho-analysis of her which had hit closer to home than she would have liked. She was lonely, wasn't she?

In fact she felt lonely a lot. Lonely, angry, horny, misunderstood—a whiny, angst-filled confection of teenage bullshit that made her feel like a walking cliché. She knew she had no legitimate reason to feel so depressed, that she lived a life with many blessings and privileges. But she often felt like she just was going through the motions in life, sedated, trapped in the dullness of routine and mind-numbing normalcy of a suburban existence. A merciless alarm woke her up at the same ungodly hour every morning and off she went like a zombie to a fascist institution of drivel and indoctrination run by miserable soulless cretins whose sole purpose in life it seemed was to suck away any shred of happiness there could potentially be in the life of Charlee McCool.

Meanwhile she was surrounded by a host of painfully insipid kids her age whose interests were limited to the passing trends and fads of the moment. She had few friends. And those friends she did have, those few acquaintances she could share an interest or two with, they didn't completely understand her either. At night she went home to a bastard of a younger brother who annoyed her every chance he got, and then she spent hours doing chores for her parents and enduring tirades from her frigid wench of mother, and after that it was homework until it was time for bed. The few minutes of the day she could ever get to herself were spent indulging in fantasies, in worlds that felt far more like home than anything in the real world. In those moments, she'd lose herself in Middle Earth or in a galaxy far far away or in the dense mythologies of superheroes. Or she'd write and draw her own stories with her own characters. Channel her frustrations and yearnings into them.

So what Alison said stayed with her all the way home.

Along with the feeling that she was being watched.

That night Charlee asked her mother if she knew about the Sleepy Hollow killings. Her mother said that yeah, a couple was killed, but a lot of it was just legend, just myth.

She kept it at that. Nothing more.

But Charlee thought back to the South Hollow/Sleepy Hollow confusion when she was younger, and her mother's reaction then. Her dismissive attitude here was just as telling. But Charlee left it alone. For now.

TWO

Thirteen Years Earlier

November 17, 1981

Just outside Porterville, Illinois

"You Dr. Loomis? Go right on through."

Sam Loomis maneuvered his yellow Honda onto the shoulder of Highway 18 as a patrolman directed him forward. He pulled to a stop next to a sign indicating SPEED LIMIT 45 and got out, the patrolman lifting some police tape for him to enter the scene.

Before looking down at the crash site, Loomis surveyed the desolate stretch of highway behind him. The accident had happened on a sharp curve of the two-lane road. He could see thick tire marks in the road, officers bending down to examine them and setting flares some distance down the asphalt.

Traffic was scarce so closing one lane was no problem. Loomis had noticed maybe a half-dozen cars on the road his way here. For miles and miles there was only beautiful countryside.

"Dr. Samuel Loomis," an approaching police detective in a sports coat, shirt, and tie said, meeting him through the busted guardrail off the highway and before an embankment. "We gotta stop meeting like this. What's it been, three years?"

Loomis recognized him from somewhere, this middle-aged cop with slicked back brown hair, didn't remember his name.

"Ken Smolka," the detective said, picking up on Loomis's confusion as they shook hands. "I was a patrolman in Haddonfield. I was there that night in '78."

"Ah," Loomis said. Yes, that night.

"I'm state police now," Smolka continued. "Investigator. But I remember that night three years back clear as day. And I remember the next morning, giving the body count in the hospital as ten, thinking one of them was you."

Loomis gave him a curt nod and skipped over the pleasantries. "It's her?" he asked.

"This way." Smolka led Loomis down the grassy slope to the scene of the accident, taking out his notepad. "Ambo took her to Porterville med center where I'm told she died soon after."

"Identification?" Loomis asked.

A nod. "It's Laurie Strode."

"You're positive?"

Smolka nodded again. "License was found on her person, car's registered in her name, she's got proof of insurance. Just waiting on positive physical I.D. There'll be an investigation, the works. That's why we're here."

"You're the primary investigator?"

"Yeah."

The two men stopped. Loomis took in the scene before him at the start of a dense wooded area. The dark blue Volvo was still smoking slightly from beneath the dented hood, the entire front of the vehicle wrapped around a huge tree trunk, the windshield shattered, shards of glass in the driver and passenger seats. And—

Yes. That was blood lying in pools on the seat, steering wheel, dashboard, floor.

A heavyset cop in a shabby suit coat and wayward tie peered up at Loomis from his notepad, narrowing his gaze. "You're Loomis, right?" he said. "Yeah, they said you'd be coming. Just don't fuck with the scene."

Loomis nodded, for several minutes taking a look around the accident and back up the embankment to the highway. The investigators watched him work.

"Foul play?" Loomis asked.

"Not ruled out," Smolka said. "But so far, no."

"How fast was she going?"

The other cop on the scene, the secondary investigator, flipped through his notepad. "From the early calculations on the yaw marks up on the road, somewhere in the range of eighty, eighty-five."

Loomis remembered the road sign. Speed limit 45.

"Blood alcohol?" Loomis asked.

"Hey, you really who you say you are?" the secondary inquired. "How I know you ain't the press?"

"He's okay," Smolka said. "I knew him from Haddonfield."

Loomis walked around the tree, flashing his credentials to the fat cop.

"Smith's Grove Warren County Sanitarium," the secondary read. "Loony bin, huh Doc?"

"Psychiatrist," Loomis said, putting away his identification.

"Michael Myers was his patient," Smolka said.

The secondary widened his eyes. "Shit." He pointed to the car. "And this here was his sister, right? So that's why you're here, old man?"

Loomis nodded. "The blood alcohol," he repeated.

The secondary, taking offense it seemed to Loomis's flippant manner, walked away with his notepad grumbling.

"Waiting on the coroner's report," Smolka said, "but from what we've found here, no signs of intoxication."

"Just reckless driving," Loomis said.

"Appears so. Speeding and failure to properly negotiate the curve."

Loomis stared at him. "Reckless driving."

Smolka frowned. "Dr. Loomis…"

Loomis sighed and put a hand over his goatee, then his bald head, staring at the totaled vehicle.

"The signs are all here," Smolka said. "She was driving erratically, lost control, and couldn't turn quick enough on the curve. She skidded off the road, wrapped her car around the tree, died soon after she got to the hospital."

"Mmm," Loomis said.

"Michael Myers is dead, Doctor."

"I didn't say a word."

"It couldn't—"

"You said it first."

Smolka sighed.

"But it makes me think," Loomis said. "Myself, you, Ms. Strode, all reunited again by another tragedy. Makes one wonder, doesn't it?" He looked up to the skies, to the gods. He felt old, really old, much older than his sixty-one years of age.

Smolka shrugged, shook his head.

"Have you heard of the Phelan murders, Detective?" Loomis asked. "Young couple in Iowa. About a year ago. Stabbed."

"I might've. Don't recall. Why?"

Loomis stared at him. Smolka looked away, frowned again.

Loomis said, "Don't tell me that it didn't run across your mind, for maybe just a fraction of a second, the crazy notion, that maybe, just maybe, Michael Myers had something to do with this."

"I—"

"The same Michael Myers whose body was never recovered that night in Haddonfield."

Smolka met Loomis's gaze and held it. "He was burned up in the hospital fire that night. You can't always find the body or even the trace of a body in some cases."

"I was pulled out from the same fire. Scarred, yes, but alive, and here today. I assure you, it is no different for Michael."

"Even if you are right," Smolka said, "this wasn't him. It was an accident. Suicide even, maybe. After the nightmare this girl went through, I can only imagine what it must have been like living after that. Of course, this is all speculation, but…"

"Maybe. Maybe."

Silence hung between them for a few minutes. Loomis took another look around. Smolka was quiet as he watched, thinking back to that Halloween night in Haddonfield and all the murders. He remembered the shock of the news. Michael fucking Myers. That deranged little kid who killed his older sister in 1963 only to escape the nuthouse fifteen years later, killing over a dozen people in pursuit of his other sister—his little sister—the adopted Laurie Strode. Loomis had been Michael's doctor those fifteen years in the sanitarium, and after the escape had hunted him down to Haddonfield. Laurie Strode had survived that night only for death to now catch up with her, possibly by her own hand.

Loomis said finally, "I want a copy of the accident report. Coroner's too. Anything involved with this case."

Smolka frowned. "We can't have anything leak to the press. It's sensitive, you know, the whole Michael Myers sister aspect of it. The tabloids will eat it up. We need to take our time with this."
"You have my word," Loomis said.

"Give me an address, I'll try my best."

Loomis left a little later. The secondary investigator stepped up next to Smolka. They watched the little yellow car disappear down the long stretch of highway.

"Fuckin' crazy old man," the secondary said. "Did you see his face? All that scarring. Hands too. I mean, holy shit. Couldn't look him in the eyes more than a second. That from…?"

"Yeah," Smolka said, wondering if it was truly over, or if it really was going to start all over again, if Loomis was right.

"Come on," he said. "Let's get back to work."

The funeral of Laurie Strode was a closed casket.

Loomis waited until everyone was gone, staying long after the mourners in black all sauntered away to the caravan of black vehicles they arrived in. He waited until the sun was setting and he stood over the fresh dirt of her plot. He closed his eyes awhile.

When he opened them he stared at the acres of cemetery surrounding him, the woods on the outskirts. As far as he could see he was the only person around.

"Michael?"

He didn't raise his voice, not really. But it carried, far over the sloping fields, past headstones and Celtic crosses, flower memorials and maintenance sheds.

"I know it's not over, Michael," Loomis said. "It can't be."

He knew even as he scanned the area, that despite his keen eye, he would never notice if Michael actually was watching.

And Loomis knew he probably was. Behind the chain-link fence across the street, in the woods beyond the cemetery, beside a tall grave perhaps.

Somewhere.

Everywhere.

THREE

October 31, 1995

"Do you think I should straighten my hair?" Alison asked.

They were at school in between periods. Charlee leaned down into her locker for some books. Around her, kids slammed lockers, walked the halls, laughed and joked with friends. Alison stood next to her, twirling some of her curly long blonde hair and looking at it contemplatively, cute little lips pursed.

Charlee said, "Why? Curly's your look."

"I don't know," Alison said. "Pretty girls have straight hair. Everyone knows that guys like a girl with long, straight hair."

"How about a short-haired wonder like myself?"

"That's your own choice and I don't feel a bit sorry for you."

"Aw, thanks."

"Seriously though."

"Leave it," Charlee said, getting up with her books and closing her locker. "If the guys come just because of your newfound straight hair, they're not worth it in the first place. You need a guy that loves those luscious curls of yours."

"You have a point, McCool."

"I have those every now and then."

They began walking down the hallway.

"So you got a date to the harvest fair tonight?" Alison asked, linking arms with Charlee.

"Alison, we've been best friends for about a year. You're pretty and all, but you know I don't swing that way."

"You're hilarious. I, however, am serious."

"Then you know the answer to that question," Charlee said.

"Come on, you have to like someone."

"Nope. No one."

"No one?"

Charlee shrugged, wishing to change the subject. "Didn't we just go to this stupid harvest fair last year?"

"It was stupid then because we went together and everyone else had a date."

"Everyone else didn't have a date. Flee from social norms and expectations, Alison. Upset the establishment a little bit. Live a life outside of mindless human conformity."

"Please," Alison said. "You talk that rebel stuff and you dress the way you do to scare guys off. You want one, maybe really bad, you're just too scared to go for it. So you cover it up with this, this biker chick look. Even though you could be a pretty hot girl if you tried."

"Biker chick?" Charlee laughed. Although Alison had a point—today Charlee wore an old Sturgis, South Dakota biker's jacket with some leather pants and combat boots, all of which she had scored at the Goodwill. Over her hands were biker gloves, the kind without fingertips. "What about you," Charlee said, "Miss Polly Pocket Disney Princess over here?"

"Polly Pocket what?" Alison laughed, did a little twirl in her dress. If she wasn't in blue jeans and cowboy boots, she was always in dresses, those cutesy little America's sweetheart dresses that screamed oh what a good little country girl.

Charlee said, "No, no date for me. But what about you, Miss Have To Have a Date? Where's your handsome suitor?"

"Well, it just so happens I have an eye on a certain someone who's working security there that night, hoping he'll ask me."

"You mean…Graham Purcell?" Charlee rolled her eyes.

"Graham Purcell," Alison sighed. Then she sang whimsically, hugging her books to her chest, "'I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream…'"

"Yeah, try that Disney shit out on him and see how it works."

Alison hit her in the shoulder.

"And that name, Graham," Charlee said, "what kind of a name is that?"

"Graham. Like a graham cracker."

"Exactly. It's terrible."

"No, it's symbolic. He's this delicious, crispy graham cracker crust. Mmm. Yesterday he said I was pretty."

"Well, then go get him, Alison," Charlee said. She was sure Alison could get any guy she wanted. Though she still had that endearing childlike whimsy, she at least started wearing clothes for her age and let her hair down, literally and figuratively—and Alison Brown went from cute to hot. She had even dated a couple new guys in the last year—the wrong ones, of course, as she truly was a hopeless romantic—but she had been nursing a crush on Mr. Graham Cracker since the start of their junior year.

It was funny. Charlee hardly had friends at all, never mind the beautiful people like Alison. She kept thinking that one of these days some popular bitches would notice Alison and whisk her away into one of their precious cliques. And Charlee would be alone again.

"I have to wait for him," Alison said. "He has to ask me out."

Charlee groaned. "Why does dating have to be a male-initiated institution?"

"Because women do everything else. The least men can do is find their cajones and ask us out."

"You have a fair point, Ms. Brown. However, by giving them this duty, we have only perpetuated a norm of female submission. Therefore, a girl can ask out a guy as much as a guy can ask out a girl."

"You know, Charlee, that feminist lingo is pretty hot. Let me know if it works better on the guys than my Disney lingo."

"Who knew a smartass like myself could meet her match in someone like you, Alison Brown?"

"Like me how? Someone in love with Graham Purcell?" she mused dreamily again.

Charlee laughed. The fact was she did have her sights on someone, a new kid who moved to town at the end of the last school year and who also went to her church. It was a crush of her own that she had been nursing for a few months now. She had too much pride to tell Alison this information just yet.

And she was literally saved by the bell before Alison could pry anymore. They hurried off to their separate classes.

In English Charlee dazed off and jotted down notes for her graphic novel. That was about all her writing was anymore with all the shit she had to deal with between school and home. Notes here and there she'd write down whenever she had the chance, a doodle or a sketch or two in the margins of some loose-leaf paper. This graphic novel had been a work in progress of hers for almost two years now, a superhero origin story she planned to turn into a series. It involved a central love story that was of course a reflection of her own desire for love, the characters fulfilling her own pent-up longings and romantic fantasies. Writing and drawing had always provided an outlet for her bottled up angst and raging teenage hormones.

She then found herself doodling the name of her crush, Noah Faison, the boy she barely knew yet couldn't stop thinking about. She instantly regretted it. She had become a pitiful little schoolgirl. She was determined to make it out of this prison of high school without subjecting herself to embarrassing adolescent clichés. But she couldn't help it. She yearned not only to be loved, but to be touched, to be kissed, to be made love to, and to do all these to someone in return.

But at the same time the thought alone of dating someone was exhausting. Dating was bullshit, a tedious dance of the sexes. She wanted to skip all that. She wanted a relationship. She wanted marriage. Wanted deep in and with all the love that came with it. She wanted love and sex and commitment, wanted undying devotion and the total responsibility of another person's life in her hands. She didn't want to date, to be wooed or wined and dined, to flirt or tease or play games. She wanted a consummation of souls.

And with Noah her silent longings had taken the natural course of crushdom, from butterflies to romantic projections to infatuation to stalking. She knew where he lived, she knew his class schedule, she knew when and where she'd get a chance to see him in the hallways. They had no classes together but shared the same lunch period. He always sat alone, was always reading. These days Charlee sat with Alison at lunch, occasionally popping over to see her old friends Eddie and James. She wished she could go over and sit with Noah one day without making her interest seem so obvious. One day she stumbled across him in the library before homeroom and had the unequivocal pleasure of observing him from a distance with no one noticing, staring at him without inhibitions from behind the reference aisle. He read from a hardcover book of rather considerable length—Terra Nostra, by Carlos Fuentes—his sultry brown eyes peering down through his glasses as he read and turned the pages.

He went through books quickly. She even made a list of them that she kept in the back of her English binder. None of the titles were familiar. City of God, by St. Augustine. The Club Dumas, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis. A Grief Observed, by C.S. Lewis. The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene. Summa Theologica, by St. Thomas Aquinas. Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico, by T.R. Fehrenbach. The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton.

Charlee would look up every new book she jotted down on the list. She even took a knack at reading a couple before giving up and going for the Cliffnotes, if they were actually available. She wondered what he would think of her, calling herself a writer while her own reading taste amounted to comic books and novelizations of movies and television shows.

She felt something akin to love in the pleasure of learning her crush from afar and taking a glimpse into his interests. In her shyness she could alas still share something with him, whether he knew it or not.

She thought about him now as she stared dreamily through the window blinds to the school parking lot. A bus roared by and as it disappeared there was a tall man wearing all black standing in front of some trees across the street. Even though at this distance she couldn't make anything out about his face, she had the odd sense he was watching her.

Another bus went by and when it was gone he still remained. Stiff. And staring at her. At least seemingly at her. Charlee looked away but cast a furtive glance back a few seconds later.

He was gone. Not walking away, not ducking into some hiding spot—just gone as if he was never there.

At the end of the day she met up with a beaming Alison who told her in a sickening squeal, "Graham asked me out to the harvest fair! Ahhh!" She jumped up and down and hugged Charlee. "Come on, let's go home, I'll tell you everything!"

Alison's parents had given her a car for her sixteenth birthday, a red Camry, so she gave Charlee a ride home every day after school. As they drove almost out of campus, a couple of guys came roaring around the corner in a pickup truck and nearly hit them. Alison jerked the car to a stop and Charlee reached over and laid on the horn.

From out the driver's side window of the truck, a senior guy they recognized stuck his head out and laughed. "Hey, hey! Ali Brown and Chaz McCool! Watch where the fuck you're going!"

Charlee rolled down her window and scowled. "Hey! Fuck you, motherfucker!"

Alison, mortified, laughed nervously from the driver's seat. "Charlee!"

The guy raised a middle finger high. "Suck it, virginity pledges!" His friend in the passenger seat made facial contortions mimicking a blowjob. They sped off.

As Alison began driving again Charlee said, "Virginity pledges? Does everyone know we did that?"

Alison rolled her eyes. "Guess so."

Back in September the prayer club held an after-school assembly preaching abstinence, inviting students to come and offer a solemn oath before God to wait for marriage. This was in response to a controversial assembly the week prior in which the school nurse preached safe sex and dished out condoms to a cheering crowd. Charlee's mother found out about the abstinence assembly and forced Charlee to go. So she dragged Alison along for moral support.

"I swear," Charlee said, "most of the girls who went were only there to piss off their boyfriends. And the guys there? Please. They were only putting on a show to pick up the foolish girls who'll all swoon and say, 'Oh my, he's willing to wait for me, that just makes me want to give it up now.' So they do. It's all about conquests. A virginity pledge notch on a guy's belt? Shit. And not to sound like my mother, but as they say, 'Guys give love to get sex and girls give sex to get love.'"

"Come on," Alison said. "Some were serious. We were serious. I'm Lutheran, you're Catholic. We take the waiting seriously."

"Sure, sure. Anyone else?" As she asked it Charlee remembered Noah. He had been there. Taking it perhaps the most serious of anyone.

Alison said, "Graham was there."

"Yeah, bit too late for a virginity pledge with that one."

"Speaking of," Alison said, and proceeded to tell Charlee how Graham had casually asked her out after French. "He said he'd love if a girl like me could keep him company while he was working."

"And you're sure about him?" Charlee asked. "You know the rumors."

"Rumors, rumors."

"I'm just saying. I don't want you to be hurt."

"Okay. What have you heard?"

"Well, he went out with Courtney Lancing for one. She's fucked half the school. And then Helen Pierson—please."

Alison shrugged. "So he's had bad taste in women in the past. That's before he met…ah, me. He can't help it being so attractive. He just needs a good girl to straighten him out."

"Guys like that are never straightened out. Plus he's probably crawling with STDs."

"You have a sick mind, Charlee McCool."

"What I'm saying is, what is it with all you hot girls hopelessly attracted to douchebags? I can name about ten nice guys who'd love to go out with you. But no, all you pretty girls don't like nice guys. You like the challenge of a bad boy. You mistake his uncaring attitude as cool and alluring and then if you start dating, suddenly he becomes your little pet project and you think you'll be the one to make him settle down and change his ways. Meanwhile he's cheating on you and out all the time and treating you like shit, so maybe you eventually break up. But you don't learn. You go from one bad boy to the next, blinded by good looks and big dick until one day you're divorced and lonely with the nerve—the fucking nerve—to ask yourself why there aren't any good guys, any nice guys out there. Well, Ally, they were out there. And they stayed home on prom night slitting their wrists in the bathtub wondering why douchebags always get the girl."

By now Alison was hunched over in the driver's seat in a paroxysm of laughter. "Oh God! Charlee McCool! So bitter! You're gonna make me get us into an accident." She trailed off in more laughter.

"Granted," Charlee said, "all your exes make for some pretty good material with those country songs you love to write."

"See? When I'm a rich and famous country singer, don't think I'll be sharing any of my royalties with you."

"I'll be too busy counting the profits from my graphic novels anyway."

"Profits, please. I see you now in your twenties, one of those hipsters with a skullcap, still writing that great American graphic novel, becoming a brooding café intellectual. 'I'm Charlee McCool, I'm dark and no one understands. I'm about to have my quarter-life crisis and go off to Europe and find myself.'"

"Fuck you," Charlee said, laughing.

"But as for me, people will buy my records because people like a good, catchy song. Something tuneful."

"Tuneful?"

"It's a word."

"Just don't sleep with him. Please."

"You know I won't, Charlee. But that's beside the point. I think you're jealous."

"Of Graham?"

"No. You're jealous because you know very well you want someone too."

"Alison…"

"You go on all your little spiels and tirades and yet here you are still single and still pining after…oh, what's his name again…?"

"Nice try."

"A name. Just one name. That's all I want and I'll shut up. There has to be someone."

"Nope."

"Come on. Please! Please please please please please! Charleeeeee!"

"Okay, okay, okay, fine, shut up!" She sighed and shook her head. "You know, that new kid…"

"New kid?"

"Not new new, but he came at the end of last year. Noah Faison…"

Alison's face lit up. "Noah Faison? Oh, Charlee McCool, you little slut!"

"What did I do?"

"I knew you were a dirty little girl. All those steamy love scenes from creative writing!"

"Oh shut up."

"Noah Faison…"

"He goes to my church too, I don't know, there's something about him."

"He's kind of, well…never mind…"

"What, tell me."

"It's nothing."

"Apparently not. What were you gonna say?"

"Well, he's cute, I guess. But doesn't he wear those, like, old man sweaters, elbow patches and all? Comes to school with an attaché case instead of a backpack? Isn't he kind of a dork?"

Full of pride, Charlee said, "Yes, yes he is. And what's wrong with that?"

"I should have known. You have to be different, so does he."

"What happened to the part of the deal where you shut up? I seem to remember that part clearly."

"This is just too good." She started singing. "Charlee and Noah sittin' in a tree…"

"What are we, fuckin' nine? Or sixteen?"

Alison just laughed and laughed, and as always it was contagious. Charlee couldn't help it. The girl had that effect on you.

"Ask him out tomorrow," Alison said.

"I can't do that."

"Oh yeah? What about your little speech today? Girls asking guys out and all that."

She had a point. "I hardly know him."

"And you won't ever know him if you don't try."

"You know, no one likes a know-it-all."

"Try being best friends with the darkly comic Charlee McCool."

"Touché."

The garage door was open when Alison dropped her off. This meant the wardens were home. Now instead of sneaking up to her room where she could avoid them she'd have to meet them halfway and answer their twenty questions about her day, especially from Mother.

And there they were, sitting at the kitchen table like fucking Ward and June Cleaver.

Kevin sat at the table too, playing with some crackers, Hot Wheels on the table. He was six.

"How was school?" Mother asked.

"Fine."

"Anything special happen?"

"No. I'm going to the harvest fair tonight with Alison and this guy who asked her out. She's giving me a ride."

"Do you have a date too?" Mother asked, her tone telling. She wanted Charlee to get a boyfriend if only to prove that her butch daughter wasn't a lesbian. Charlee had worried her more this past year by getting even shorter haircuts than usual and styling them as a boy would. But even if her heterosexuality was proven, she knew Mother would do a complete 180 and go on about how she shouldn't be dating because dating leads to premarital sex and sexually-transmitted diseases and pregnancies and a formerly sweet-talking boyfriend who said he loved you abandoning you and leaving you all alone to raise a child—and on top of all that you'd be going to hell.

"No, Mom."

"Why don't you bring your brother too, Charlee?" Dad said. She knew that tone. It was not a suggestion.

"Yeah!" Kevin yelled. "I wanna go! Can I go?"

She should have known some shit like this would happen. First it was her dad's "why don't you?" Like she didn't have a clue about anything and they knew what she should and should not do with her life. Then adding "Charlee" to the end, using that condescending tone that just ran down her spine and made her want to scream. And then of course the request itself, take fucking Kevin to the harvest fair. Alison was going with the boy of her dreams and Charlee was taking her little brother. What fun.

She bit the bullet. "All right." She left the room grinding her teeth. For once she wanted to be on her own. She loved her parents, they provided for her, but she wanted to be left alone, wanted them out of her business.

The second time she saw what looked like the man from outside school earlier was outside her bedroom window hours later, right before she was about to take Kevin out to the driveway where Alison would pick them up. Darkness had descended and flocks of trick-or-treaters took to the streets.

Charlee didn't assume this figure was the same man. It was Halloween—all the freaks were out. This had to be one of them. He disappeared in a group of older kids as he rounded the corner at the end of the street.

She went downstairs and noticed something through the window of the front door as she walked through the foyer. At first it looked like a leaf caught under the WELCOME mat, but it was too white. She got closer and could see the lines of loose-leafed paper.

Opening the door and snatching it up, she saw it was a full sheet of paper, crinkled and old but intact. Her name had been scrawled across one side, a scrawl like a child had written it. On the other side was more writing.

Only it was her own.

It was a paper from her old creative writing notebook, a paper she had ripped out and thrown away some months ago. She had some notes for potential stories on it, and she and Alison had apparently doodled while bored during one of the club meetings. But how the hell had it gotten here? Slip out of the trash one day and get blown up by the wind? It must have.

But that didn't explain her name written on the back. It definitely wasn't her handwriting, or Alison's. Whatever. She pocketed it and left.

"I want to go trick or treating," Kevin said as she took him out to Alison's car.

"You can," Charlee said, opening the back door for him. "Dad said he'll come pick you up before the night's over, take you home so you can go to a few houses before bed. Now put your seatbelt on."

Kevin groaned as he tried to negotiate the seatbelt around his pirate costume.

"You remember Alison," Charlee said.

Alison turned around in the driver's seat with a smile. "Hey, Kevin. You look a little more like your sister every day, you know that?"

Charlee laughed.

"No!" Kevin said. "I'm not a girl! And I was adopted!"

"Really?" Alison said. She looked to Charlee who nodded. "Oh, your sister never told me that. Ready to go?"

"Yeah!"

As they left, Charlee thought she saw a pair of black boots in her mirror, someone standing somewhere behind the car. But as Alison turned away down the street Charlee looked behind and didn't see anyone.

At the harvest fair, she meant to ask Alison about the paper she found but forgot. The girl was too focused on Graham anyway.

Thankfully Kevin found a few of his kindergarten friends who were together with a chaperone and disappeared most of the night. Charlee spent the majority of her evening at some picnic tables talking with Alison and Graham as they watched the festivities around them. The gentle spin of the Ferris wheel, the jerking of the bumper cars, the shriek of kids inside playful haunted houses or getting high off fried dough.

She wore her same biker outfit tonight for her Halloween costume, just added some fake tattoos of barbed wire around her wrist and neck. Alison wore her cowboy hat over her curly blond hair along with a button-up flannel shirt and tight faded jeans. The outfit reminded Charlee of many an afternoon this past summer at Alison's grandparents' home, sitting on the porch of their farmhouse not too far from these very fairgrounds. Charlee would enjoy some iced tea and the countryside and listen to Alison playing her guitar to some lyrics she had written. For all her bashing on country music, Alison's stuff wasn't too bad.

"I ever tell you how sexy you look in uniform?" Alison asked Graham, staring at his well-built body under the red SECURITY t-shirt. Charlee shook her head. Graham Purcell was a class-A pretty boy. Muscular, good-looking, perfect skin, perfect hair, on the football team. And he seemed nice enough so far.

"All for you, baby," Graham said. Then the walkie-talkie on his belt squawked. "Graham. It's Dave, over"

"Ten-four. This is Graham."

Alison made a face—look at my serious boyfriend—and nudged Charlee, breaking her out of a daydream where she was holding hands with Noah Faison and walking around the fair with him. She wondered if he had come too and made up scenarios in her head. They would meet by chance, only it would be fate of course, and they would talk for hours and end up kissing on one of the rides, falling in love by the end of the night.

But in real life he probably wasn't even here. He was probably at home, reading the paper or something, feeling too old for things like Halloween. Charlee wanted a guy like that, someone to rescue her from the mundane, trivial happenings of high school and the mindless intensity of teenage life.

From the radio, Dave said, "Reports of a suspicious individual, your sector."

"His twenty?" Graham asked.

"Last seen behind the prize tables, couple kids were scared, over."

"What's he look like?"

"Say again, what was that?"

"What's he look like?"

"Tall. Wearing all black, over."

"Okay, I'll check it out, over."

Graham clipped the radio back on his belt and Alison nodded, impressed. "You guys are pretty good. Professional."

"You wanna come with me?" he said, strutting like the town hero. "Some asshole scaring kids or something over by the prize tables."

"Sure, Officer," Alison said.

Charlee let them go, not wanting to tag along and become a third wheel. Alison linked arms with her love and walked off with him.

They walked over to where Dave had said and scanned the area. Charlee watched from afar. Several shrieking kids huddled around a woman in a witch's costume carving a jack-o'-lantern. A teenage girl face-painted little kids, Kevin in the line waiting to get his done. A group of guys in letter jackets cheered as their friend knocked over a mountain of milk bottles and won a big teddy bear for his cheerleader girlfriend. Girls squealed as they aimed water guns at targets surrounding a miniature haunted house—a ghost, a skeleton, a witch, a monster.

But no creepy man showed up. No guy lurking around in all black as far as Charlee could see. She surveyed the area herself a little bit, picturing the man she had seen twice earlier today.

"Fuck's Dave talking about?" Graham said when they came back. "There's nothing here." He called Dave back on the radio.

Charlee stared into the woods at the end of a nearby field, peering as far as she could see before the thick shadows of the night hid everything else. She felt something that reminded her of her first time at Alison's house, playing out in the woods by the floodwall, by the old Phelan house.

She felt watched.

Charlee said goodbye to Kevin later when Dad picked him up. He kept going on to Kevin about how his mother wasn't going to like his face paint which was done up to make him look like a devil, and that it was coming off before bed.

Charlee went on a walk around the fair alone, eating a corn dog and sipping some lemonade. That was when she saw him, standing in a secluded corner beside the tilt-a-whirl.

Graham. Making out with a girl who wasn't Alison.

Charlee threw her empty corndog stick in the trash and walked over. "Who's this skank?" she said.

A wide-eyed Graham flushed. Charlee didn't recognize the girl he was with, probably someone from another school. Despite the cold October weather she wore a strapless top that showed off generous cleavage, along with a pair of those abominable short shorts where the pockets were lower than the cut-off.

"Charlee, uh, she, this is, it's—"

"Where'd you find her, Whores 'R' Us?"

"Dyke bitch," the girl said, then looked back at Graham. "Don't mind her, babe. You told me she's, like, totally in love with Alison anyway. She's just jealous of you."

Charlee laughed. "That's rich." She walked away to find Alison.

"Charlee, no, wait, please!" Graham caught up to her and grabbed her arm.

"Don't touch me." Charlee's glare burned into his eyes as she swiped her arm away.

"Please, look, it's…this isn't something I'm proud of. I can't help it. I'm a guy. Alison's nice, she's sweet, but…"

"She isn't going to put out, huh?"

"Look, please. I'm going to stop this. I like Alison a lot. She's good for me."

"She's too good for you."

"I know. Please don't screw this up for me."

"It looks like you're doing a good job of that yourself. Alison deserves better than you."

"Shit, look. I'll stop fooling around, I promise. Fuckin' scout's honor, please." He held up his left hand, then changed to his right. "I do like Alison, please. Please, Charlee. Don't tell her."

Charlee looked at him, looked away, looked back.

"I won't tell her," Charlee said. "But you will. By this time tomorrow or I tell her."

He sighed. "Okay. I promise." He held out his hand. Charlee didn't take it. She watched him walk away, kept an eye out that he wasn't going back to his little whore.

She met up with Alison later and tried to make it look like nothing happened, praying the whole thing would be over tomorrow, that Graham was either sincere about Alison or that she would dump his sorry ass. Charlee hoped for the latter.

"Let's go home," Charlee said. "They're closing things down anyway. I'm tired."

"Me too. Let me just say goodbye to Graham."

And Alison ran off. Charlee waited and watched the lights of the fair go down around her, cars in the parking lot pulling out into the night. A cold wind went by and she shivered, hugged herself to keep warm.

And then another sound. At first it seemed like just the wind but it sounded…heavier. She looked around but didn't see anything. Still she couldn't shake the feeling that she knew what she had heard.

Breathing.

In the car later, Alison could not contain her excitement. "Graham kissed me. Oh, I'm in heaven. He kissed me!"

Charlee smiled, tried to fake it well. "I hope he makes you happy, Alison," she said. "I really do."

"Now we just have to work on you and Noah Faison."

"Oh, enough of that."

When Alison dropped her off and Charlee got out of the car, Alison rolled down her window and yelled, "Please just ask him out! I know you're not shy. I want you to be happy too. You deserve it, Charlee McCool."

"Thanks, Alison Brown."

"You know I love you, girl," Alison said. "Right?"

Charlee smiled. "Yeah. I love you too. Good night." She waved goodbye.

"Night." Alison smiled and waved back. She rolled up the windows, backed out of the driveway, and was gone.

Alison thought of Graham before she went to sleep. She was doing that most nights now. And tonight it was hard enough to even get to sleep, meditating over their first kiss, the lingering taste of his lips, the way his palm felt grazing her cheek.

She thought about what it would be like to make love to him. Maybe he could be her first, and hopefully only. Maybe she'd be the one to calm him down.

She grabbed a pillow and held it tightly, tried to fool herself into thinking it was Graham. She ran some lyrics through her head as she dozed off, lyrics for a love song, a love song she'd write about Graham. She dreamed about him when she finally drifted off, his form rising above her bed like an angel.

She stirred at some point later and moved around in bed, opening her eyes and wondering for a moment if she was still dreaming. She felt someone moving next to her. Graham—

Except the shadowy figure looming above her wasn't Graham.

And the silver thing in his hand—

The police officers that arrived upon the body of Alison Brown the following morning had one thing to say:

Jesus.

Whether it was as an observation or an expletive was moot. Alison's body was spread eagle as if crucified, her bed a bloodbath, every sheet soaked.

One of the cops hunched over immediately and vomited. The other started weeping.

Her face had been sliced, her throat gashed, her arms and hands cut, and she had been stabbed repeatedly in her chest, stomach, legs, and pelvic region.

Later the police would learn that she had been stabbed 77 times.

One of Alison's eyes was still open, the other shut forever from a deep, penetrating stab wound.

The open eye seemed to behold a terror of unimaginable proportions, coupled with a deep sadness that glazed over its milky surface. Help me, it cried. Please.

Please.

FOUR

Smith's Grove, Illinois

The office of Lehman-Daly Investigations sat in a run-down strip mall at the corner of Route 86 and Morgantown Road. They were currently the only business residing in the old strip, the others gutted and empty, For Sale signs staring out the barren windows.

Eliza Lehman would express surprise at this on occasion, that despite the raggedy exterior and interior of the building, more prospective buyers didn't consider the real estate. Some fixing up was all it needed, precisely what she and her partner Andrew did when they bought the space six months ago.

The only sign of life in the old building was the sign painted over their window, the insignia of Lehman-Daly with the fedora hat and magnifying glass, the same design on their business card, a little piece of Andrew Daly genius.

Andrew wasn't at work yet. Eliza was always the one who opened up first, the front door only unlocked if Andrew was passed out on a couch or the bathroom floor from working late or nursing his alcoholism.

But she wouldn't have to yell at him for being late today. She heard him roar in on his motorcycle some minutes later after she started up the coffee maker in the outside waiting room, a waiting room which doubled as a break room since clients have never had to wait.

He sauntered in and shrugged off his tan trench coat, dropping it on the chair behind his desk. He looked disheveled as usual. He never completely buttoned his shirts and always left his necktie loose under the collar. Eliza could almost handle that if the knot of the tie was at least centered, which of course it never was, like today.

"What's wrong?" Andrew asked as he honed in on the coffee maker.

Eliza tried to hold in her discomfort and merely held her hand to her neck in a gesture for him to straighten the tie.

"Oh. Sorry, boss." He straightened it to Eliza's relief.

"I wish you'd button that damn top button and knot the thing all the way up."

"It restricts me, boss. It's not conducive to a healthy working environment. I need to feel loose."

"You're loose, all right."

Andrew poured some coffee into a large mug. "Hey. You got that fuckin' feminine open V-neck thing going on. Must be nice. You make me wear a tie. That's gender discrimination."

"Take it up with H.R."

"H.R. Your ass would be out of a job, you had an H.R. to answer to, the abuse I get from you."

"Yeah, and the sexual harassment I get from you…"

"Sexual harassment. You wish, sexual harassment."

"Just button that damn collar. Or get a half-size bigger shirt, it won't feel so constricting. I have this image of you, shaven, your hair cut and styled, maybe a little bit of gel, your shirt crisp and tie neat, a nice vest. You'd look sharp."

"And you talk about sexual harassment from me. Next thing I know you'll be putting me in some tapered pretty boy slacks and a skinny tie. Earn me a nice 1950s pat on the ass. Shit, I dress like that for you, I'd deserve a good over-the-pants handsy at the very least. Like high school."

"That's your problem though, Andrew. You do nothing and expect me to put out all the way."

"Hey, I did a little today. Tie knot is front and center."

"Doesn't count. I had to tell you."

"Come on. That's got to get me at least a kiss with tongue. Feel your tits with the shirt on, even."

Eliza smiled even through her sigh. Andrew knew her OCD quirks and pulled his shit anyway. He said it was good for her, that she had a problem and he was helping her in the long run. But already it had been a battle for her just to put him in a suit and tie. And in the appropriate work clothes she could forgive him his long hair and facial scruffiness. She was convinced that if he wasn't so damn handsome he'd scare the clients off. He liked to play the stock P.I. look, complete with the trench coat over his business clothes and sometimes even a snap-brimmed fedora. He told her it was all about perception, about giving the clients what they wanted. Eliza disagreed.

Andrew stepped back into the large office and over to his desk, sipping the extra bold black coffee and rubbing at the rings under his eyes. He maneuvered around boxes of case files they hadn't gotten around to unpacking yet. At least they were stacked and organized in an orderly fashion. Eliza needed order and wouldn't have it any other way.

"Fuck is this?" Andrew asked as he sat down.

"What?" Eliza said, lowering the newspaper she was reading.

"My desk. What did you do?" He scanned the top of his immaculately organized desk—papers, files, writing utensils, phone and desk lamp all in perfect placement.

"I just tidied it up a little bit," Eliza said.

"A little bit? Where's all my stuff?"

"Organized in the drawers," she said as Andrew searched through his desk. "All of that stuff does not belong on top of your desk. You couldn't find anything on there. I did you a favor."

"Hey. I have my own system, all right?"

"All right, system boy."

"Look. I know your ulcer's about ready to erupt with all these boxes still lying around here, but you don't have to take it out on my desk."

"Well, soon as we get those nice filing cabinets I ordered, maybe I'll let your desk live."

"What we need is a secretary."

"A secretary."

"Yeah. Someone to take your mind off this and let you concentrate."

"Please. Someone else organizing my files—no, thank you."

"It'd be good for you, boss. I'm telling you, a secretary. Or even an unpaid intern. There you go. Get someone from the community college."

She made a face. "An intern."

"Yeah. You know, nice young girl, nineteen or twenty. Fresh faced. Looking to build up her resume…eager to please…"

Eliza made another face.

"Hey," Andrew said. "Legal."

"Anyhow, Andrew. Check your messages, you got anything?"

He sat down and checked the machine. "No. Not my extension. Why?"

"Something I saw in the paper. Here." She tossed him the folded newspaper across the room. "A, ten."

Andrew caught it and opened to the page. "'Grueling winter in the forecast for Midwest.' Beautiful."

"Underneath that."

"'Teenage girl in Iowa brutally murdered.'"

"That's the one."

He took a moment to read it, glanced back up at Eliza. "Damn."

She nodded. "Yeah, that's a word for it. I got another one."

"Pray tell."

"Client."

His eyes narrowed, jerked his head at her questioningly.

"Loomis," she said.

"Who's that?"

"I've told you about him. He's been with me almost fifteen years, since I was with O'Dell and Pritchard."

Andrew glanced back at the article. "Oh, he's that old guy, right? Obsessed with that serial killer over in Haddonfield. Michael Myers."

"That's the one. Myers was his patient when the boy was committed after killing his sister back in '63."

"Right, right." Andrew nodded. He pointed to the article. "What's the relation?"

"A couple things," Eliza said. "The town for one. Riggsboro. You ever hear of the Phelan murders, fifteen years back?"

Andrew shook his head.

"They were a couple killed in Riggsboro," Eliza said. "This girl, couple days ago? She was killed the exact same way. Excessively stabbed, mutilated. And get this—same street as the original murders."

"No shit?" He looked deeper into the article.

"Article's brief as you can see, gives a sentence mentioning the street thing at the end, but my guess is, small town like that, they want to bury it as much as possible."

Andrew nodded. "Okay. So Loomis thinks it's what? Michael Myers?"

"He hasn't called yet. That's why I asked. The Phelan murders attracted him when it happened. Since the quote unquote 'alleged' death of Myers back in '78, his doctor has been keeping an ear out for stabbing deaths nationwide, but especially those in and around Illinois, done with a knife, and on Halloween, Myers's M.O."

"You picked him up as a client when, again?"

"A year after the Phelan murders. It was late in'81, right after the sister died."

"Sister?"

"Laurie Strode. Michael Myers's sister."

"Oh yeah. Died in a car accident or something, right?"

"Right. That and the Phelan killings spooked him. So every couple years or so there's a murder he wants me to look into. And all those cases, all those he had a feeling about, well, they remain unsolved to this day. Used to be after every Halloween I'd find an article like this, call him up about it if he doesn't call me first. Been quiet the past few years."

"Ever since you hired me," Andrew said. "Bad guys are too scared."

"Scared of your tacky window design maybe."

"Hey. You admitted you like it. You didn't want anything up there, remember? No name, no logo. Said it would look more classy, more inconspicuous. My shit brought in clients. You're welcome. Fucking marketing right there."

"Oh yeah? You learn that in community college, did you? They teach you how to dress over there too? Coming in like Easy Rider meets Lew Archer."

"Who the fuck is Lew Archer?"

"Look it up."

"Teach me how to dress. Shit. Probably shat out your mother's womb wearing a pantsuit, talking about teach me how to dress."

Eliza raised her eyebrows, let another smile come. She was grateful for Andrew. She had taken him under her wing four years ago, gave him the required hours for an Illinois license and made him a full partner.

Eliza was forty-four years old and Andrew a spritely thirty. He was the greatest friend she ever had.

"So we gettin' paid again?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I have to give Loomis a call, see if he wants me to look into it. Last I heard, his health is in decline, has a nurse taking care of him." She already had the phone in her hand.

"And what do you think?" Andrew asked.

"About what?"

"If Loomis will have you look into it?"

She found the number on her rolodex and put the receiver to her ear. "This? Same town? Same killing method? Absolutely."

"And you? Your detective instinct?"

Eliza stared at him for a moment, then out the window to the streets and the sparse traffic. She dialed the number.

Langdon, Illinois

Marion Whittington felt sometimes like she had been married twice. Legally it had only been once, to a man named Richard Chambers. And it only lasted about three or four minutes—the length of a love song, she'd tell people. The song sounded good for a while but then it faded out.

But then came a doctor named Samuel Loomis she had met as a nurse when she worked at Smith's Grove Sanitarium. In the seventies when she moved to Smith's Grove, Marion only knew the man by reputation. Later it was by acquaintance, and finally by association. He was the psychiatrist presiding over the Myers case, the six-year-old boy who killed his older sister on Halloween night 1963.

If Marion had to pinpoint the night an actual friendship formed between them, she would say it was the night Myers escaped from Smith's Grove—Halloween Eve 1978, fifteen years after his admittance. Loomis was in the passenger seat and Marion was driving the car that Myers would commandeer, fleeing back to his hometown of Haddonfield in search of his other sister, Laurie Strode, whose identity as Myers's sister had been covered up by the state when her real parents died and she was adopted.

Dr. Loomis survived an explosion that Halloween night, one that proved fatal for the escaped killer. Of course Loomis didn't believe the fatal part, and years later he retired from Smith's Grove to invest all his time in chasing ghosts.

Marion stopped trying to talk to him about it a long time ago. There was only one time she ever mentioned it again, and that was when he had his heart attack and first moved into her Langdon home to reside under her care.

She told him it was his obsession that was taking over his heart, that it was going to kill him if he let it. She told him that if she was going to be taking care of him, there would be no more of this Michael Myers business.

Loomis said okay but she knew he was lying. And it didn't take him long to cover the walls of his office with some sick shrine.

So it was with great anxiety this morning when she received the call from Eliza Lehman. It had been a few years since she'd heard her name, nice and quiet years.

"He's not here," Marion told her.

"Is there a time I can call back?"

"I can leave a message for him."

Detective Lehman left a brief message and her phone number, saying she had moved to a new office in Smith's Grove. Marion didn't record either. She hung up.

"Who was that?" Loomis was in the doorway to her office. She was seeing him for the first time that day. He was dressed in black slacks, a button-up, and a sweater vest. He hardly ever left the house, so dressing up was pointless, but at the same time she was glad it was one healthy habit he had left. Dressing up at least gave him a sense of purpose, lest he wither away in a robe and pajamas, staring all day every day at his walls.

"No one," Marion said.

"No one," Loomis repeated.

"Did you get breakfast?"

"You read the paper yet?"

"No. Why?"

He took out the local section that had been folded under his arm. He wasn't wearing his gloves today, though with Marion he hardly did anymore. The hospital fire all these years ago had left bad burn scarring all the way down his arms, so to cover it up and not frighten people in public, he wore gloves and long sleeves year round.

Of course that didn't solve the scarring over half his face.

Loomis showed her an article, "Brutal Killing of Iowan Teenage Girl." Marion didn't even have to read on from there. She sighed and looked away.

"Halloween night," Loomis said.

"Sam—"

"Who was on that phone?"

"I said, no one."

"I suppose it was no one who was killed here in this article either. Did you read the town? Riggsboro, Iowa. Another one of my cases had a victim killed there too. Fifteen years ago on Halloween night—on the exact same street no less! Detective Lehman just called because she saw it too."

"She's using you, can't you see that?" Marion almost screamed. "She believes as much as I do that your killer is dead."

"It's my money," he said. "She's a private investigator. It's not her job to care. It's her job to do what I tell her. And she does that exceedingly well. Years without a murder, one that I know of at least, and here she is still doing her job, keeping an eye out."

"Yeah, an eye out for her meal ticket."

Loomis stared at her. "Might I please have the phone now?"

Marion wished she could scream at him, tell him he was losing his mind, that he had wasted so much of his life on this pointless hunt, that he was sick now and should use the last few years of his life doing something worthwhile and end this foolishness.

But she didn't. She handed over the cordless phone. Loomis started dialing the second she handed it over, walking out slowly with his cane as he did, listing heavily to the right.

Marion shook her head. He had memorized the damned number for Lehman's office. Years of not being in touch with her and he had it memorized, despite the fact she had a new office and had probably just sent all her clients a notice in the mail.

Some days she wished that she could do something, something else instead of watch a sad old man wallow away in a dark abyss until it killed him. She wished she could help.

But she knew it was too late. Had been for years.

At the office, Eliza hung up the phone.

Andrew asked, "And the verdict?"

"Up for a road trip?"

"Excuse me?"

"Riggsboro, Iowa. About two hundred miles west of here."

"He wants us to go out?"

"Not yet. Later."

"I thought he did that part."

"He's old. Had a heart attack a few years back and doesn't travel well. Usually he'd go to the scenes himself, but his nurse keeps him on a tight leash. This time we'll be a bit more proactive. He's read the papers too. He's more interested in this than he's been in a case in a long time."

"So a day out in Riggsboro?" Andrew took a long sip of his coffee, felt the caffeine start to do its job.

"Or days. For now he wants everything the town has on the investigation. Everything we can get by phone from here before we have to travel. He wants us to get a lot done today. So get ready for a long night."

"A long night?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm."

"What does 'hmm' mean?"

"I just sort of had plans tonight."

"Plans? Do tell, Detective."

"Well, I was supposed to be having drinks with this girl."

"Oh? Which one? Helen? All tits, no brain?"

"No, Lucille."

"Ah, Loose Lucy, huh?"

"They happen to both be very lovely girls."

"I'm sure."

"Either way I'm kind of busy tonight."

"Yeah, busy with me."

"You'll make it worth my while?"

"Oh yes."

"Sexually?"

Eliza made a nasty face.

"OT?" Andrew said. "Comp time?"

Eliza made a nastier face.

So Andrew scrunched his own. "Well, gee, boss, I'd love to and all, but…"

So Eliza told him about the handsome retainer Loomis was going to pay them.

And Andrew choked on his coffee.

"Yeah," Eliza said.

"Shit. Let's get to work."

As Loomis rested in his office, he wished he hadn't been such a bastard to Marion. She took good care of him and let him stay at her home, the place he would probably die in.

She worried about him and because of that she could be insufferable. She just didn't understand. No one did.

He would apologize. Later. But right now he had this lead to work with.

He did not tell Marion how much he was paying Eliza and her partner for a retainer. She would have shot him. But money wasn't a factor with him. Smith's Grove had paid well and he retired even better. Plus he was an old man with not too many years left ahead of him.

Loomis had met Eliza Lehman in late 1981. She was a junior investigator working for the Chicago-based firm, O'Dell and Pritchard Investigative Services. She worked under a few older P.I.s in a satellite office in Smith's Grove, a short trip in those days from his day job at the sanitarium. She was thirty at the time. He spoke to the older investigators first and they showed him to her. She didn't look like much, too young and too pretty to be taken seriously. He thought about leaving, was nearly out the door but then met her eyes across the room, a clear cold blue—calculating eyes, intelligent eyes. She spoke to him honestly and with respect, told him that he had been dumped on her, the novice, because they thought he was crazy.

"And you?" Loomis had asked her. "Do you think I'm crazy?"

"I think I'll work your case damn hard, crazy or not," Eliza said.

And Loomis was sold. He couldn't believe that was fourteen years ago.

He sat in the dark now with the blinds mostly shut and wished he could pour himself a drink, a luxury he used to allow himself when these cases came up. That was before his cardiac event. He rubbed his forehead, the half it covered with burn scars, then stared up at the wall.

Harsh sunlight came strongly through the window in thin slits, covering the wall with the shadows of venetian blinds but also illuminating the stark images plastered up there.

"What are you doing, Michael?"

His eyes danced across the dizzying array of photos, newspaper clippings, crime scene information, and personal notes. One section of the wall was dedicated completely to the victims of the unsolved killings he was sure had been perpetrated by Michael Myers. It had their pictures, information about their lives, where they lived, the crime scene specifies.

Melissa Phelan and her husband Dylan were the first known victims—1980, Riggsboro, Iowa. They were killed in bed, deep into the night after they were long asleep. Stabbed repeatedly, dozens upon dozens of times each.

But generally the victims were female, young and pretty and living in quiet Midwestern towns.

Reporters contacted him every now and then, usually on Halloween, to ask if he ever planned on giving up his hunt, if he had lost hope over the years in his pursuit. Surely they all thought he was mad. And sometimes Loomis did wonder. As he got older, sicker, weaker, the days and nights lonelier, he realized he could die and never find Michael.

But he knew Michael was alive. He knew it.

But the years went on and he was not any closer to finding him. He stared at the U.S. map on the wall, peppered with thumb tacks and push-pins, seventeen years worth. Some were locations of murders he was sure Michael had committed, some were educated guesses. Some were possible sightings—every so often someone contacted him, claiming to have seen Michael. Some witnesses were no doubt crazier than him, but others—who knew; in any event they were all dead ends.

For years he had searched for a pattern, for any kind of method to Michael's madness, some kind of purpose or message in the victims he chose, the little towns and neighborhoods he chose them in. But there was nothing. Nothing except seemingly unsolved random acts of violence across parts of the Midwest.

But this girl. Sixteen-year-old Alison Brown. Killed on the same street as Melissa and Dylan Phelan. Fifteen years ago to the day. This was promising.

Except it was not the first time. In one other instance, there had been a connection, something above the simple method of killing by way of viscous stabbing with a butcher knife.

Katelyn Gregory and Isabelle Harris.

That was a good place to start. Eliza and her partner would investigate from their office what was going on in Riggsboro. He had never met Andrew Daly but he sure as hell trusted anyone that Eliza would make a full partner.

Loomis would send them into the field soon. In the meantime he would look back into the files he already knew inside and out.

So he rooted through the file cabinets next to his desk. He stopped when he saw the tab labeled LAURIE STRODE, brooded for a second, then went back to work, finding the folders he needed.

Katelyn and Isabelle.

He started with Isabelle, the time he made the connection—Dwight, Illinois, 1987. It turned out that Isabelle Harris had been Katelyn Gregory's foster sister for a number of years when they were younger. Katelyn Gregory had been murdered in a residential apartment building in a suburb outside Fowler, Indiana in 1984. Isabelle Harris was murdered three years later. Both of their throats had been slashed, one in bed, the other as she was in the bathtub.

These two women—living in different states, seemingly unconnected—had been killed three years apart in the same manner and both on Halloween night. And they had once been foster sisters.

And now suddenly another connection. Riggsboro. Maybe there had been others, others he had missed.

"You've been quiet a long time, Michael. Now you're back."

FIVE

The first time Noah Faison saw Charlee McCool was at St. Andrew's for Sunday mass, after service in the crowded lobby. He noticed her hair first, choppy and uneven and cropped short like a boy's. It did not go well with the Amish-like dress he was sure her parents had made her wear and in which she looked utterly miserable.

Charlee was so tall and already a bit too thin for her own good, and with no curves to offer, the dress made her look lanky and awkward.

But by God, she was beautiful.

Noah remembered staring across the lobby at her, knowing it was rude but unable to look away.

He took her all in, her pale skin and thin lips, the tiniest hint of freckles on the bridge of her nose, light brown eyes that brought contrast to the dark chestnut of her hair.

Later, when he would see her at school, she was much more poised and in her element. She'd wear pajama pants or camouflage pants or leather pants with lots of chains, ripped thermals or XL male shirts or hoodies, knit beanies or skull caps or even berets. He had worried for a bit that she was into girls and that this crush had no hope whatsoever, but the few times he talked with her he never got that vibe.

That first day in church, as she stood next to her parents who were exchanging pleasantries like good church folk with the other members, Charlee looked like she would rather be anywhere else.

Noah wasn't sure how long he had been staring before she finally discovered his gaze.

And even then, he didn't look away.

And he was glad he didn't. Because she smiled at him.

And it was her smile, the way she smiled at him, the way her eyes softened as they looked into his—

God, she—

She was loveliness so total it seemed to reach out and touch him, caress its palm against his cheek and across his chest, tear through skin and flesh and bone, squeeze his beating heart.

He could barely breathe. He smiled back and swallowed and felt his face growing hot.

And he felt—

He felt like he recognized her. But it was more than that, something deeper. It was a feeling like he had known her already, like she had left an imprint on his soul long ago, lifetimes ago, and until he saw her this day it had been dormant.

He left with his parents before he could meet her or talk to her. And he was glad for it because he wouldn't have been able to handle it had the opportunity arisen. But in school he'd live for those moments he would see her in the halls, see that smile, exchange a nervous hello or how are you.

She wasn't like the other girls in school, dime a dozen slaves to the fads and brand names, girls who all passed over him and his cardigan sweaters and button-ups and loafers. Something about Charlee was so real, so refreshing.

He hadn't made any friends yet, had never been much good at it. He kept to himself and his books and his schoolwork and that had always been fine, lonely but fine. He watched others, always the outsider. And he watched Charlee.

She had been wearing all black ever since the death of her best friend, Alison Brown. He knew of the two of them as a lot of people did, an unlikely pairing of friends if he had ever seen one.

Noah had not spoken to Charlee since it happened. But today when he woke up he decided that he was going to, that the timing was never going to be right and it looked like she needed a friend anyway.

She sat alone at lunch that day as she had been doing as of late. The guy friends she mostly surrounded herself with had stopped trying. And Noah was always alone at lunch anyway so…

He sat at his table trying to work up the nerve, constantly glancing over at where she sat far across the room. He took some books and binders out of his bag just to try and distract himself with something for a minute.

Some beefy guys in letter jackets passed by. The one in the front purposely pushed Noah's pile of books off the table.

"Whoops," he said. "Faggot."

Another guy hit him hard in the back. While Noah was of mostly average build he leaned a tad on the scrawny side, so he fell forward and his chest hit the edge of the table.

The group of friends chuckled as they went to sit at a nearby table with a group of pretty girls who looked at Noah and laughed.

He just stared at the table for a moment and then collected his books off the ground, breathing slow. Only a few others around had even noticed it. He went back to concentrating on Charlee.

He took another minute and then got up, shoving his books in his bag and grabbing his tray. He made his way across the room and sat down across from her. Today she wore a black turtleneck and black jeans and black boots. Over all that she wore a long black trench coat. When she looked at him she didn't seem angry or weirded out, just surprised.

"Charlee, hey." His heart was pounding.

"Noah…um, hi." She attempted a smile, soft but sincere. She played around with food that looked untouched.

Noah said, "I just…I saw that, well, I've seen lately that, well, you've been sitting alone. I know it's been, it must be…a tough time…for you. And, and…maybe you want to be alone, I don't know. But…but maybe you need a friend too. And I know…I know we don't really know each other all that well, but…um…" He chuckled nervously. His face felt like a hundred degrees. "What I'm trying to say is, if you need someone, a friend, well…I know what loneliness feels like." What the heck did that mean? What loneliness feels like. "I mean, no, I mean…I haven't ever lost someone close to me, but…"

"Noah." Charlee looked into his eyes reassuringly. His heart melted. She said, "Relax. I won't bite you."

He laughed nervously again. "I just wanted to say…I'm sorry about Alison. And if…if you wanted someone to talk to, well, I'm here. I know we have lunch together obviously, and church on Sundays. I'm no therapist or anything, but…and not to presume you need any help, just a…friendly offer."

She smiled softly again, bit her lip a bit shyly. She said, "Well, I appreciate that. I really do. I might take you up on it."

Noah wanted to beam like a schoolboy but calmed himself. An awkward pause transpired. He had no idea what else to say. Suddenly all the objects and food on his tray became very obvious—his carton of milk, his side of undercooked French fries. He studied them just to have something to do.

Charlee thankfully broke the silence. "I saw you at Alison's memorial service. Thank you."

He nodded. "I never met her, but…she seemed very nice."

Charlee nodded and smiled sadly. Then the look on her face turned mean. Her eyes moved away toward the side.

"Fucking asshole," she said. Then back toward Noah. "Not you. Fucking…Graham Purcell."

Noah turned around, saw the football player with his arm around his girlfriend, Lori Joplin, the two of them walking to a table with their lunch trays. Noah looked back at Charlee.

She said, "Alison was so hung up over him. They started going out the night she…died. It seems he moved on pretty fucking quick."

"Maybe…maybe that's how he copes with the pain?"

She snickered. "He was sticking his tongue down some other girl's throat at the harvest fair after he had already asked Alison out. Trust me, he's a dick."

"Oh."

She shook her head. "I told him to tell her or I would. She died before either of us got the chance. She died believing in that…prick."

"Well," Noah said, "I believe she's in a better place now. I know it's cliché, but it's true. You believe in it? Heaven? God? I know you go to church obviously, but…"

"No, I believe, I do. It wasn't fair though. She was the nicest girl you'd ever meet. And pure. She didn't deserve to die. Much less the way she died."

"She was…"

"Mutilated," Charlee finished when Noah didn't feel like he should. "Not just stabbed. Mutilated. I go to bed asking God every night why He did that to Alison, why He allowed it to happen I should say, asking what she ever did to anyone."

"Does He ever answer?"

She shook her head.

"I've read what's in the papers," Noah said, "how the cops have no clue who did this."

"None," she said.

"I'm…really sorry."

Charlee nodded solemnly. "You said you've never lost anyone before?"

"No. Well, a grandmother. But I was really young. I didn't know her too well."

She nodded. "You know you don't have to do this. I don't want to take you away from your friends."

"I don't have any friends."

"You're a loner."

"Yeah."

"Me too. Alison was the closest friend I ever had. A few others here and there but…beyond that…"

"I'll be your friend," Noah said. He hoped by saying this that he wasn't putting himself into the friend category forever, as was his usual experience with girls.

"Yeah?" she asked, smiling.

"Hey, who couldn't love a girl named Charlee McCool? I'll be your friend if you'll be mine too. Let me sit with you at lunch so I won't look so much like a loser all alone."

"You calling me a loser then?"

"Oh, uh, no, no, of course not."

She laughed. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding."

He laughed too, in part to cover up his red face. He said, "Let me give you my number so you can call me if you want to." He took a pen out of his pocket and looked around for a piece of paper, for a shred of something he could use to write on. But he didn't have anything without digging into his bag and suddenly looked like a fool with his pen out.

"Here, just use my hand." She held out her palm face up on the table.

"Oh, um…okay." Noah took her hand and wrote his number, trying to keep steady. He was touching Charlee McCool's hand. "There," he said, removing his own hand, immediately missing the warmth, the rush.

"You know, normally I hate being the damsel in distress."

"That's not you," Noah said. "Maybe I want you to call me." Now he was entering flirtation zone. It was too early. He was ashamed. He blushed.

Although if he wasn't mistaken it looked like Charlee blushed too.

"Do you know about the Day of the Dead?" he quickly asked her. "Do you take Spanish?"

"French. But Day of the Dead, that like's, um…that's like the Spanish Halloween or something, right?"

"Kind of. Dia de las muertos. It's a day to remember those we've known who have passed. It's kind of fun. We do it every year, my family, say a prayer for the dead. We did it for my grandmother who died actually, years back. My mother is from Mexico originally and that was her mother."

"Really, from Mexico? You guys didn't move from there, did you?"

"No, no, I grew up in Missouri. My father, he met my mother almost twenty years ago on a missions trip to Mexico. All her family still lives there, so we go every couple of years."

"That's cool. Do you speak Spanish?"

"Sí," he said. "Mi madre se aseguró de que aprendió Inglés y Espa?ol."

"Yeah, see, I don't know what any of that meant. Show-off." She laughed.

Noah smiled. "It's a little bit past November first and second, when you're supposed to celebrate, but…if you wanted to do it for Alison, I could show you how it's done."

Charlee smiled. "I'd love to."

They spent the rest of lunch together. Charlee was smiling for the first time since she found out about Alison.

She had talked with Noah up close before, but never like this. And fuck he was hot.

She would guess he was about 5'8' or 5'9'', two or three inches shorter than her, but she was already taller than most. His lightly tan skin—which she now knew to be a product of his Mexican blood—was the smoothest she had ever seen on any teenager, and made her painfully self-conscious of her own acne. He wore rimless rectangle glasses over the softest kindest brown eyes she had ever seen, and one of those old man sweaters over a button-down shirt and tie, complete with khakis and loafers. He had his hair combed over and parted like men did back in the day.

Noah was different. Charlee liked that. And he was nice. She liked nice guys.

And had he just asked her out on a date? Or was it a mere friendly act of kindness?

Either way they made a date for Sunday afternoon to get together at his house after mass. He gave her directions on how to prepare for what was called an ofrenda for their Day of the Dead celebration. It was Friday so she wouldn't have to wait long.

She felt guilty for allowing herself to feel this happy, this excited. Her best friend had just been brutally murderedand the killer was still out there.

A sullen mood had blanketed the whole town. Alison's parents wept at a press conference while the police chief vowed that his department would be pursuing a vigorous investigation. A candlelight vigil had been held at the school just the past week. And on top of it all there was the stir of speculation and conjecture around the similarities of this murder to those on Sleepy Hollow Drive fifteen years ago.

Charlee wondered if this was really the time to go chasing after a boy. But she could also hear Alison's voice, telling her if not now, when?

She was lonely for companionship. Not just for that soul mate she dreamed about daily, but for a good friend in general, someone not to take the place of Alison but help her in some way to get over her, or if not over her, at least on with her life. Charlee was sure she didn't need anyone. She had been alone her whole life. She was good at it. But having someone would be nice. And if that someone was Noah Faison, so be it.

In church on Sunday they met up and said hey before the opening prayer. Noah looked dapper as always, so handsome and refined, so Noah Faison in a tweed suit jacket affixed with elbow patches. When Charlee first noticed him in church months ago she mistook him for someone in his early twenties, maybe a graduate student. He always looked so grown up, so studious, not like a junior in high school.

He met up with her and smiled and she lost it. She didn't know anything to say, anything to do except smile back at him. They stood silent for several long, awkward seconds, swaying nervously, playing with their hands. They stood in the back and nodded at people they knew who blessed themselves with the holy water as they entered.

She had woken up especially early today and put on her best church outfit, a white blouse and long black skirt with leggings. Minus the crazy hair she looked as classically done-up as Noah was.

"So we still on for this afternoon?" Noah asked, holding the rail to prevent nervous shaking. She had smiled at him earlier and he lost it. It was that smile, the smile, so warm and real and relaxed it shot a beam of light through his chest and turned him to putty.

"Of course," she said. "Three o'clock. I have everything you said to get."

"Great. It's pretty fun. Well, not fun, it's mourning technically, but…"

"No, I, I know what you mean." She laughed shyly as if she had been the nervous one. She looked into his eyes and smiled helplessly again, felt so weak it was like her soul was leaking out of her face.

We're all so restricted by language, she thought. By these so-called social pleasantries and conventions. People talk to fill the silence but it's not real. No one ever says what they really think or what they really mean.

She wanted to tell Noah right now, I'm insanely attracted to you. I can't get you off my mind. I could love you. Love me too. Make love to me. Or just let me kiss you. God, I want to kiss you so bad. Be the one. Please. Be the one who saves me even when I say I don't need to be saved.

Charlee stared at a massive figurine of Jesus crucified on the cross, the scene of the sorrowful passion hanging up against the back wall.

"Do you know how long it took?"

"I'm sorry?"

"To die. Jesus, I mean."

"Six hours."

"Yeah?"

Noah nodded. "Excruciating."

"Anyway," Charlee said, "that's not what I really wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask you about something else."

She had his full attention. Did he ever think about her? Did he want to become more than friends? Could she be his girlfriend? Yes, yes to all the above.

"Dylan and Melissa Phelan," Charlee said. "Do those names mean anything to you?"

Noah thought, Darn it, but said, "No. Should they? Do they come here?"

"No, no, they're…they were murdered too, like Alison. Here in Riggsboro. Fifteen years ago on Halloween."

"Oh right, yeah. I've heard some of the stories since I've been here. They were stabbed and..." He stopped. Bad choice of words.

But Charlee didn't hold it against him. She was too busy wondering how even the new guy in town had heard the story when she had not heard of it at all until last year. She said, "Yeah, stabbed to death. The same way Alison was. Like dozens of times. Everyone's been talking about the connection."

"That's right. I remember that from the paper now. I forgot their names."

"I've been doing my own research," Charlee said. "Looking up old articles at the library. Did you know the Phelans were a young couple?"

"No. How young?"

"Seventeen. They married really young apparently. The girl Melissa, her father was rich. Still is rich. He's a big developer in the area. David Collins III. You know that big black glass building across town? That's his building. Have you heard of him?"

"Yeah, Collins Development." Noah nodded. "His grandfather practically built Riggsboro. I'm not sure how far back it goes from there but they say he was related to the Harold Riggs, the pioneer who settled this area originally."

"Or stole it from the Indians, whichever you believe."

"Yeah."

"You've done your research too," Charlee said.

"My parents researched the town before we moved. And I'm a nerd, what can I say?"

Charlee smiled. "Well, apparently David Collins bought his daughter and her new husband their own house, a little starter home on Sleepy Hollow Drive."

"At seventeen?"

She nodded and shrugged. "The articles didn't go into too many details, just that they died. No evidence, no suspects, no anything. The girl's mother found them. She had a breakdown and they shipped her off to a mental hospital in Des Moines. She's still there I think. The father remarried, twice."

Noah nodded, thinking out loud: "The Phelans. Huh. All this time I thought they were an older married couple, like in their thirties or something at least."

"Me too."

"And you think they have something to do with Alison?"

"They were killed in the exact same way on the exact same street. Both on Halloween. The couple was seventeen. Alison was sixteen, but that's close to seventeen."

"You think the cops are wondering the same thing?"

"They must be. And there was an editorial in the paper about it the other day. I'm surprised you haven't read it, nerd."

"Sometimes I get distracted by the funnies."

"The funnies?"

"The funnies."

"No one calls it the funnies anymore. They're comics."

"Yeah, they're comic strips. The funnies."

"You're like my grandfather. You sound so old."

"I apologize."

"Don't."

Charlee smiled and Noah smiled and neither of them could stop smiling. The choir got underway and they both never felt so interrupted in all their life.

"I'll meet you after," Noah said, turning to leave.

Charlee said, "I'll be here."

That afternoon Charlee packed her knapsack with what she needed and left on her bike, making sure to grab some deodorant, body spray, and a comb. No way was she showing up at Noah's with sweaty B.O. and helmet hair.

Her mother offered a ride, told her Charlee, you're going to catch a cold riding your bike around in this weather, it's almost winter. But the only thing worse than a cold was her mother dropping her off at Noah's, wanting to meet his parents and share looks with them and talk about how her little girl was finally interested in a boy—a good Catholic boy, at that. And she did not need that shit.

So she put on a heavy coat and bundled up. In less than ten minutes she was there. He had a house just like hers, on a street just like hers. A Collins home. She wiped her watering eyes and her runny nose with a tissue from her pocket and cleared her throat, sore from the biting wind. Before ringing the doorbell she quickly applied the deodorant and body spray.

Noah hurried her in from the cold. Then he laughed. "That's a huge puffy coat, Charlee McCool. Here, let me take it for you."

"Aren't you jealous? You know you want one."

"You drown in that thing, skinny as you are." Noah took it from her and hung it in the closet of the foyer they were in. "My parents are out with another couple from church. They said they didn't mind you coming over."

Her stomach did a flip. She was alone. With Noah Faison. "They're not worried about you, uh, alone with a girl?"

He laughed. "Someone boring like me doesn't usually have girls over. I assure you, not a thought crosses their mind that I'd be, um…doing anything."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Awkward.

Noah said, "So, um…let's get started."

He led her out of the foyer, down a hallway, and past the living room into the kitchen. Charlee took it all in. The house was adorned with pictures and figurines of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, as well as wall plaques with bible verses and other religious sentiments.

A Mexican flag hung on one wall next to a large picture of a black holy man in a white robe.

"Who's that?" Charlee asked.

"Huh?" Noah turned around. "Oh. The Blessed Saint Martin De Porres. The patron saint of mixed-race people, among other things. My mother likes to keep it here, remind me of my mixed heritage, remind me I'm Chicano. Martin De Porres was the son of a Spaniard and a black slave. I'm the son of a Mexican woman and a gringo. You go to any Chicano house in the U.S., it's almost guaranteed you'll find a picture of Saint Martin here. Reminds us where we came from, reminds us of our Catholic faith. And that even though we have some color we can be someone." He nodded, staring at the picture. "He was a great man. Lived in Peru, did a lot of work for the poor."

As he stared, lost in the picture, he didn't notice Charlee staring at him, smiling. "That's nice," she said.

"Yeah." Noah shook himself out of it. "Anyway, kitchen's over here."

He checked on the pan de muerto, what he told Charlee was the traditional bread for the Day of the Dead celebration, still in the oven.

"Hey Noah," Charlee said, "by the way—Mr. Rogers called, he wants his wardrobe back."

He laughed.

She said, "I think I've seen you in like one of every color of those sweaters in school."

"Little thing called style," he said, modeling today's cardigan for her. "You wouldn't understand."

"Wow. So that's how it is, huh?"

Noah smiled, picking up a box on the floor next to a counter and lifting it onto the table.

"Do people make fun of you for them?" Charlee asked. "Your sweaters."

"Sure."

"And you don't care what they think?"

He sat down next to her. "No. Do you care what people think about what you wear?"

"No."

Noah shrugged. "We dress differently but we're really the same." He let his gaze linger on her a little longer. She had changed from her church clothes into her usual unusual wear. She had on a ripped jean jacket over two white wife beaters, the top beater slashed several times across the stomach. Her jeans were done up with homemade tie-dye stains. And despite perfect vision, she wore thick-rimmed Drew Carey-like glasses that gave her an air of sexy intellectual. He was glad to see she wasn't wearing all black anymore.

God, he had it for her bad. He had never let himself become so enchanted by a girl in all his life. He stared at that face and yearned to hold it in his hands, stared at those thin lips and needed to kiss them. He had begun to feel a very Catholic guilt lately, his thoughts about Charlee all too often interrupting his daily meditations on the Word, inciting his profound longings for sex and romantic love. Even in church his thoughts would stray from time to time and suddenly he'd be fighting against a mean boner.

"What?" Charlee asked, breaking him out of his gaze.

"Oh, uh…nothing, sorry."

Charlee wondered if he really did like the way she dressed. On any given day her mother would take one look at her when she came down the stairs in the morning and ask her if she was trying to look unattractive on purpose. And Charlee would always answer yes. But her parents hardly said much about anything she wore anymore. The only time they ever spoke up was when they felt anything was too low cut, a v-neck too revealing or some shorts or skirts too short—not that she was into that.

"So is this how you spend your Halloween?" she asked. "Doing Day of the Dead?"

"Yup. Well, November first and second. While my parents don't ban me from trick or treating or celebrating Halloween, it was never really encouraged because of its pagan origins."

"Yeah, my parents say the same thing," Charlee said. "For a long time I wasn't even allowed to go out on Halloween or wear a costume, and by the time I could I was over it anyway."

"Yeah," Noah said. "I've never really been one for it myself but I won't get my knickers in a twist about it. It's harmless fun. A church we went to when I was younger had a trunk-or-treat thing on Halloween. Of course they wouldn't treat it like Halloween. And I'd always get a history lesson.

"History lesson?"

"You know, just, Halloween really being called All Hallows Eve. Then November first is All Hallows or Hallowmas. Solemnity of the Saints or All Saints Day. It commemorates the saints in heaven who have attained the beatific vision. Then there's All Soul's Day on November second, which commemorates the faithful departed in purgatory, when we pray for their entrance into heaven and the attainment of the beatific vision. Day of the Dead technically takes place over those two days. It's different in different Hispanic cultures and different denominations, but…you get the gist, right? Or am I just…boring you utterly to death?"

"No, no, not at all, that was very…interesting." Charlee couldn't hold a straight face and burst out laughing.

Noah joined her.

"My parents are pretty strict," Charlee said. "Like we can't be anything demonic for Halloween. My younger brother Kevin came home with devil horn face paint from the harvest fair this year and my mother flipped shit. But I don't know, I love Halloween. I'm studying to be a witch actually."

"What?"

"Yeah, a witch. You know, wiccan, neo-paganism. I have this book of spells and everything. I'm learning how to get in tune with nature, explore magic, the dark arts, how to channel spirits, and I'm totally just kidding. You need to see your face right now."

Noah shook his head and laughed. "You're bad."

"You like it. No, my fashion may be off-putting to some, but inside, I'm just a goody-little two shoes Catholic girl. Just like you."

"Catholic girl?"

"Huh? No, I mean, you know what I meant." She slapped his wrist playfully. "Anyway, I have the stuff you asked me to get." Out of her bag she dumped onto the table a candy bar and a soda can. "Alison's favorite. Baby Ruth and Mr. Pibb." She also pulled out a couple guitar picks and several pictures of Alison, some with both her and Charlee.

"Great," Noah said. "I have the rest of the stuff." Out of the box on the table he took out two macabre figurines of female skeletons, each wearing a gown and holding a bouquet of flowers.

"Ho shit, those are awesome, what are those?"

Noah smiled. "Catrinas. Part of the traditional observance."

"I like them."

"Thought you might." He went back into the box and took out a large cross, followed by a figurine of the Virgin of Guadalupe. He started to position them with the catrinas in a shrine-like manner, then took out two candlesticks with candle holders and a rosary. He draped the Rosary so it fell over the cross and the Virgin. Then he turned off the kitchen light and closed the shades over the door that led out to the patio. He struck a match and lit the two candles.

"Wow." Charlee watched, wondering if he had really done all this for her because he was just a good guy, a good friend.

Noah sat down and they stared at the altar on the table in front of them, the flickering flame of the candle casting an entrancing glow around the objects.

"Ofrenda is Spanish for 'offering,'" Noah explained. "This altar and the food, it's our offering to Alison."

"What do we do next?"

"Reflect. Pray. Moment of silence. Say a few words."

"What do we do with the bread in the oven?"

"When it's ready, we'll take it with us. Along with the food you brought."

"Take it where?"

"To the cemetery. To Alison's headstone. That's where you eat the favorite foods of the departed, along with the pan de muerto."

"That's a long walk."

"My parents let me use their other car. I have my intermediate license. You should have let me pick you up. I feel bad you having come here in the cold."

"Oh no, it's fine."

"Can I see the pictures?"

"Sure." Charlee picked up the stack she brought and inched her chair closer to Noah. They brushed arms and her heart fluttered. "I also brought these," she said, showing him the guitar picks, "because Alison loved to play the guitar and write her own songs. Country music, yes, but alas we shouldn't speak bad about the dead."

Noah smiled and looked down as she showed him first a few pictures of Alison alone. She was in her room, striking crazy poses with her cowboy hat or flinging around her curly long hair. Then she was outside in the winter, bundled up and making snowballs. Then Charlee started to show up in them. They struck poses together, puckered their lips up to the camera, tried on crazy outfits. They were laughing, smiling, best friends. The last picture was one of Alison alone again, different from the others. She sat on a couch, smiling ever so subtly beneath some curly hair that fell lazily across her face.

"I told her this should be her first album cover," Charlee said. "Just look at her. She was popular, but the good kind, didn't let it go to her head. I don't know what she was doing with me. She was beautiful enough to be a model. Tall. Skinny. The good kind of skinny, not like me. Great boobs too." She laughed. "Yeah, she was beautiful."

Noah looked at Charlee. Silent tears streamed down her face.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Huh?" she said, confused at his concerned expression. Then she felt it, touched her face and looked at the tears on her fingertips. "Oh…God. I'm sorry. Don't look at me like this." She laughed nervously, wiping the streams away.

Noah wanted to touch her shoulder, her knee, do something consoling. He didn't know what. He settled on the small of her back, keeping it light and appropriate.

Charlee got control of herself. She couldn't believe she was doing this in front of Noah. And God—his hand, soft and kind on her back, felt like fire, so sweet and hot and utterly agonizing that her body nearly convulsed in lust.

She was tired of crying. Since talking to Noah on Friday, then thinking about him all weekend and being with him now—she hadn't known happiness like this in a long time, and never imagined it would come in the wake of Alison's death. For over a week she had hardly spoken to anyone at school. At home it was no different. She sat in her room, kept up with what the papers were saying about the investigation, and wrote bad poetry full of death and gloom and depression. Her graphic novel was on indefinite hiatus.

Of course she would cry sporadically. Never when she wanted to. The smallest reminder would send her into tears. A country song. A commercial they both used to laugh at. A girl with pigtails. An empty seat in a classroom. More than once she embarrassed herself in school and had to excuse herself from class.

"We don't have to go to the cemetery if you don't want to," Noah said. "I don't want to make this any harder on you than it already has been."

"No. no, I'm okay. I'll be fine. Sometimes it's just…you know."

Their eyes rested on the other's for a few seconds. Then the buzzer on the stove rang.

Noah said, "There's dinner."

He drove his mother's Elantra slowly over the cemetery's dirt road and stopped when Charlee pointed out that Alison's stone was near.

They exited out into the cold with their coats on, Charlee letting her gaze linger on Noah in his grown-up-looking gray trench coat. He held a box with the food and drink Charlee brought as well as the bread.

The breeze was light but bitter. Together they walked down rows of headstones, over the shadows of crosses the late afternoon sun made long and gothic, the horizon a mural of orange and pink.

They stopped at Alison's gravesite and stood for awhile without saying a word.

ALISON PAMELA BROWN

APRIL 5, 1979 – NOVEMBER 1, 1995

Beloved Daughter & Friend

The foot of the grave was covered with flowers and cards. Eventually Noah put the box down, took the rosary out of his pocket, and knelt on both knees.

He reached his free hand out to Charlee. "Pray with me?"

She smiled nervously and took his hand, sweet and strong in hers. She knelt next to him and they closed their eyes.

Noah prayed: "God our Father, Your power brings us to birth, Your providence guides our lives, and by Your command we return to dust. Lord, those who die still live in Your presence. Their lives change but do not end. I pray in hope for Alison and for all the dead known to You alone. In company with Christ who died and now lives, may she rejoice in Your kingdom where all tears are wiped away. We sing Your praise forever and ever. Amen." He blessed himself.

"Amen." Charlee blessed herself as well and opened her eyes, which met Noah's as he opened his. They smiled shyly at each other and shared a couple more minutes of silence. Charlee didn't care about the cold. She wanted to hold his hand forever. "Thank you," she said. "For this, all of this. It was sweet of you."

Noah looked down and smiled nervously. He squeezed her hand.

"I know Alison would have liked it," Charlee said. "She was Lutheran, but…" She laughed. "I know she would've loved it."

From the box Noah took out the pan de muerto—the soft bread with kneaded rolls on the top to resemble bones—and unwrapped the foil from it. He gave Charlee the candy bar and soda.

He said, "You take the first bite?"

Charlee opened the Baby Ruth bar, never minding that she never liked them, and took a big bite. Noah took off a piece of the bread, tasted the sweet grain, and handed a piece to Charlee. After they ate for awhile, they washed the food down with the Mr. Pibb.

"I hope you don't think I have cooties," Charlee said as she handed over the soda.

Noah smiled, thought, I'd like your cooties. But he kept silent.

When he finally did start to speak, he stammered, "Uh…I know this is a weird time to ask, but…you ever want to…get a cup of coffee or something? Go somewhere other than a graveyard?"

He was asking her out. Noah Faison was asking her out. Charlee stammered right back, "Uh, um, yeah. Yeah." She chuckled.

"Was I funny?" he asked.

"You're just so…adult. A cup of coffee? We're young. We hang out at each other's places or go to the movies."

"We could go to the movies instead."

"No, no. A cup of coffee. I'd like that."

"You like coffee?"

"Not really." She laughed.

"I've been drinking coffee since I was four."

"I can definitely see that." She laughed again and so did Noah.

More silence but comfortable. Eventually Charlee pulled from her pocket the picture of Alison, the last one she and Noah had looked at, along with the guitar picks, placing them in front of a flower bouquet. Noah added a Polaroid he had taken back at the house of la ofrenda, the altar of the kitchen table. He placed it next to the other picture.

Charlee smiled, touched the headstone. "You know I love you, girl, right?"

Several minutes passed. The sun died, the deeper cold of dusk settling in. Noah told Charlee he'd take her home after they stopped at his house to pick up her bike.

He held her hand the whole way to the car.

And right before she got in, as Noah held the passenger door open for her, Charlee thought she saw someone, a solitary figure, a hilltop gargoyle, perched on a distant graveyard slope beneath the jagged branches of a naked oak tree, a tall dark shape shrouded in silhouette against the gray twilight.

But by the time she ducked inside the car and sat down to look out the windshield, he, it, was gone.

SIX

They were somewhere on Interstate 80. Somewhere in Iowa.

On her second cup of coffee that day, Eliza still had tunnel vision looking ahead at the long gray ribbon of highway. She tried to distract herself with the scenery. The American Heartland. Frontier country. Miles of lush prairies with flowing amber grass. Farmhouses and barns surrounded by verdant pastures and rows upon rows of corn. Endless rows of corn.

Andrew, staring out his window from the passenger seat, said, "Do you think people really eat this much corn, boss? I mean, it's just so much corn."

"Well, it's the Corn Belt."

"I mean I like corn, but damn."

"Yeah."

"I guess you figure a lot of it's filler. Your by-products and what have you."

"Yep."

"You like corn, boss?"

"Sure."

"What's the matter, am I boring you?"

"Nope."

She wanted a third cup of coffee but more caffeine would kill her. Bad for her ulcer, the doctor said. Upon the diagnosis of her first ulcer when she was a teenager, and with the recurring ones since, she had taken the hits. No smoking—fine, she never did anyway, now just had to avoid that second-hand smoke from Andrew. Couldn't have fried foods or alcohol—not bad, she always ate healthy anyway. No aspirin or ibuprofen—had to leave headaches and period cramping to Tylenol. Thus far all tolerable restrictions.

But then came the zinger—no caffeine. Sure she could have tiny amounts from time to time, but she had been a hard coffee drinker from youth, nursing a three- or four-cup a day habit that seemed the only sensible way to make it through her day and get done what needed doing. These days she allotted herself only decaf coffee, occasionally mixing in some real stuff when she absolutely needed it.

Like today. On the road now, she had time only for the sweet pure caffeine of a medium-roasted regular brew—plus a nice amount of hazelnut creamer, its sweetened creaminess coating her stomach and calming any flaring her ulcer might want to do later.

What pissed her off the most about the ulcer was just the principle of the thing. The one good thing about her disease, her OCD curse, was that at least she did everything right. She was immaculately clean, impeccably organized, ate remarkably healthy, and exercised regularly. Not a blemish, not a spot, not a speck of bad in any area of her life. But the constant need for perfection and order had created such immense amounts of stress since the time she was a child that all of it bit her in the ass and gave her an ulcer. And while her thoroughness and skills as an investigator were only as sharp as they were because of her curse, her workaholism exacerbated it.

It was her lot in life. She accepted it years ago. She had no interest in giving it up or seeing a therapist about it. Plus she'd gladly sacrifice some sanity for a job well done, for a chance at doing something in this world and this life that would leave a mark. She had her quirks, sure, but the world would be a better place if everyone had her quirks. Things would make sense in that world. There would be order and symmetry, cleanliness and organization.

"Coming up where we need to be," Andrew said sometime later. "Poweshiek County."

Eliza yawned. "Good."

"You getting tired? Pull over, I'll drive."

"No one drives this car but me."

"It's a Honda Civic. Automatic transmission, cruise control. My grandmother drives this car."

"Yeah, well, your grandmother doesn't have your record."

"So I've gotten in a few accidents…"

"A few?"

"Hey, it's straight driving for like a hundred and fifty miles, what could I do?"

"Somehow, Andrew, you'd find a way."

"Whatever," he said. "Man, I'd love to take my bike on this road, just zoom down here, one-thirty, one-fifty. Haven't seen one trooper this whole trip either."

Eliza said, "I think it's the next exit."

Andrew looked at the map. "Wait a minute. Yeah, that's it. Finish up here on 80, then we go about ten miles and then right on 63." He turned back to something else he was looking at.

"What's that?"

"A pamphlet from that rest stop," he said. "History of the towns in Poweshiek County. Look at Riggsboro, here, listen. Formerly populated by the Fox Indians. Settled in 1863 by pioneer Harold Riggs. A farming community. Was also a bustling coal mining town from the late 1800s through World War I. Transformed into a quaint residential town by wealthy developer David Collins."

"You really interested?"

"Five and a half-hour drive and I forgot to bring a book."

"A book? When was the last time your ignorant ass read a book?"

"Shit's hurtful, boss. Right fuckin' here." He tapped his chest over his heart, face deadpan. "Plus I read the paper today."

"Yeah? What was on the front page?"

"I just read sports."

She shook her head. "Either way, I think my excellent company should be enough for you."

"Are you serious?"

Eliza punched him. Hard.

"Ah Jesus. Hey, hey, home of the Riggsboro Hawks football team, made state twice. Maybe we'll stick around for a game."

"I don't think so."

A little later they got off an exit to a long country road, and miles in a large old sign on the town's outskirts welcomed them. Smaller signs around the larger sign told of an American Legion Post, the Masons, and Kiwanis International.

RIGGSBORO

A Nice Place to Live

Home of Collins Development

"Creative," Andrew said. "Warm corporate fuzziness."

"Quaint, like you said," Eliza remarked, "while still pandering to commercial real estate interests."

"Small towns."

"Company towns."

The downtown strip of Riggsboro was busy at lunch hour. Looking around they saw the post office, gas stations and car shops, a Laundromat, a dentist's office, a movie theater, diners and cafes and fast food parlors.

Going up Main Street out of downtown they passed through some more suburban commercial terrain, strip malls and chain restaurants, and finally got into the residential areas. They passed by the local high school and the expansive athletic fields, a gym class flag football game on one. A sign by the main doors read in block lettering:

WE MISS YOU ALISON

THOUGHTS PRAYERS TO

BROWN FAMILY

Underneath that were the dates for the upcoming Thanksgiving break.

The neighborhoods beyond were a maze of seemingly identical roads all lined with seemingly identical houses.

"Hey, check that out," Andrew said, pointing out the window.

At first Eliza thought he was pointing toward a sloping hill next to a wooded area. But then she saw that this leveled hill ran the length of a neighborhood.

"What's that?"

"The floodwall," he said. "It's in the pamphlet. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers. They said it can get pretty bad come spring flooding time, what with the lower elevation, so they started building these levees back in the forties."

"What river is around here?"

"The Lost River runs right outside of town, right on the edge of the Valley."

"Lost River," Eliza said. "Same one that runs through Illinois?"

"One and the same. There's a way we can come into town from the other side, through the hills. There's a bridge that would take us right over it."

"Huh."

"What's up?"

"Nothing."

After mapping out the town with a scenic drive, they stopped at a gas station on the outskirts for a bathroom break and a fill-up. A nearby country inn, the Hawkeye Motel, looked non-Norman Bates enough for a place to stay.

After capping the gas tank, Eliza logged the miles and cost of gas in a notepad. Andrew asked, "So how do we play this?"

"Low profile for now. Best not to flash any credentials 'til we have to, excite this town any more than it has been."

"They do know we've been investigating."

"Still, I'd like not to stir the pot. We're compromised enough because of that police chief."

"True."

Back at the office, when Eliza and Andrew began their investigation into Riggsboro, they made some calls to the town police chief, Obadiah McDermott, who in an oddly cooperative gesture readily shared the Alison Brown file with them front to back. They had been surprised about this at first, and so was Dr. Loomis, whose own investigations over the years had not been so accommodating.

They had figured that bringing in two outside detectives to augment the investigation would threaten the department's credibility, that surely the chief would not want them involved. But then they read the papers and found out it was all public relations. Chief McDermott was flaunting their involvement to show the town that his department was pulling out all the stops to find Alison's killer.

Eliza said, "Might as well announce to the killer himself that we're coming. Real subtle."

"Yeah, our cover's blown before we even make it into town," Andrew said. "All over politics. Is it election season in po-dunk county, Iowa, or what?""

"At least no one knows what we look like. Hopefully."

"Should we do our usual?"

Eliza nodded. "I think so. Married, traveling to see family, stopping to rent a room for a night or two. If we're asked." From a compartment between the seats, Eliza took out a fake engagement and wedding ring for herself. She also took out and gave Andrew his real wedding band, one he hadn't worn regularly in eight years.

"You look beautiful today, honey," Andrew said.

"Fuck off."

"I'll have your ass in marital counseling, talking to me like that."

Eliza started the car back up, drove the few hundred feet and parked in the motel parking lot.

The room was standard and decent enough. Eliza did a quick once-over. Tacky wallpaper frayed at the edges and buckled around cheap paintings of fruit. But it was neat, and looked clean at least.

It had a double bed she and Andrew would have to work out the details of later. They plopped down their suitcases and shoulder bags.

"I want to see the Phelan house before sundown, get that done today," Eliza said.

"All right," Andrew said. "But let's hold on just a minute. I could use a drink."

"Fine. But we work."

Eliza promptly stripped the bed of its sheets, comforter, and pillowcases, and took out her own set which she always packed for motel jobs like this.

Andrew shook his head. He'd seen this before. "You have a disease, boss."

"Shut up and help me put this together."

Andrew smiled and did as he was told. They put the bed together and Andrew walked back over to the neighboring gas station. He bought some junk food and two six-packs—beer for him, water for Eliza.

In the room, they poured over paperwork the police chief had faxed them on Alison Brown. They even went through original police reports about the Phelan murders from fifteen years ago that the chief had dug up for them. It was this one point at which McDermott had told them to exercise discretion. The Phelans were the town's little secret, and while there was speculation, the department had so far pointedly avoided any public questions linking the Phelans to the Brown murder.

They also went through the meticulous notes Dr. Loomis had taken during his own investigation into the Phelan murders back in 1980. He had sent them a package with copies of his files before they left for Riggsboro. Among the files was a thin manila envelope, enigmatically labeled with bold black marker:

LEHMAN-DALY INVESTIGATIONS

(To Be Opened ONLY in the Event of My Death)

Sam Loomis

The envelope was so light it couldn't have held more than a paper or two inside. Eliza wondered if Loomis had either heard news of his impending death from doctors or merely wasn't taking chances. She assumed the latter. It would explain why she was receiving this now and not after he had passed away. Most likely he did not trust the nurse taking care of him.

Caught up in packing for Riggsboro, Eliza lost the envelope somewhere among all the boxes and case files at the office. And now, with her and Andrew making themselves at home in this motel, she had forgotten all about it.

The woods surrounding Sleepy Hollow Drive loomed ominously behind the floodwall. A wind carried off the Lost River. It sounded like whispers, breaking the stillness and quiet of the otherwise tranquil afternoon.

Tall densely packed trees cast thick shadows that dulled the bright red and orange and yellow autumn foliage. The trees swerved, rocking in the suddenly violent passing wind. The rustling branches and leaves built on the river-whispers and spoke of secrets dark and terrible, of madness pure and unstoppable.

They spoke of hidden things, those whispers—of blood and death and a tall dark shape, a man in black that still returned to haunt these woods—things too awful to behold above the murmur of a breeze. Sometimes people swore they could actually hear those whispers. And they'd listen, listen closely…

But the chill that followed—suddenly those same people wanted nothing but to quiet the whispers, silence them before they could get any louder, speak with clarity the horrible truths. So they'd run. Run fast out of the woods to the sound of their own panting and rushing footfalls as they crunched over the fall leaves—

Yes. Anything to get as far away from those whispers as possible, and the dark secrets those whispers kept hidden, deep within the heart of the forest.

They had driven back and forth on Sleepy Hollow Drive several times before Andrew spotted the hidden section of the road.

The first time around, they slowed in front of house number seven, the Brown residence. The lawn was smothered with leaves that had not been raked. The hedges and bushes needed a trim. The house was submerged in darkness, curtains drawn in every window. At the same time, the road with its plethora of trees was blanketed in the seasonal fallen leaves, as if hiding itself from the rest of the neighborhood. The house was not so much a sore thumb as it just seemed more densely packed in a kaleidoscope of autumn color.

Ten minutes later, practically convinced the old Phelan house had indeed been torn down years ago, Eliza was ready to give up. But then Andrew said, "Wait, look at that," as she drove slowly past a wide field in between two houses. Andrew saw that what looked like an overgrown lot was really an old gravel road covered with years' worth of weeds. It led down a winding hill past their line of sight into the dense woods of the lower Valley.

"They built a new road," Eliza spoke as she thought.

"The floods, probably," Andrew said. "You can see it goes down to a lower elevation. The floodwall's close by."

"The road must have wound farther down before coming back up, and they paved a new section to connect it. Loomis mentioned the road wound down just before you got there."

"The good doctor's notes were detailed."

"That they were."

"Well, let's see if we can still travel the damn thing."

Eliza considered, and then turned to drive slowly over the old gravel road, her tires crunching over stones and sticks and the occasional pot hole. It was hard to see under years of growth but she managed to negotiate the road as it curved down a slight incline into thick woods. Remains of the foundations for other houses were still visible in the dirt, the structures themselves torn down.

But not the Phelan house. The little ranch home in the distance was the only one that remained.

Eliza parked far away from it, as the road was getting rockier and tree roots emerged from the broken pavement. She and Andrew walked the rest of the way.

A faded sign over the wooden board for a front door commanded NO TRESPASSING. Underneath was a number to call if an unfortunate animal found itself trapped within the premises. Andrew tested the door. Bolted shut.

Above faded graffiti was a window with broken shutters. No glass left, mere two by fours prevented entry. Eliza put on a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and shook one of the loose pieces of wood. She nodded to Andrew. "Here."

A couple minutes later they were in the house, the acrid blend of dirt, mildew, and rotten wood pervading their nostrils.

"If only the heat still worked," Andrew said. It had been freezing outside and yet inside it actually felt colder.

"Tell me about it," Eliza said. She brushed the dirt and spider webs off herself and took out a lint brush, running it over her pants and coat and the shirt under her coat.

"Seriously?" Andrew said.

Eliza glared at him and finished up.

"You know we'll probably have to go out that way too," he said.

"And I'll do it again then."

The house seemed nothing more than a mere skeleton. It was barren inside, nothing left of any furnishings, just the remnants of a torn couch cushion here or the piece of a door there, the rest apparently swept away by either surviving relatives, looters, or flooding.

The sun was able to illuminate most of the house, streaks of light coming in through the thin shafts in the boarded-up windows. Puffs of dirt swirled gently in the dry air, and dense cobwebs packed the corners of rooms.

The arid wood protested under their footfalls as they walked around the one-story home. The rooms were all vacant space and almost unidentifiable, until counters and cabinets gave away the kitchen, and sink and bathtub basins gave away two bathrooms.

One bathroom was connected to what must have been the master bedroom. Eliza took it all in as she entered, hoping this would be the room she could find some kind of clue in. What a possible clue could be she had no idea. She wasn't exactly sure why she was here other than that it seemed obvious. What a fifteen-year-old crime scene could offer eluded her, much less one that had been gutted by flooding on more than one occasion.

The master bedroom was empty, the closet—missing its door—empty as well. Old beer cans and used glow sticks were scattered about the floor.

"Kids," Eliza said.

"Probably spending the night on a dare," Andrew guessed.

"I imagine everyone in this town thinks this place is haunted."

"And we're here to see if they're right." Andrew brushed away spider webs and yanked on a cord hanging from the ceiling in the closet—an attic door. It was stuck. He turned around and before leaving noticed a small cabinet door on the left inside wall. He pried it open, the rusted hinges squealing. Inside, a metal shaft went down into cob-webbed darkness. A laundry chute. He closed the tiny door and stepped back into the main room. Eliza was crouched down on the floor, her gloved hand brushing the dirty wood.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Look at this."

Andrew squatted down next to her. There were words on the floor, carved into the wood in a faded childlike scrawl, two words in a column. The top word was too faded to see, dulled over by the years. But underneath it Eliza brushed away more dirt and they could see the bottom word clearly.

"Joanna," she said. "It says 'Joanna.'"

"Yeah, that's what it looks like," Andrew said. "Who's Joanna?" He stood back up.

"Hell if I know," Eliza said, standing back up as well.

Andrew asked, "You remember anything written in the police report about it? Or Loomis's notes?"

"No. Nothing. We don't even know when this was written."

"Hmm. Joanna. The female victim's name was Melissa, not Joanna."

Eliza jotted it down in the notepad from her pocket. "Could be kids again, putting their stamp on a haunted house, that kind of thing. Lovers carving their names."

"Could be," he said. "'Jake and Joanna forever, 1985, big heart.'" He went up an octave as he spoke, let it out in a girly squeal.

Eliza didn't smile.

Then the two were silent for a minute, looking closely at other parts of the room, paying close attention to the floor and walls for any other inscriptions. Then Andrew smiled. He said, "Lost my virginity in a place like this."

"What?"

"Old shack down by the lake in my hometown."

"Was he gentle?"

Andrew frowned.

Eliza smiled.

"I was fifteen years old," Andrew said. "Betty Mercer. Summer of '81."

"A year after this," Eliza said.

"Now that I think about it, yeah. Still can't believe that. Seventeen. Shit."

"What's that?"

"That two seventeen-year-olds were living here."

Eliza shrugged. "They were married."

"At seventeen? What parents let their child get married at seventeen and move into a starter home?"

"Got me."

"I mean, people did get married younger back in the old days but…"

"The old days? I was twenty-nine years old in 1980. It was only fifteen years ago. Any of your friends get married when you were off courting women in abandoned shacks?"

Andrew laughed. "No. Buddy of mine took the plunge when he was eighteen. Going off to the army. And I had to get married when I was twenty-one 'cause Amanda got pregnant."

Eliza stopped by the window, only half-listening now. Through the two by fours she gazed out at the front yard—what was once the front yard.

"He could have seen them through this window," she said.

"Huh?"

"Standing on the lawn, he could have seen inside…"

There was a loud clattering and Eliza jerked. Andrew stood still and looked over to the closet. The attic door had opened abruptly and the stairs came falling down with it.

They stared at it for a few moments.

Andrew looked at Eliza. "Jumpy much?"

"Guess Loomis must've gotten to me a little bit."

Andrew walked over to the closet and looked up into the dark attic opening. He looked back at Eliza, shrugged, then climbed up the creaky steps. At the top he poked his head through, squinting through the dry dark.

Very thin slivers of sunlight came through the small, boarded-up attic window, shedding dim light over ceiling beams and torn insulation and—something else.

The light hit it, a dark object toward the back. Andrew squinted, trying to adjust his eyes further. But he couldn't make it out.

A hand touched his leg. He stiffened.

"Just me," Eliza said below him. "Jumpy much?"

His laugh was a half sigh of relief, but the way it echoed in the attic sent that proverbial chill up the spine. He wanted to get down now, so he did. The last step broke as his steps became hurried.

"What's left?" he asked Eliza at the bottom.

"Just the basement."

The cellar door was lying on the floor of the kitchen. And looking at the stairs down to the basement was like standing at the gates of hell. They heard a steady drip and a soft echo in the vast darkness, something like the whispers of ghosts.

They descended, taking the weak stairs one slow step at a time. The cellar's overall mustiness was suffocating, pungent mildew piercing the damp air. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairwell they discovered the floor was pure wet earth.

"Oh nice," Eliza said, her shoes sticking to the mud.

"It's dryer over here, come on," Andrew said. He was walking over to the light coming in from the broken window, one of those high cellar windows, way up on the wall before the ground made way to the house's foundation.

Broken pipes and the remnants of a furnace and hot water heater filled up one corner of the basement. In another corner was the old laundry chute. The rest was vacant or else submerged in darkness.

They took little flashlights out of their pockets and illuminated some of those pockets of darkness as they split up and looked around.

Walking along the wall where the ground stayed fairly dry, Eliza's feet hit something metal and loose. She pointed the flashlight beam down. Chains. Some rusted and some that seemed oddly new. Andrew came over and hunched down, fingering the pile of chains.

"Got all your tetanus shots?" Eliza asked.

"Yeah, really," he said, standing back up. His eyes caught something on the wall. "And look at this…" He touched what looked like secure bolts fastened into the concrete.

"What the hell?" Eliza said. She looked at the wall and then back down. She hunched back over, carefully fingering the chains with her latex fingers. She grasped the end of one chain, revealing a shackle clasp. She looked at Andrew.

"Anything in the files about those?" Andrew said.

Eliza just looked at him. She dropped the chain.

A back door that led up some concrete steps to the backyard was jammed shut somehow, so they said the hell with it and went back the way they came. The daylight and the outdoors felt good to both of them. Eliza lint-rolled her coat and Andrew lit up a cigarette from a pack in his coat pocket, savoring the taste in his lungs and the warmth it brought against the cold. He kept the respectable distance from Eliza that she demanded of him whenever he smoked.

"Best not stand too close to the house when you do that," she said. "One ember gets on that wood, the whole thing burns down."

"It's certainly hanging by a thread as it is."

"Hard to believe it survived all the flooding," she said, jotting down some notes in her pad about those chains in the basement.

"It's like it's waiting for something," Andrew said. He blew smoke, leaning against the straining wood of the porch railing, and then, thinking better of it, backed off. Eliza wandered off a bit, looking around through the trees of the wooded area surrounding the house, the hill that led back up to the street on one side, the distant floodwall on another, and still more dense woods on another.

She took off her used gloves and pocketed them, then still proceeded to wash her hands with a moist toilette. She always kept a packet of them in her jacket pocket.

The day showed signs of its death, the sun lowering in the sky. From far away a dog barked. Then a sudden wind stirred. Autumn leaves waltzed in the cold breeze. Eliza hugged herself for warmth and knotted her scarf a little tighter.

And then in the distance she saw it—a tall dark shape, a shadowy figure walking in the woods, crossing the hillside, gone suddenly with the blink of her eyes.

Unsure of what exactly compelled her, she started jogging toward the fleeting image.

Behind her Andrew called out, "Eliza—what—"

Breathing hard in the bitter cold, her voice sounded hoarse as she yelled back, "Come on!"

Andrew threw his cigarette to the ground, quickly stomped it out, then broke into a run behind his partner. She disappeared over the slight incline, still running.

Andrew made it up over the hill and looked around, saw where the street started back up in the distance, saw a gully with a gentle stream and another hill that led to the top of the floodwall. Eliza was halfway up that hill, slowing now, looking around.

Andrew reached her, caught his breath. "What the hell."

"I saw…" She was catching her breath as well. "I saw something."

"What?"

"I don't…I don't know." She looked up and jogged slowly to the top of the floodwall. Andrew walked behind, a cramp hitting his side.

The town stretched out before them atop the slope. Gentle hills rolled softly into the expanse of neighborhoods beyond. As dusk crept slowly in to claim the sky, lights began to come on across the patchwork of homes, families settling in for the evening.

"It's like lover's lookout up here," Andrew said. "You taking this husband and wife thing pretty serious, huh 'Liza?"

"I…" She turned around, looking back at the wooded area they had emerged from, darkening with the late afternoon. "It's nothing. Forget it."

Andrew shrugged, losing himself in the view for a minute, in small town memories of his own misspent youth.

As Eliza turned to leave, he said, "This town…it's special."

She turned back slowly. "What?"

Andrew kept gazing, or dazing, Eliza wasn't sure. He repeated, "This town is special."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know," he said. "It just came to me, like…"

Eliza waited.

"The hills," he finally said.

"The hills?"

"Think about it. This whole state, all of Iowa, it's flat. Everywhere, flat. But here? Riggsboro? Look at all the hills."

She looked again at the view, waited some more.

Andrew said, "Almost like this land, this place, like it's special. Like it means something. I mean…what if the murders…?"

"What."

Andrew turned around, faced her fully. He said, "What if this place was chosen?"

"Chosen."

"Right."

"Because it's special?"

"Right."

"I'm not following."

Andrew looked as if he was about to say something, but stopped. He looked back at the view once more, back at Eliza, then shook himself out of it, his trance, whatever.

"I don't know," he said, "it's…nothing. Just talking out of my ass."

"You need to quit smoking."

"Please. I need to keep smoking to keep up with your neuroses."

"Whatever. Let's walk back to the car before it gets too dark."

Halfway back through the woods, near the stream, Eliza stopped. It looked like she was trying to find a dry spot to cross away from all the mud.

"Here," Andrew said. "this way's good."

"No. Look. Here."

He looked over Eliza's shoulder as she leaned down to the ground. He saw it too, the molding of a fresh boot print in the mud. A trail of five or six steps followed before reaching dry land.

"They're new," Eliza said. "As in just made new. And before…I thought I saw someone." She got up and turned around, facing Andrew. "We're not alone."

Andrew got that feeling again, the feeling that had been with him the whole time he was in the Phelan house, like he was disturbing the resting site of spirits, and now they were watching him, angry.

Of course the notion was silly. He didn't believe in anything like that. But still he felt something on the nape of his neck that caused his hairs to rise, and Eliza even looked over his shoulder suddenly like there was someone behind him—

He turned around. There was no one, nothing, nothing except a sudden gust of wind that rustled through the trees, built up momentum, and came charging at him and Eliza full force—

They stood still in the blast as their clothes rustled and their hair flew about.

When it settled down, Andrew looked at Eliza. She looked at him and then back down at the footprints in the mud.

He said, "Could have been anyone."

"Could have."

Without speaking further, the two walked back through the woods, the Phelan house looming small yet menacing.

Her car sat some distance away. In these darkening woods it seemed a beacon of light and safety.

As she got into the driver's seat and settled in, Eliza let the thing run without driving for a little while, turning the heat up high. Andrew reached in the back and grabbed a beer, popped the tab and drank.

"What do you say we get something to eat?" he said. "Bring dinner back to the room, go over the notes a little more, plan tomorrow?"

"Sounds like a plan." She shifted the car out of park. "And don't you dare spill that shit in my car."

Andrew smiled. "I got this, boss."

"Yeah, you got this."

Eliza took the old road back toward civilization.

Andrew took another pull from the can and watched the old house recede in the rearview mirror, the tiny home swallowed up by the surrounding forest, consumed by the shadows that grew with dusk.

"I tell you," he said, "something about this town…"

SEVEN

That Saturday afternoon after Mother got back from grocery shopping, Charlee said thanks, hopped in her car, and tore out of the driveway. She had promised a couple of old friends she'd hang out with them, friends she hadn't talked with much since Alison's death.

And she asked Noah if he wanted to come along.

They had been hanging out pretty regularly. Lunches. Weeknights. Weekends. She had long since fallen in love.

Her parents had promised her the car for the weekend which they rarely did due to her allegedly reckless driving. In the aftermath of Alison's death they had been nicer than normal, granting her a marginal amount of freedom that was probably the usual for other teenagers.

And because of Noah, she was sure that ulterior motives were present. Mother in particular was excited about her friendship with him, talked incessantly about what a nice young man he was—hintity-hint-hint.

Charlee sped to Noah's house in a little over five minutes. She peeled into the driveway, honking the horn a few times and revving the engine. "Noah!" she called out the passenger window, turning down blaring hard rock.

He came out of the house looking like an old businessman with his button-up shirt, tie, cardigan, and trench coat. He shook his head and smiled.

"Someone's going to call the police," he said as he settled in the car.

"Fuck 'em, let 'em call."

He was barely buckled in before she burned rubber out of the driveway and sped down the road, careening dangerously around the corner. He sat rigid, holding onto the door, eyes wide underneath those glasses. He was so cute.

"So um, how fast are you going?" he asked.

She eyed the speedometer. "Fifty."

He laughed nervously. "I thought residential areas were like thirty…max."

"Eh."

"Eh?"

"That's a suggestion."

"Oh is it now? And what is this?" He pointed at the radio.

"Mix tape. This is Metallica now. But there's some Nirvana on it too, Black Sabbath."

"Black Sabbath? Oh goodness."

"What?"

"I mean this is just awful."

"Dude, this is real music."

"This is screaming and noise."

"Well, all right, you choose something, smartass."

"Language."

"Smart…butt? That just sounds stupid. You really gotta get over the no swearing thing."

Noah recited scripture: "'Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.' James three, ten."

Charlee shook her head. "I know you're this angel of a Christian, but one day I'll bring out that devil I know is deep down inside of you."

Noah shook his own head.

But then Charlee said, "No. You know what? Never mind. Forget I said that. I like that you don't swear. It's different. It's refreshing in someone our age. A man of principle. But go ahead, choose something you like on the radio."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

He fiddled with the dials, turning off the cassette and tuning the radio. A soft female voice said, "91.5. Iowa Public Radio. Broadcasting across Poweshiek County."

"Oh God," Charlee said, groaning emphatically as classical music filled the car.

"Ooh," Noah said. "Listen, listen. Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata."

"You know that from five seconds of listening?"

"It's a classic, just beautiful, listen." But then his eyes went wide as he looked out the windshield. "Hey, look out, oh God—!"

Charlee chuckled as he tensed. She sped around a parked car and almost missed one oncoming as she swerved. A horn sounded loudly.

"So," Noah said, catching his breath, "what do you usually do at your friend's house?"

"Usually just be boring. Do nerd stuff."

"I can do that. I'm very good at that."

"This is Eddie's house we're going to. It'll be him and James. I've known Eddie since sixth grade. Only child. Room in the basement of his mother's house. Spoiled as hell. He'll be living there 'til the day he dies.

"James is his best friend. Computer genius. Insanely smart at, well, just about everything. He's a senior already, skipped a couple grades along the way. But he's a big-time atheist. Mention religion to him, he'll write you a dissertation on why the existence of God is impossible. Believe me, I've tried with him, he's not hearing it. But yeah, that's Eddie and James. You've been warned."

"Okay."

"You'll love them."

She came to a sudden screeching stop outside of Eddie's house. Noah lunged forward and then back in the seat, breathing heavy, still holding on for dear life.

Charlee looked over. "Something wrong?"

Eddie White looked the paragon of couch potato. He was obese and unshaven, sprawled out upon an old couch in the basement wearing an XXXL t-shirt with an alien's head and the insignia BELIEVE. Empty bags of junk food lay atop a coffee table sprinkled with crumbs, an open paperback copy of The Lord of the Rings trilogy compilation lying amidst the mess.

The basement room was one large entertainment center, one wall dedicated to his big screen TV, VCR, laserdisc player, as well as a Super Nintendo game console and the new Nintendo Virtual Boy. The other side of the room held his computer. Charlee's other friend James Howard was over there, typing and clicking away, downloading some Windows 95 software.

There were wall-to-wall shelves of videos, laserdiscs, computer games, and video games. Several shelves were filled with blank tapes still in their shrink wrap. Dozens of others were open and had been recorded on, the labels indicating mostly Batman and The X-Files, complete with seasons and episode numbers.

Charlee introduced Noah to them both. Physically speaking, James was the polar opposite of Eddie. He was squirrelly, scrawny, and short, a red-head with freckles and round-framed glasses.

Noah watched as Charlee took one of Eddie's toy light sabers and whipped it around with an agility and grace he found very sexy.

She called to Eddie, "Get off your ass and get some fuckin' Jedi exercise, dude." She waved her hand slowly in front of his face, a Jedi mind trick at work.

Noah watched as the two sparred, red and blue light sabers lighting up and making noise. Eventually Charlee overpowered Eddie and he died playfully with an agonizing scream, Charlee pushing the retractable saber into his chest.

She raised her weapon triumphantly as Eddie slumped to the floor. She yelled, "Moon prism power!" which was fitting given the Sailor Moon t-shirt she had on under her hoody.

"Charlee!" James called from the computer. "I can't talk to Eddie about this, so I'm glad you're here. Have you been keeping up with the shows?"

Charlee knew what this meant. "Of course. I'm loving Voyager, especially since the Captain is finally a woman. Kathryn Janeway is badass."

Eddie groaned. "Please. The original Star Trek should never have been messed with in the first place."

"You don't even like The Next Generation?" Charlee asked.

Eddie merely made a face of disapproval.

James said, "That's just…douchebagery."

Charlee burst out laughing. "Douchebagery?"

Eddie nodded. "Yeah, you've missed us lately. We invented a new word." He looked back at James. "And you know what, you also like Alien 3, so I can't trust anything you say."

"Hey, that's an underrated piece of work right there."

"Eh," Charlee said. "I'm with Eddie on that one."

"What's up with Batman?" Noah asked, looking at the shelves of taped programs. "The old Adam West show?"

Eddie and James glanced at each other and then stared at Noah.

"Um, no," Charlee said. "It's the new cartoon."

"Cartoon?" Noah said.

"Yeah. What up, dude, you too good for cartoons?"

Eddie turned around on the couch to face Noah, wagging a pudgy finger. "Batman is an art. It's not a cartoon or a kid show, it's a visual graphic novel. Smart writing. Incredible animation."

Charlee told Noah, "And speaking of graphic novels, I have to get you to read Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns. Changed my whole world. An epic Batman story. Plus it was the inspiration for the first Tim Burton Batman movie, which is…eh, you know, it's all right, but—"

"Definitely not as good as the show," Eddie said. "The show is revolutionary. So it's settled then—newbie Noah is watching some Batman with us. What do you usually like to watch, Noah?"

"I don't really watch much TV. I like to read more. But I like PBS. Has good documentaries. And EWTN, the Global Catholic Network."

James stopped working at the computer to turn and stare at Noah again. Eddie just looked at Charlee and said, "Is he serious?"

Charlee nodded, grinning. "He is."

"Oh no," James said, "are you like her with this Christianity stuff?"

"Guilty," Noah said.

"It's all mythology," James said. "A blood cult. One day I'll cure both of you of this God foolishness."

"I'll pray for you in the meantime," Noah said.

Charlee laughed loud and full. James scowled and shrugged.

Eddie nodded approval. "You're all right, Faison. It's like on the spectrum of nerd, you have us on one end with the sci-fi and fantasy shit and then you on the other with your books and your PBS."

"Guess so," Noah said.

"You heard Batman's moving to the WB, Charlee?" James called from across the room.

"Not FOX anymore?"

"Nope."

Eddie left for a minute and brought down a platter of cold cuts.

Charlee asked, "You make those yourself or your mother make them?"

"Please. If there's one thing I know, it's food." He put a whole half-sandwich in his mouth.

Charlee took a sandwich off the plate as it was passed around.

"Eat up," Eddie said, his mouth full. "They're made with love."

"I better taste that love in every fuckin' bite."

She settled on a side couch with Noah, smiling a thank you at him as they watched a couple of Batman episodes. Him meeting Eddie and James and witnessing her complete nerd side was in a way the ultimate test for him. If he stayed friends with her after this she was convinced that he had to be the one.

But she needed this day. Some Batman and some old friends. Eddie and James were good in small doses, a study hall or the occasional Friday night at nine for the new X-Files.

And as it neared the end of the second Batman, she had that yearning to just be alone with Noah again. At one point their hands brushed as they sat on the couch together. He smiled at her, and it was his soft brown eyes and that curve of a soft smile and, and—God, she just—she needed his face cupped in her hands, needed his lips pressed against hers.

After the show, Eddie and James both told Charlee how sorry they were about Alison. It came out fumbling and awkward—serious talks were never their thing—but it was sincere.

"I know we're not as close like back in the day," Eddie told her, "but don't be a stranger."

Charlee smiled and hugged them goodbye. They weren't hugging types either but did their best.

Back in the car later, she asked Noah, "Do you hate me?"

"Hate you for what?"

"I just didn't want you to be bored, or feel like an outsider."

"No, not at all."

"Good, I'm glad. Eddie and James, they're…we were closer once. In junior high. The two of them have always been best friends. But I kind of drifted apart from them in high school. They had their own thing, I had mine. I wanted to work on my writing, turned into kind of a loner, and…then I met Alison."

Noah smiled, waited.

"Alison was different," Charlee said. "We were very different, but…she got me, you know? Oddly enough we…got each other."

She drove into town and stopped at a Maid-Rite restaurant where they claimed two stools and ordered a couple of loose meat sandwiches and chocolate shakes. They sat and talked as an oldies soundtrack played over the speakers. Although Charlee had gone here all her life, with Noah it felt like she was in some kind of surreal time warp of a teenage dream.

"I can't believe you've lived in Iowa all these months," she said, "and yet you haven't gone here 'til today."

"I know. They have a few of these in Missouri too, not too far from where we lived. I've just never been." He took a long gulp of his shake without the straw and when he was finished he had a mustache.

Charlee laughed. He took a napkin and wiped it away as he smiled.

In some awkward silent moments that followed they would catch each other looking at one another. Then they'd sip at their shakes and look away nervously.

As night began to fall over town they drove to Noah's house. His parents had invited Charlee to dinner again.

She found herself getting on well with them. She had worried at first that her fashion sense might be off-putting. All the religious décor throughout the Faison house reminded Charlee of her maternal grandparents' home. And her grandparents were strict Catholics, the type who every chance they got waved a Bible at her worldly clothes and unbecoming short hair and dark personality and told her she was on the road to purgatory before she ever made it into heaven.

But not the Faisons. No, like their son they were intrigued. And since meeting her they had even taken it upon themselves to counsel her in her grief about Alison, treating her like she was their own child. Being in their presence was like being in the presence of the Holy Ghost. They emitted an aura of warmth and light, and that was new to her. Her own family was as religious and Catholic as it got, but they were some cold people when you got down to it. Noah's parents, they were spirit-filled believers.

His mother Marisol met them at the door. She had smooth dark skin and big dark eyes and luscious dark hair—Noah clearly got his looks from her side. She greeted Charlee in Spanish as always and with a wide smile. She ushered her in. "?Pasa, pasa! La cena estará lista pronto."

Charlee looked at Noah for help. "Uh…something, something quickly?"

He smiled. "Dinner will be ready soon." As Marisol ran off toward the kitchen, he added softly, "We should have shared a Maid-Rite back there. I'm still full."

"Not me. I can always eat. And I'll never turn down your mother's cooking."

Inside the foyer, they removed their jackets as Marisol called something to Noah in Spanish and they went on to have a whole conversation in it. "I'm sorry," Noah said to Charlee, "My mother likes me to speak Spanish as much as I can but she forgets about guests sometimes."

"I heard that!" Marisol yelled in heavily accented English. And as they walked toward the kitchen, she sang loudly for their benefit: "México lindo y querido! Si muero lejos de ti, que digan que estoy dormido, y que me traigan aquí!"

Charlee laughed. Noah shook his head.

A few minutes later they sat down for a massive dinner of chorizo tamales, chiles rellenos, and mole poblano.

Noah's father had everyone join hands for grace. Outside of his very white skin, he looked exactly like his son, complete with glasses, a button-up shirt, and a cardigan sweater.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head. "Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts that we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen."

"Amen."

After dinner, Charlee and Noah left to go hang out upstairs. Charlee was taken aback every time—Noah's room was more like an office or a small library than a teenager's bedroom. The bed looked absurdly out of place around so many bookshelves and a large desk meticulously organized with papers, writing utensils, textbooks and binders.

Many of the bookshelves were dedicated to different bible translations, some of them in Spanish. There were also some student and Catholic study bibles, bible commentaries, devotionals, and various other religious books. Then there were the classics—Dickens, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway. He also had some racks of CDs and cassette tapes, all classical music or jazz.

Charlee plopped down on his bed, laying on her stomach, feet up in the air playfully. Noah tried not to stare. He sat down next to her.

"I really like your parents," she said. "You can see they really love each other."

"Your parents don't love each other?"

"If that's love, it's fucked up. My parents are miserable but they're made for each other. All Mother wants is someone to control, and all my father wants is someone to tell him what to do. And maybe it worked for them at one point, but now they just...resent each other. I don't know. It's fucking depressing."

She removed a book she had accidentally fallen on from underneath her stomach. It was a beat-up marked-up paperback: El Amor en Los Tiempos del Cólera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

"Love in the time of…color?" she said.

Noah smiled. "Cholera."

"Sounds…interesting."

"I've read it about three times. All of his books. Just plain beautiful writing. You have to read it. Promise me, you being a writer, that you'll read him, any of his books."

She flipped through the pages. "Uh, this is in Spanish."

"I have the English too. I like to read both, hear how it sounds in each language. But just trust me, he's…the way he writes about love, it's…"

Charlee looked at him. Noah couldn't look at her. He went on, "Well, the way he writes about anything, really, it's phenomenal."

"Is he Mexican?"

"Columbian."

Charlee nodded. She put the book down, looked at him again, and smiled. This time Noah looked at her and caught that contagion of a smile, the smile that won him over the first time he laid eyes on her in church. He smiled back relaxed and easy.

They talked and joked and flirted into the night, learning each other, learning more.

When a silence finally fell between them, Noah looked at the clock and smiled. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"I want to take you somewhere special."

They went to the Collins Mall, a mini-mall despite the name, vacant and dark in the afterhours, most of the light coming from the street lamps in the empty parking lot. Charlee's car was the lone one there as they pulled in.

Although it wasn't a full-out mall, it had the Collins name to live up to, and it did in its expensive upkeep of the building and grounds.

Charlee entered on the Kmart side, the small mall's only anchor.

"Drive around Kmart," Noah said. "Go to the other side, the main mall entrance."

Charlee circled the mall to the parking lot on the other side. She parked and they got out of the car, began walking.

Charlee looked around, the night still, the lights from the parking lot pretty against the mall and the surrounding darkness. On the far side of the building she saw the silhouette of a lone tall man as he walked around the corner and disappeared.

Noah told her, "Since we moved here, I've been coming here afterhours every now and then."

"You come here at night? For what?"

He shrugged. "Read, relax, think about things. Brood."

She smiled. "Brood. I love that word. It's so dark. I brood often myself. I'm glad I'm not the only one. But why here?"

"There's something about it at night. It's quiet, the streets are empty, the town's asleep. There's these lights in the parking lot. And then there's the music…"

"The music?"

"That's the best part. Let me show you."

"It's not more of your classical music, is it?"

He just smiled. And approaching the mall, Charlee could hear what he was talking about. They reached the sidewalk that circled the building. Speakers under the awning were playing smooth jazz. A melancholy saxophone, a soft guitar, light piano, drums. She had been here countless times and never really noticed it.

Noah opened the door for her and they went in.

"They keep it unlocked at night?" she asked.

Noah checked his watch. "Automatic locks go on at midnight. You can still get out, you just can't get in."

They walked down spacious hallways. Charlee felt a thrill being at this place when no one else was here, a place normally bustling with people. The stores on either side of them were shrouded in shadow, lit up only by the muted glow of the timed backlights that stayed on at night, apparently along with the music.

Charlee said, "You sure do love this easy listening kind of stuff."

"Smooth jazz is the best. It just, oh, it goes to your soul. I mean have you ever heard something so romantic in your life?"

Charlee thought, Romantic.

As a new tune came on, Noah said, "This sounds like Grover Washington, Jr., or maybe…maybe Fourplay? I don't know, but the last one was George Benson for sure." His pondering gaze then fell upon Charlee. She was staring at him, smiling.

"What?" he said.

"Nothing."

One of their awkward pauses transpired, so Charlee filled it. "You're right though. Very relaxing. I should come here to write."

"I still have to read something of yours."

"Oh, I don't think so. Not yet."

"I know you're working on that big graphic novel now. But you haven't told me anything about it yet."

"Well…"

"Is it like a comic book series you want to start?"

"Well, I'm hoping it's the start of something. I have all these ideas and of course I'd start out with the origin tale for my superhero and, well, it's…I don't want to bore you."

"Try me. I'd love to hear about it."

She felt herself blushing and hoped it wouldn't show in the dark lighting.

"Well, I've always really wanted to do a black female superhero. I mean there's hardly any female superheroes to begin with, and very few black heroes at all, so I came up with this badass black superhero chick. She's called the Ghost Orchid. Her real name is Alicia Banks and she grew up as a lonely girl in the suburbs. But she's always been fascinated by the problems in the city, so she does all this street research on her own, going into bad neighborhoods, rough housing projects, studying up on gangs and drugs and stuff.

"Oh! And I'm trying to make up my own fictional city too. You know, something like Gotham City or Metropolis. Or you remember I mentioned Frank Miller? He did some Batman stuff but he also has these awesome comics with Dark Horse, created this place called Sin City. Anyway, I just want something full of crime and corruption, all the good set-up for a superhero. So…

"I came up with the name Ghost Orchid because, well…I heard about this flower once, this really rare flower called a ghost orchid that collectors from all over look for, for even just a glimpse of it. And…well, it sort of fits into the central love story that's part of the Ghost Orchid's origin tale.

"As Alicia comes of age, she and this guy fall in love—she meets him in the inner city—and they're about to run away together, but then he's tragically murdered, stray bullet in a drive-by drug shooting. It's that traumatic life event every good superhero origin needs.

"And it inspires her to create this alter ego. She runs away from her suburban home and fakes her own death. Has to make it on her own and also be a superhero. She calls herself Ghost Orchid because of the rarity of this flower and how it reminds her of love, of the love she had with this guy, this…incredible love that's so rare, that most of us spend an entire lifetime searching for and never find…"

She trailed off, staring down the hallway at an unseen distant point, not wanting to look Noah in the eyes.

She went on if just to end the loud silence: "So it becomes her thing, fighting crime out of love. The love she has for this guy becomes the love she has for the city and the people in it. Plus she's like a ghost when she fights the bad guys. No one can catch her. So it works both ways. And you'll be happy because I made her a Christian. She's got her flaws like anyone else but I always have her praying or reading the Bible or talking to people about God. But…yeah."

Noah said, "Wow. That's all…really cool. I can't wait to read it."

"Thanks," she said. "I'm trying to make it as realistic as possible. You know, she's this girl who gave up privilege to live on skid row, a real person with no super powers. Even Bruce Wayne who didn't have any powers was filthy rich and could afford all those crazy gadgets and his Bat-mobile and all that. So Alicia Banks has to work a lot harder than all of them, learning how to fight, learning defensive tactics and detective techniques, and all on a budget. I want it to be super-real. I'm still working out a lot of kinks, but…" When she stopped, she glanced nervously over at Noah. He stared back at her and seemed sincerely invested.

"I'm sorry," she said, "for rambling, I…I must be seriously boring you."

"No, no, please, not at all. I love to see how…passionate you get about your writing."

Charlee thought, Passionate.

"It's refreshing," he said. "The things that interest you, the things you like to do."

"Most people don't see it that way," she said. "But I've had this writer's block lately, ever since Alison. So I don't know when I'll get around to writing again."

"I have faith."

"You would."

They sat down on a hard bench by the wall, silent for a moment. They gazed around at the closed stores, gates down for the night. A jewelry store. A clothing store. A drug store. A hair salon.

Meanwhile some soulful smooth jazz washed over them, set a mood.

"This is nice," Charlee said. Smooth jazz wasn't really her thing, but maybe it should have been, for tonight it did wonders, stirring up the deepest longings of her heart. It sounded like sex and love and city lights. She wanted this night to last forever. Noah, the mall, the music. All of it. She was intoxicated.

"Tell me something about you now," she said.

"I'm just really boring," he said. "But I'm like you, interested in the things nobody else cares about. Who likes the guy that doesn't swear or party? Who likes the guy that reads books about the Bible all the time?"

"I like him."

"I like you a lot, Charlee."

She looked at him and smiled nervously.

He added, "I like that you're not like other girls."

"What kind of girl am I?"

"I don't know. You're…you're the kind of girl who doesn't need a guy to stick up for her. You're the kind of girl who hates shopping. You're the kind of girl who watches Star Trek and reads comic books. You're not the kind of girl who'd make a guy hold her purse. You're not the kind of girl to even have a purse."

She laughed. "You got me down pat."

Noah looked at her in that silence that followed, looked away. "You know, Charlee McCool…"

She chuckled before he could go on. "Alison always did that. Call me by my first and last name. I hated when anyone else but her did it. But it's not too bad with you either."

"Good. Because I like it."

"Now what were you saying? I'm sorry."

"It's just that…" The words froze in his throat, in his feverishly pounding heart.

"What?" she asked with a soft smile.

Finally Noah just looked into her eyes and said it: "All I do is think about you."

Silence.

He swallowed.

Charlee could have cried. "All I do is think about you," she said, her voice breaking.

Noah smiled, easy and full. She smiled back. They stared at each other with the doe-eyed stares of the young and the yearning.

"I've felt this way for a long time," Noah said. "I can't believe I'm finally telling you."

"I've felt the same way," she said. "Ever since I first saw you."

"You're just incredible, Charlee. And you're…God, you are crazy beautiful."

Her face went red hot. She looked away for a second, willing it to cool down.

And before she could say thank you or tell him he was so fucking hot she got dizzy just looking at him, he said, "I…I've never even kissed a girl before. I've never been with anyone actually."

"Me either."

The pause that transpired between them was heavy, dripping with tension. Noah finally moved in, then veered away at the last second.

"No," Charlee said, letting the longing in her voice break through. "Please fucking kiss me. Please."

Noah turned back, looking at first a bit surprised but then relieved. He went in again, she followed up, and finally, their lips locked. It was soft at first, shy on both their parts, but then their lips parted and their tongues met and their mouths opened wide, and suddenly, swiftly, they devoured each other.

Until that point they had never been kissed, beholden to almost seventeen years of untapped profound levels of deep romantic love. And now finally, finally, they could unleash it.

They fell back onto the bench, tangled in one another, clawing at each other, panting agonizingly as they made out for fifteen minutes straight.

Eventually, parched and out of breath, lips chapped, they just rubbed their faces against one other and buried each other's hands in their hair. They stared into one another's eyes.

And then they started up again.

After maybe a half hour, tears came to Charlee's eyes and she went to wipe them away on her shirt.

"I'm sorry," Noah said. "Did I do something?"

"No, no, it's not you. It's…I'm just…so happy. My best friend just died but here I am kissing you and I've never been this happy in my entire life."

Noah brushed away a tear on her cheek. "Me either," he said. "And I don't want you to think I'm taking advantage of you after Alison's death to finally tell you my feelings."

"No, I don't think that at all." Charlee wiped away the last of her tears. "I…need to tell you something actually. And I probably shouldn't because I don't want to scare you away. But it's…we're here and the music and kissing you and…I just can't think of a better time."

She took a breath.

"I love you, Noah. I'm in love with you. Crazy in love with you. I have been for awhile. Basically since I first saw you. But I…I know we've only known each other a few months and we've only had a couple weeks of actually being friends, and now we've only been together together for, well, a few minutes, and I really don't want to freak you out, but I…I had to tell you. I love you, Noah."

"I love you too." Noah didn't even wait. Charlee's wide eyes glistened.

He told her, "The first time I saw you it was like…I knew you already. And not just knew you, but like I had loved you before." He put his hand on her cheek and she melted into it with a soft moan, something like a half-whimper, half-gasp.

"Like it was written in the stars," he said. "I love you, Charlee. I have always loved you. You're the one I've waited my whole life for."

She could only imagine what she must have looked like then, eyes wide and mouth agape, utterly lovesick and wonderstruck. "Oh," she said, "Noah…"

They kissed once again, short kisses evolving into long and passionate ones.

"You don't know how long, how badly I've wanted to kiss you," Noah said. "How badly I've wanted to tell you all of this."

"I can't believe all this has happened," Charlee said. "Just keep kissing me. Let me kiss you so I don't wake up."

She couldn't get to sleep when she got home that night.

She wished she could call Alison and tell her everything, listen to her squeal and say how excited she was for her. With a broken heart she remembered the last thing Alison had ever told her—to ask Noah out.

She fantasized about him in bed, love drunk, high off kisses and smooth jazz. She came furiously, crying out his name, crying out I love you, willing the sentiment to travel through the air, through the night, all the way to his bedroom.

She went to sleep, longing to share that feeling with him.

Several hours later she awoke suddenly.

Someone was in her room.

At least that was what it felt like. Her eyes heavy with sleep, she squinted through the pitch blackness, looking for movement, listening for a sound, for the thing that had awoken her in the first place.

And then it came through her hazy consciousness.

Her alarm was beeping on the nightstand. She looked over, bringing her clock into focus, the spinning red digits materializing into 3:08.

At first, confusion, but then—a sinking fear.

She hadn't set that alarm.

She turned the beeping off. But the loud silence that followed only frightened her more. Suddenly she wanted noise. She wanted to go downstairs, watch TV, listen to music, turn on all the lights.

Maybe she really had set it, just put in the wrong time.

No.

No, it was off by hours, the minutes too—she would have noticed. Maybe a glitch then. It was an old clock. Must have been.

Whatever it was, she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was still in her room. But that was silly. And she was too tired to get up and look anyway.

She drifted back to sleep.

But there were times as she tried to doze off when she swore she could hear slow, heavy breathing. Not her own.

EIGHT

David Collins III lived in Lexington Heights, what the townies referred to as the "rich borough" of Riggsboro. His Victorian home was similar in style to the others in town, though every home in Lexington Heights was about twice the usual stature.

Eliza and Andrew were playing themselves now. They took off their faux wedding bands as they parked outside the semi-mansion.

They got out of the car, Eliza in a long coat over a black turtleneck and black slacks, Andrew in his tan trench coat over a cheap sports coat and button-up and loosely knotted tie.

"Will you straighten that blasted tie for once in your goddamned life?" Eliza said. "If not for me, then for this meeting. You're bad enough with that half-beard and your Shaun Cassidy hair."

"Keep your shirt on, boss, Jesus," he said, centering the knot in his tie and pulling it up a bit. "Let's talk about you for once. All black, in that turtleneck. Look like a fuckin' Women's Studies major at Vassar."

"Keep talking, asshole."

They approached the tastefully landscaped cobblestone pathway to the front door. They surveyed the expansive grounds.

The Collins home sat before many acres of surrounding land, complete with a small guest house, a horse stable, and myriad fenced-in fields that stretched toward Riggsboro hill country.

A strikingly attractive woman answered the door. She introduced herself as David's wife, Ilene. She had auburn hair and high cheekbones, and the tall lithe body of a model. She looked no more than late twenties, early thirties—whatever she was, she was considerably younger than her husband whom Eliza knew to be in his early fifties.

She and Andrew had done their research. Ilene Simons was David's third wife. His first had been Diane Fischer with whom he had had Melissa. Diane had been admitted into psychiatric care when she suffered a nervous breakdown upon discovering Melissa's dead body. They divorced soon after. Collins's second wife had been a gold-digging socialite from Des Moines named Katherine Nash, and their marriage lasted barely a blip. She smeared Collins's name across the papers in an ugly divorce, and that was the first time rumors came out about extramarital affairs and real estate scams, nothing that was ultimately proven. He had been with his current wife Ilene for over thirteen years. Soon she would beat his first wife's record. Eliza wondered just how young Ilene was when Collins snatched her up.

"My husband's in a business meeting," Ilene told them as she led them inside. She oozed a subtle sexuality that was masked by a WASP-y grace and class. She went on, "Well, more pleasure than business, I'm sure, given it's the weekend and he's home from the office. I can certainly arrange to have him take a break, talk with you two for a spell."

"Appreciated," Andrew said, flashing his panty-dropper smile. When Eliza first met him, there had been something about his general charm and sharp good looks that in spite of his unkempt appearance made even the likes of her sexually frustrated. She was over that now.

Ilene disappeared for awhile and they just stood and took in the marvelous lobby of the Collins home, a huge chandelier hanging above them and a curved stairwell with ornate carvings in the rich mahogany wood leading to a plush upstairs.

The house let in sunlight in that way only rich homes seem able to do, as radiant as a mansion on the sunswept streets of the Beverly or Hollywood Hills.

"Oh, yes, yes, of course," Eliza heard a male voice say. "Let them in to my study."

Ilene returned and led them down a long hallway to a spacious study. On one wall, patio doors looked out on a storybook backyard scene. There was a garden, a fountain, a swimming pool, acres of mowed land so green Eliza wondered if that grass is greener fuss was actually true.

Several men in suits stood or sat somewhere in the room. Eliza spotted David Collins easy, knowing what the man looked like from many a local magazine article she had come across. Before she could take in the study, she locked eyes with him as he turned away from looking out the patio doors and put down his drink.

David Collins III looked drastically younger than his age. It changed Eliza's first impression that his looker of a wife was only in it for the money, Collins being quite a looker himself. He had that self-possessed nature of one teeming with confidence, amplified by a dapper three-piece Italian suit. He looked to be in great shape, built like a thirty-year old and without a gray hair on his head.

There was nothing off the bat that gave the impression that this was an older man, one weathered by years of questionable business dealings or the unsolved violent death of a daughter. But then there were his eyes. His eyes showed the years. They told the stories.

"David Collins," he said, offering his hand.

"Eliza Lehman. This is my partner, Andrew Daly."

"Yes, of course. Lehman-Daly Investigations."

"You're familiar with us," Eliza said.

"I read the papers."

Eliza silently cursed that damned police chief. "So you know why we're here."

"I've been expecting you, as they say."

"Good," Andrew said. "We don't want to take up a lot of your time. We see you have company. We just have a few questions."

"No trouble at all," Collins assured. "Come, meet everyone."

They met the other men about the room, all of them seeming to convey a smug sense of entitlement. There was a town board member, a county supervisor, the VP of Collins's development company, two lawyers from Des Moines, and even a state senator.

David Collins, Eliza thought. The man behind the scenes. The kind of man with campaign dollars more than enough to roam all the political back alleys and make all the really important decisions. With his monopoly on town development, he controlled the money, the business interests, the real estate. And here he sat and conspired with town and county and state officials. A powerful man with powerful influence and powerful secrets. He had long ago learned how to play the game, to outlive town and county supervisors and police chiefs and senators. Just like his father and grandfather. Handpicking those in office far before election season rolls around.

He owned this town, held it by the balls.

Eliza had dealt with men like him before. Some cases, if you work them long and hard enough, if you follow the money, these are the men you run into. And typically that's when a case gets stonewalled.

Collins excused himself from the men, but not before taking out a decanter and offering them all another drink in crystal brandy glasses, even to Andrew and Eliza.

Eliza declined. Andrew didn't.

"Oh fuck, that's good," he muttered under his breath after taking a sip.

Collins didn't hear him but Eliza did. She shot him a look.

"We understand this is hard for you," Eliza told Collins as he led them out into the hallway. "Our intention is not to dig up the past any more than we have to for the purposes of our investigation."

Collins nodded. "It's okay. Sit. Please. Our housekeeper has tea on the stove. She'll be here in a minute." He motioned into a large living room that was practically all white—the rug, the walls, the curtains, the furniture.

They took their seats on a posh couch that was upholstered in white silk. Collins sat in a lounge chair across from them with a glass coffee table in between. He grabbed a small white keepsake box from next to the couch, put it on his lap. He played with the lid, not quite opening it, almost.

"This," he said, "is an old wound. A wound that I have been opening and reopening since the unfortunate passing of Ms. Alison Brown. Torturing myself, you see."

Eliza and Andrew waited.

"They're memories," Collins said. "Of my daughter, Melissa. Photographs, jewelry, report cards even." He opened the lid of the box just a sliver, then closed it again and put it on the coffee table.

"Did you know Alison Brown?" Eliza asked, taking a small notepad and pen from her pocket.

"No."

Andrew elaborated, taking out pen and paper himself, "No acquaintance or familiarity at all?"

"The first time I heard of her was just a few weeks ago when I read about her death in the papers."

Andrew asked, "How about your wife? Children?"

"Ilene didn't know her either. Our daughter Chelsea goes to a private school. She doesn't know any of the kids here really. This is her, by the way." Collins moved a framed photo on the coffee table so it faced Eliza and Andrew. An attractive young girl stood in jockey wear out in a field, smiling, one hand up on a majestic horse. The girl was the spitting image of Ilene, but the eyes were her father's, the same razor-sharp blue.

"How old is she?" Eliza asked.

"Turned thirteen last month."

"She's beautiful," Andrew said.

Collins nodded a thank you.

Eliza said, "Your daughter Melissa, we just have a few questions about her."

"Go ahead."

"She was living on her own at the time of her death," Eliza said. "With a husband."

"Yes."

"Yet," Andrew said, "she was seventeen."

"You want to know," Collins said, "why any important and self-respecting man like myself, a father, would let his seventeen-year-old daughter emancipate herself, get married, and live with a boy—even buy her first house for her."

A hint of a smile came to Andrew's lips. "In so many words."

They waited.

Collins shrugged. "It's irrelevant."

"Irrelevant," Andrew said.

Eliza said, "All due respect, Mr. Collins…"

"I'll say it again," Collins said. "It's irrelevant. My daughter Melissa, when she was sixteen, was swept off her feet by some sweet-talking Romeo. Dylan Phelan. She said she was in love with him. Didn't like the rules under my household. Wanted her own place."

Eliza said, "So…you buy her a house?"

Collins sighed. "My parenting is not the issue here. Yes, I bought her a small starter home, one of my own. That was all. I'd rather that than her running away and destroying her life completely. I could keep my eye on her this way. The rest was up to her and Dylan. They had to find jobs, keep up on bills, do all that themselves. And you know what Melissa told me when I said that? She said, 'Love will take care of us.' You believe that? 'Love will take care of us.' Kids." He shook his head. "If anything, that made me want her on her own even more, if just to hit her hard with reality. Questionable parenting to some, perhaps. But if they're not criticizing us for pampering our children too much, it's neglecting them too much. Unfortunately I…never quite knew how it worked for Melissa. And I wonder sometimes if…if I hadn't have let her move out if…well, you know."

"Did you like Dylan?" Andrew asked.

"Dylan was…" Collins drifted off. "Dylan was a good boy. He was good to her. He did the right things. Became a man when he needed to be one. Got a job, supported her. I wasn't his biggest fan at first, no. What father is when it concerns his daughter? But things changed. He grew to be…a good man."

A homely black woman entered carrying a tray of tea cups, saucers, spoons, a pot of hot water, lemon slices, and several different tea bags. She placed it carefully on the coffee table. Eliza resisted the urge to make a look.

Collins did not introduce them, merely said, "We've got it from here, Juanita. Thank you."

She nodded and left. Collins leaned forward, poured the steaming water into three cups and motioned to the bags. "Choose any flavor."

Eliza took some decaffeinated black tea and squeezed some fresh lemon into it. Andrew kept sipping his brandy.

"Your ex-wife," Eliza said, steeping her tea with a spoon, "Ms. Fischer, she's—"

"Not well," Collins said.

"Would she know anything else?"

"No."

Andrew said, "But she's well enough to talk to us, right?"

Something went up Andrew's backbone when Collins turned his gaze toward him. Collins said, "She talks. None of it makes much sense. She hasn't functioned well since, well… she was the one who found the bodies, as I'm sure you're aware. I put her in a facility not long after it happened. She simply never got over it. Her doctor says she's in denial about it. That she invented a world where she never even had a daughter. Where we're still married. She's lost her faculties, Detectives. Believe me, it's a dead end."

"Do you still talk to her?" Eliza asked. "Go see her?"

"I check up on her. A phone call to her doctor from time to time."

"But you don't actually visit her?" Eliza said.

"No. And I'd appreciate not discussing her any further. We were on the fritz even before Melissa's death. Trust me, she doesn't know any more than I do. Once again we have ventured onto an irrelevant side note."

Andrew and Eliza said nothing for a few moments. Andrew drank a healthy portion of his drink.

Finally Eliza said. "How was your relationship with Dylan's parents?"

"Parent, you mean," Collins said. "Tragic, the boy growing up without a father. Cancer, if I recall. I suppose you could say he got my sympathy in that respect as well."

"So how was your relationship with his mother?" Eliza asked.

"Fine." Collins shrugged. "She shared many of the same concerns I had about the whole situation, the two marrying and moving in together so young. She moved out of state not long after Dylan's death. I trust you have found out all of this already."

"We have."

"And you've spoken to her?"

She nodded. "She lives in Florida now. Remarried."

"It will be over my dead body," Collins said, "before I succumb to spending my senior citizenship in that state."

Eliza changed the subject. "Before Melissa and Dylan's death, was there anything…going on? Any known enemies?"

"I trust you've read the police reports," Collins said. "You know what I said about that fifteen years ago."

"I do," Eliza said. "You said your daughter had not one enemy in the world. She had only friends. And the same for Dylan."

"This is true," Collins said.

"But Mr. Collins," Eliza said, "we're asking about you now. Respectfully."

"Me."

"You," Andrew said. "Your enemies."

Collins gave them both long stares that told them nothing. Finally he stood up. "I hardly mean to be rude, but I must be getting back to my meeting."

Eliza and Andrew exchanged glances. They stood up and closed their notepads.

Collins said, "I'm a respected man in the community, Detectives. It's not so much me personally that I worry about, but my name itself, my business. I don't want all I've worked for to be linked to any murder, not again. So I'd very much appreciate your discretion in this sensitive matter."

Eliza nodded, shaking his hand without a smile.

Andrew shook it as well. He said, "We already know Chief McDermott doesn't share that same discretion."

Collins smirked lightly, and it was the first time Andrew noticed that the man did not laugh, hardly even smiled, and when he did it seemed for nothing but show.

"Oh," Collins said, snapping a finger, "I almost forgot." He leaned down and grabbed the keepsake box off the coffee table, opening it up finally. He sorted through some materials and came out with a small stack of photographs. "These are yours."

He gave them to Eliza. She said, "We couldn't, Mr. Collins."

"You can. You will. Finally put faces to the names."

"But—"

"I have doubles. Triples. It's fine. Wouldn't want you to leave empty-handed."

Eliza nodded. "Thank you."

"I'll have Ilene see you to the door," Collins said. "Good day, Detectives." He turned after a slight bow and left.

Ilene came in from the other entrance to the living room from the main hallway, smiling and holding their coats. She screamed Stepford.

They left.

In the privacy of their car and out of Lexington Heights, Andrew said, "Well that was, uh, yeah."

Eliza said, "Tell me about it."

"You see that three-piece suit? Those pinstripes? I didn't realize the mob ran small-town Iowa." He changed his voice, mocking Collins with a Vito Corleone-like inflection: "'I'm a respected man in the community, Detectives.'"

"He is handsome."

Andrew rolled his eyes.

"His face is so…proportional," she said.

"Proportional? Only you, 'Liza."

At the motel, they ordered take-out for dinner and looked over the photos Collins had given them.

Melissa and Dylan Phelan were a cute couple, enraptured in that hands-all-over love of the young. Melissa was tall and thin, with long brown hair. Dylan was tall and a bit lanky, with an athlete's build and a face boyishly handsome despite being peppered with acne.

While many pictures were of the young couple, in some Melissa was alone. In still others her parents were present. In one, David Collins stood with his daughter and his first wife in front of a lavish fireplace and mantle.

David Collins had a bit more hair and was just as movie-star good-looking as ever. Melissa smiled full for the camera. She was a gorgeous young woman, the product of two beautiful parents. Diane Fischer, a tall leggy blonde, smiled politely, her chin up in an ever subtle display of haughtiness.

But even in the photograph, there was something behind that polite smile, behind those icy blue eyes, something hidden and sad and just a little bit dark.

Hank's was your standard honky tonk, a country-western bar that sat just a few good stone throws up the road from the Hawkeye Motel and the neighboring gas station. Eliza and Andrew drove there nonetheless and parked next to a couple of off-brand choppers in the dirt lot outside.

Inside, a bunch of beer bellies shot pool or sat around watching the game on the TV, all under a thick haze of cigarette smoke and dim lighting. A stage next to the bar remained empty, no open mic or karaoke tonight. Instead from the jukebox Clint Black sang about being a better man.

They got a couple looks when they walked in, nothing that stopped the show but still gave the patrons a little pause. Eliza was better looking by far than any other woman in the place. And despite his natural unkemptness Andrew was still a pretty boy. Add to that Eliza's black turtleneck and coat getup, and Andrew's trademark tan trench coat and fedora—it all clashed amidst a sea of flannel, Levis, and baseball caps.

But they had their wedding rings on and walked in holding hands, a traveling couple stopping in for a drink.

"I'm a take a smoke break real quick, boss," Andrew said.

"You're gonna leave me alone here?"

"You're a big girl. You got your piece with you?"

"Funny."

"I'd stay, but I know all this second-hand is bad enough for you without me doing it right in front of you."

"Get the fuck out of here."

Andrew left and Eliza got an ice water with lemon at the bar. She took a moist toilette from her jacket pocket and wiped around the rim of the glass before she started drinking. She took a look around, saw the typical townie types. There were a few characters that looked legitimately rough and tumble, but mostly it was a poseur crowd, yuppie suburban conservatives playing as redneck cowboy toughs.

She was nursing her drink silently when Andrew returned and took a stool next to her. She nodded at his fedora. "Would you please take off that ridiculous hat?"

"Hat's part of the job, boss."

"Our job now is looking married and inconspicuous." She ripped the fedora off his head. "Fuck's a matter with you?"

"You been hanging around me too much, boss, a mouth like that." He looked at Eliza's drink and snickered. "Going wild tonight, 'Liza."

"Lemon. Good for you. Prevents kidney stones. Had it in my tea earlier too."

"Saw that. So you doin' all right?" He waved around at the smoke.

"Yeah. What kind of a P.I. am I if I can't get over a little smoke?"

"A P.I. of the nineties. Fit right in with the no-smoking craze. Pretty soon bars and restaurants will be banning my kind. You watch."

"Thank Christ, that'll be the day."

Andrew took a handful of the nuts out of the bowl on the bar. He caught Eliza's face as he popped them, chewed, and swallowed. "What?" he asked with a full mouth.

"You know the diseases on those bar nuts? Everyone else's hand has been in there. Look around, you want their diseases?"

"I always eat the bar nuts."

"Never eat the bar nuts. It's a rule."

"You're a rule." Andrew went for another handful and Eliza swiped the bowl away.

"You'll thank me someday," she said.

"Whatever." He ordered a shot and a beer. Downed the shot in a second and followed it with half his glass of beer. He put up two fingers to the bartender for his next round.

"So," he said, "what do we know?"

Eliza sipped her lemon water, shrugged. "Empty haunted house down in the Valley. The victim Melissa, her father knows nothing. Helpful as he could be."

"Helpful?"

"Pardon?"

"Couldn't tell you what it was. Just the way he knew all about us. Then the way he wanted us gone, didn't want us digging up anything he wouldn't show us first."

"Man like that, you have some skeletons. Probably nothing to do with this case."

"He's hiding something. Those pictures he gave us? Like a consolation prize for telling us jack shit. Placating us, figuring we'll think he was a big help."

"Could be. Okay. Let's keep going. What else?"

"Alison Brown."

Eliza nodded. "New victim on the same street fifteen years later with seemingly no connection whatsoever to the Phelans."

"That's just it," Andrew said. He took down the rest of the drink. "Why Alison? What's the connection?"

"Let's start further back. Why Dylan and Melissa to begin with?"

"I don't know."

Eliza thought out loud: "Her father."

"What?"

"Collins. Melissa was the daughter of the most powerful man in this town, in this county even. What if her death means something? The daughter of a town icon. Maybe someone with a grudge?"

"But Alison?" Andrew asked again. "She's no one. Her parents are no one."

Eliza said, "Same street. Could be nothing more than that."

"So someone offs Collins's daughter to get at him, goes dormant for fifteen years, then pops up again to kill some random girl on the same street? That your theory?"

"Didn't say it was a good one."

"Plus, something tells me the daughter of a man like Collins gets murdered, maybe it's not the police he relies on to catch her killer. He's got that…certain something that tells me he could have made a few calls, done his own investigation, took care of the killer himself. Maybe he already has. Maybe that's why he seemed so relaxed by the whole thing."

"But again—Alison Brown. What, another killer pop up out of nowhere?"

"Maybe revenge, maybe he was connected to the first killer."

"If Collins took care of the first killer, one connected with the killer would want to get back at him, yes. But he'd probably go after his current daughter, Chelsea. Follow in the daughter theme. Not some random girl like Alison Brown."

"Maybe just to scare him? Let him know he's still out there?"

Eliza shrugged.

Andrew said, "Maybe the killer is Collins himself."

"Why?"

"You saw that wife of his," Andrew said. "And we read about his second wife. They keep getting younger and younger. Plus, rumors of affairs came out when those real estate scams did."

"Alleged affairs. Alleged scams. But that's beside the point. What makes him a killer?"

"I don't know, the way he kept that little shrine box with pictures of his daughter. And how he wasn't too crazy about Dylan at first? We have the pictures. Melissa was a beautiful girl. Collins fits the type. Powerful older man, probably had some affairs here and there, likes the younger ones. Good-looking enough to get them too."

"Even his daughter?"

Andrew shrugged. "Young girls get diddled every day. Mostly by relatives. I'm saying maybe Collins had some sick obsession with her. Maybe he abused her, maybe not. Either way he was infatuated. So she tried to escape. He went along with it, even bought her and her beau a house. But then it gets too much, so he snaps, kills her and her husband in bed."

Eliza went off his thought: "And then fifteen years later, Collins notices a young Alison Brown. Maybe she reminds him of Melissa somehow. Young, same age, same street. So he kills her the same way he killed his daughter."

"Now you're talking."

She shrugged. "It's a thought. Your guess is as good as mine. As far as we know it really could be Michael Myers."

"Many holes as there are in this case, I'm willing to believe even that."

"Let's entertain it."

"What?"

"Myers."

"Okay."

"Say Loomis is right. Say Myers is still alive, committing all these murders across the Midwest."

"Including here in Riggsboro. Fifteen years ago and now." Andrew got another draft beer and a shot.

"Right."

"Well, then we're back to square one, what I said before—forget any connection to Alison. Why Melissa and Dylan to begin with?"

"They were the first," Eliza said.

"The first?"

"Of the killings Loomis theorized Myers was involved in after the Haddonfield murders in '78. The Phelans were the first that he was convinced Myers had committed, before the string of other murders."

"What about before 1978?"

"Myers was locked up."

"No, I mean, were there murders before then? Unsolved across the Midwest?"

Eliza smiled. "None that matched Loomis's criteria. That's the thing. It's where he has even his greatest skeptic. They all started after 1978, after Myers's alleged death. And always on Halloween, just like Myers."

"Ah, the plot thickens. So. Myers offs the Phelans, his first victims since Haddonfield. Then he hops around every Halloween from town to town, but returns to Riggsboro after fifteen years and kills Alison Brown."

"Theoretically."

"Of course."

"But why? Why Riggsboro? Why the Phelans? Why Alison? We couldn't say that some serial killer from Haddonfield has a vendetta against Collins. Or anyone he has theoretically killed since. They're just random acts of violence. Like you said before, Collins's current daughter makes more sense as a victim than Alison. If this whole thing is about Collins, that is. And if it is all about Collins, then Alison was random."

"Maybe that's it then," Eliza said. "If I were to call Loomis and ask him why right now, he'd tell me Michael didn't need a reason."

"Then why are we doing this?"

"To see if we can track down the whereabouts of Myers, if indeed this is him."

"But we don't think it is. Right?"

"Doesn't matter what we believe. It's a job."

"Investigating random acts of violence."

"Seemingly random acts of violence. Loomis is holding out hope that some pattern will become evident." Eliza took a healthy gulp of her water. "Hell, there was one connection he discovered. Only solid one to this day."

"What connection?"

"Two sisters. Foster sisters technically. Years out of the system, in their twenties, but with that one connection. They were both killed on different Halloweens."

"Hmm."

"I know. Loomis has some compelling arguments the longer you talk to him. That's why I looked into some kind of family relation, however distant, between the Phelans and Alison. Because of those sisters. And because Michael went after his own sisters. Killed the one when he was six years old. Almost the other one fifteen years later."

"Right, right. Laurie Strode, who then went off to die in a car accident."

"Yeah."

"Talk about irony." Andrew took a shot, slowly nursed his third draft. "You don't think Myers had anything to do with that?"

"Probably ran across Loomis's mind once or twice." She paused. "And maybe it's nothing, but there'd be this real estate connection as well."

"What do you mean?"

"Laurie's father, adopted father, Morgan Strode. He had a company, Strode Realty. David Collins III is a whole town developer."

"True. Lot of, uh, recurring elements here. Sisters, fifteen year waiting periods, young female victims."

Eliza nodded.

"What do you think that means?" Andrew asked. "All the girls? Some kind of sexual thing?"

Eliza didn't say anything at first. Then she said, "Judith."

"Hmm?"

"Michael's sister. The one he killed when he was six. She was seventeen. She was the first. The first kill."

"Yeah."

"Loomis said it like this: just like an addict will tell you, there's nothing like the first time. That first high. You spend forever chasing it, trying to capture it again. So what if that's what Michael's doing? What if his targets are all Judith to him? Maybe something about each of them reminds him of her. There was his little sister Laurie for obvious reasons. And now all the rest...well, the hypothetical rest…" She shrugged.

And Andrew did himself. The booze was making him warm all over, pleasant and calm. He was tired of thinking, of theorizing. A sober Eliza seemed to feel the same way.

"But we digress," he said. "Point is, Loomis won't be happy we didn't find anything."

"Neither will the police chief for that matter."

Andrew laughed a hearty drunk laugh. "Yeah, McDermott's going to take offense that we never visited him when we came into town."

"Didn't need him. Got all we need on the phone."

"True."

"We were thorough," Eliza said. "And Loomis appreciates that. And anyway, tomorrow I'd like to tie up a few loose ends."

"Loose ends?"

"Yeah. With Alison."

"With Alison? But we talked to her parents earlier today. They didn't have anything more to say than what was already in the files."

"Not the parents. But they mentioned someone I want to talk to. Someone who might have something fresh on Alison, since we've searched the Phelan angle dry."

"Oh yeah, there was that best friend Alison had, had that weird name."

"Charlee McCool."

"Right, right. Charlie McCool. That name for real?"

"A double 'e' instead of an 'i-e' on the end. Cops also talked to her but she was the last one to really be with Alison that night. I'd like to chat with her ourselves."

"Charlee McCool. That's just...the best name I've ever heard. If I was a girl, I'd want my name to be Charlee McCool. Wait, I can be a guy with that name too. Just make it 'i-e'. It's official. My new name. Detective Charlie McCool, P.I. I'd have my own show."

"No you wouldn't."

They sat for several minutes drinking in silence.

Andrew stared at Eliza for a little bit, felt one of those sudden sexual pulls to her that came every so often. Most of the time he thought of her as nothing more than an older sister. Other times he got that older woman thrill going through his mind.

He shrugged it off. Alcohol. Eliza was beautiful and he loved her, but she was his best friend. Sex would skew things. And he was sure she would never allow it in the first place.

He was just horny. And he wanted another cigarette. He knew which desire was going to be fulfilled so he took out his pack and told Eliza he was leaving a minute for another smoke.

Alone, Eliza started to feel partly unsettled, the Myers angle playing over in her head. She had never not believed Loomis, but she had never taken him a hundred percent seriously either.

And now, going over the details of these separate murders, combined with this odd feeling like she had been watched her entire time here—it made her uneasy.

She looked at her grainy reflection in the dirty mirror behind the bar, brought her drink toward her mouth, and imagined it was something stronger, finished the rest of it in one swallow.

"Hey."

She had noticed the barfly saunter up on her one side, pulling back a longneck and dragging on a cigarette. He was a big burly fellow with a mountain man beard, cowboy hat, and a hefty gut spilling over a thick beer buckle.

Eliza stared at him.

Blowing smoke much too close to her face, he said, "Can I buy you a drink?"

Eliza lifted her water glass. "Tap. It's free."

"Let me ask you something," the guy said, taking Andrew's stool and leaning in far too close, "what's up with your boyfriend leaving to take a smoke break? I mean, we're all friends here."

"You mean my husband." Eliza flashed her rings.

The guy laughed. "Right, right, sure."

"All due respect, fella, I'd like to be alone. And your smoking this close offends me."

The guy blew some smoke through a smug smile right into her face. She looked away slowly and smiled wide. She turned back and stared at him, kept smiling.

"What kind of business does a yuppie citified gal like you have in this town?" he said.

"Excuse me?" she said. "I think you've seen one too many movies, pal. Now I'm not going to ask you to leave again."

He smiled, but underneath that smile was a menacing growl. "Ooh, you a real pretty one, ain't ya?"

That was when Andrew reappeared, fedora and all, bumping up next to him. "What's up, partner?"

The guy got up from the stool and easily towered over Andrew. Andrew didn't flinch or back up one bit. He loved this shit.

"Oh, me and your wife, we were just conversating."

"Really."

"Honey," Eliza said, "I can handle myself just fine. The gentleman was just leaving."

"Yeah," Andrew said, his gaze never leaving the guy's eyes, "he was."

"This ain't none of your business, bud," the guy said. "Now you want to back up, or do you just like rubbing up against men?"

Andrew stared at him, didn't move an inch.

"Look at you," the guy said. "Long pretty faggot hair. Faggot hat."

At his side Andrew made a fist.

Eliza grabbed his arm. "Andrew. Fucking don't."

"Listen to your woman, queer. Or maybe I should take you to the ladies room and have you suck on my dick. Then I'll take your pretty little wife and show her how a real man fucks—"

The empty glass Andrew had clutched in one hand connected with the guy's skull. He was down on the floor screaming the next second, clutching his matted hair, blood gushing around little shards of glass.

"Motherfucker." Andrew kicked him in the ribs.

The guy grunted.

"Andrew!" Eliza grabbed his arm again, gripped it tight. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

Andrew, breathing hard, tore his arm out of Eliza's grip, looked out at the rest of the bar. Other than Hank Snow wailing from the jukebox, the house was silent. "Anyone?" he said, holding out his hands. He looked at two tough guys who had stood up at their table during the squabble, a couple of fat sweaty guys with biker tats, bandanas, and denim jackets torn off at the shoulders.

But no one moved.

Eliza said, "Andrew, let's go."

"He's not going anywhere," the bartender said, one hand holding a baseball bat and the other holding a phone off the wall. "I'm calling the cops right now."

"No you're not." Eliza pulled out her credentials and flashed them to the bartender. "We're here working with the police. Look us up in the papers if you don't believe it. Now the only call you're going to make is to get an ambulance for this sorry son of a bitch who tried to start some shit with us. I don't care what story you come up with, but this does not get back to the chief. We've got friends, the kind that can take your liquor license and shut this fine establishment down."

The bartender stared at Eliza hard.

"We clear?" Eliza said.

"Don't come back here," he said.

Eliza nodded, put her creds away, and dragged her partner out of the bar into the night.

"Stupid fucking idiot," she said as she stalked back to the car, Andrew on her heels. "I said we play this simple, we play this discreet. And in one move, any cover the police chief hasn't already blown you go and fuck up."

"You know I don't take shit, boss."

They got in the car. Eliza backed out of the parking lot and drove back down the street to the motel.

"You better hope nothing comes of this."

"We'll be fine."

"I mean Jesus, Andrew, this isn't the first time you've pulled shit like this."

"Hey, you love this shit and you know it. That's why you hired me."

"How's that?"

"You're the brains of the operation and I'm the muscle."

"Oh really."

"Really."

They pulled up in the motel parking lot. Eliza said, "Well, let's you sleep it off, muscle boy, start new in the morning."

"Just what was that all about, anyway?"

She shrugged. "Just came my way, started acting all colorful."

"Hmm."

"What?"

"Something about it. Don't feel right."

"What?"

Andrew didn't know.

But back at Hank's, after the wounded patron convinced the bartender he didn't need an ambulance and was just fine, he hobbled over to the wall phone himself and put in a call. As he heard it ring, he cringed and pulled out speckles of glass in his hair from the bloody towel he had pressed gently against the side of his head.

The caller picked up.

"Mr. Collins," the guy said. "It's done."

"What happened?" David Collins's voice was cool as he sat in his home study, nursing a scotch-and-water as some classical music played on the built-in speakers he had installed in nearly every room of the house.

"They went to Hank's, that bar right up the street from their motel. I pushed their buttons, the fella knocked me on my ass. But the broad? Don't scare easy. She played it cool."

"That's fine. Good work." Collins hung up and sat back in his wingback chair, sipped some more scotch.

He leaned forward again and dialed Chief McDermott's personal number. His wife picked up and she called her husband over.

"Chief," Collins said. "I had the rest of their cover blown. Hopefully this little nudge will send them packing. There's nothing for them to find here that your department can't."

"Agreed."

"And thank you for doing your part, Chief, getting their business all over the papers. You are a valuable asset to this town."

"Thank you, sir, Mr. Collins. But I still don't quite understand. While I believe my guys can handle this case, I didn't believe it was a bad thing for them to be here."

"I have my reasons."

Collins hung up again, sat back again, drank some scotch again. He stared into his glass, the soft light bouncing off the amber liquid.

He smiled.

Eliza and Andrew shared the bed in their motel room that night.

Eliza had set it up that way earlier, and Andrew to his credit was a gentleman, said he understood if she wanted him to sleep on the floor.

"Oh, just get in the bed," she said. "And promise me you won't pull any shit like that tomorrow."

"I knew all along you were trying to get me in the sac, boss," he said. "You cougar, you." And the gentleman was gone.

So they laid in bed keeping a respectful distance. Andrew stayed on his side, hiding a hard-on he was too buzzed and tired to go to the bathroom and take care of.

He was closest to the door, and Eliza felt a silly relief in this, as if Andrew was protecting her. From what exactly, she couldn't say. Certainly not disgruntled bar patrons.

Andrew's eyelids grew heavy as he stared out the blinds of the motel window. Muted moonlight filtered in. He blinked, blinked some more, each one longer than the previous.

Before he closed his eyes and kept them closed, he thought he saw a shadow through the blinds, thought he saw a tall dark shape moving slowly past the window…

In the morning he nursed a minor headache, drinking black coffee spiked with Jameson he poured from his flask. Eliza took her ulcer meds while Andrew got himself together for the day. She looked over some paperwork of a search she and Andrew had run back at the office for any kind of family connection between Alison Brown and either Melissa or Dylan Phelan. There had been nothing.

Then she called the McCool residence and got Charlee's mother who said she would talk to her daughter and see to it that she would be free after she came home from school.

During the day they worked largely on the investigative report they would send Loomis, logging their hours and expenses for the bill. They had lunch in town and packed the little they had for their return trip.

After the interview with the McCool girl, Eliza would call Loomis and give him the bad news. Or good. She wasn't sure which.

When Mother told her about the appointment with the private investigators, Charlee McCool felt a familiar tinge of depression that was followed by an even greater sense of guilt.

Alison.

Since Noah, she had thought about Alison a little less each day. And nearly all she could think about since she and Noah had become boyfriend and girlfriend a couple days ago was just that. Her Noah.

It was a new feeling, happiness.

But now, thinking about Alison, she felt like she was somehow betraying her, that a suitable period of mourning hadn't quite passed yet.

For that reason she sat down with the detectives at the kitchen table with only a little resentment. She had been over the details of that night a few weeks ago more than once with the local cops and she was sick of it.

Mother brought the detectives some coffee and Charlee reassured her when asked if she'd be fine on her own.

These detectives were an interesting pair. Eliza Lehman was a well put together woman in her forties, wore no makeup and didn't need it anyway, and had a head of the straightest, neatest blond hair she had ever seen. Andrew Daly was a ruggedly handsome mess, had a head of long hair and was a few days unshaven.

"We don't want to take too much of your time," Detective Daly told her. He was pure charm. "We know you were Alison's best friend. And we're very sorry for your loss."

"We appreciate you seeing us," Detective Lehman said. "We know you've probably said all this before and we do have your statement from when the police talked with you. But I believe that sometimes we can remember things later that we may forget in the shock of everything at first."

They took out notepads and pens and Charlee regurgitated to them everything she had already told the police, that she had been Alison's closest friend and was with her at the harvest fair that night and that Alison had driven her home. That was the last time she saw her.

"Anything suspicious happen that night?" Lehman asked. "That day even?"

Charlee shook her head, sighed. "No. There was nothing. It was the same as any other day. There was…" She drifted off.

"Something?" Daly asked.

"It's…" Charlee shook her head again. "Nothing, really. Something I saw. Or maybe not."

"Humor us if you don't mind," Daly said.

"There was…" She thought back, trying to remember. A dark shape standing in the woods outside her school. Boots in the rearview mirror. Feeling watched as the harvest fair shut down.

"I kept seeing…someone," she said. "That day. It was probably nothing. It just felt like someone was watching me."

"Did you see him?" Lehman asked. "Could you give a description at all?"

"No, I…I can't really explain it. I'm sorry. It was more like…a feeling."

Eliza thought back to her and Andrew at the old Phelan house, thought of the tall figure she had seen by the floodwall in the distance. "I know what you mean," she said. She looked at Andrew, saw the reflective look on his face, probably remembering the same thing.

Eliza closed her notepad. She had heard enough. And she didn't want to torture this nice, oddly dressed girl—in a studded leather jacket, spike collar, and black leggings—with any further reminders about her best friend's death.

Andrew followed her lead. He flashed his usual smile, feeling a guilty and suddenly intense pang of sexual desire toward this girl. It was something about her uniqueness, her eccentricities. She was different. He liked it.

"Sorry for bothering you," he said. "You've been a big help."

"Really?" Charlee asked. "I don't feel like I told you much you didn't already know."

"Still," Eliza said. "Every little bit helps."

They left through the main foyer. Charlee's mother let them out. From where she had been sitting in the living room, Eliza guessed she'd been listening in on their entire conversation.

In the driveway walking back to the car, Andrew looked at Eliza. All he said was, "Watched."

"Yeah."

"Interesting."

"'Tis."

"Familiar."

"True."

"Ominous."

"Quite."

Andrew opened the passenger side of the car, got in. Eliza opened the driver's door, but stopped to look around the street before she got in. Looked around for something, anything. Charlee and Alison's stalker, her own maybe.

"'Liza?" Andrew called from in the car. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She got in.

Dr. Sam Loomis jerked awake in bed to the stench of his own burning flesh.

The nightmare was always the same, a reliving of that night in 1978. And it always ended with that awful scent pervading his nostrils, one he'd never forget. It was a constant reminder, as if looking in the mirror wasn't enough.

The dreams flared up whenever a new killing occurred. Like the rest of the murders, this one—Alison Brown—had gone unsolved, full of dead ends. He knew it would stay that way, and in one sense this was not too disparaging—that fact alone practically proved Michael was behind it.

It was fine. Lehman and Daly had returned from Riggsboro to their Smith's Grove office and faxed him their report. They had been remarkably thorough, the best he could have hoped for.

In the meantime he was doing some detective work of his own.

For the past few days he had been waiting on a package. He mentioned not a word of it to his caretaker of course. Marion would either hide it or snoop through it before he could get to it.

A new lead had come to his attention while doing some research into Michael's hometown of Haddonfield. And it had renewed his interest in a pursuit he had long ago deemed futile.

The Myers house.

The abandoned home had sat condemned since 1963, a scar on the face of the idyllic small town. When Michael went missing after his return in 1978, Loomis assumed his home would be the first place he would go.

For years he searched the house under the nose of the Haddonfield police. Loomis's presence was not encouraged around the department, as many of them blamed him for Michael's escape and subsequent killing spree.

Despite this, Loomis was able to overhear some whispers over the years that there had been sightings in and around the Myers house, usually by kids at night. Reports of a tall man in a window, in the backyard, in the trees. He didn't know how reliable these witnesses were, but it made sense that Michael would go home in between his sporadic murders across the Midwest.

So he had searched the house on numerous occasions. Staked it out at night, searched every room, every corridor. Called out Michael's name. Left notes that remained untouched.

There was nothing.

And so Loomis resigned himself to the possibility that Michael in fact spent all his time wandering the countryside. It made sense, considering the crime scenes all over the Midwest.

But recently Loomis came across a fact while skimming through some Haddonfield history. Some of the neighborhoods had underground tunnel systems, abandoned sewers that were connected to some of its oldest houses. The literature detailed that the purpose of houses having entryways to these tunnels was so families could reach underground bomb shelters. It was a short-lived plan enacted in the midst of the Cold War.

Loomis contacted the Haddonfield historian with inquiries about these tunnels and she promised to send him all she could find as far as the abandoned sewer system under Lampkin Lane, the street with the Myers house.

Today was his day. Marion gave him his mail after lunch and he hurried back into the privacy of his office.

Loomis cut open the package, found folded copies of the architectural blueprints and notes that had become public record. He noted the insignia of STRODE REALTY stamped over much of the paperwork. Morgan Strode—the adoptive father of Michael Myers's sister, Laurie Strode—had been the realtor who for years tried unsuccessfully to sell the Myers house.

Loomis covered his desk with the papers, scanning the diagrams at a breakneck pace.

And then he saw them, the tunnels under the house with connecting entryways. Footnotes indicated that there was an entry point in the subbasement and one from a hatch in the garage. He found the corresponding points on the blueprints.

"Tunnels," he said. He pursed his lips, made a fist, and brought it down on his desk. "There you are, Michael. I've got you."

NINE

Charlee McCool was in love.

Noah was everywhere in everything. He was in the stars, the sun, the clear blue sky. He was in a passing breeze, the colors of fall, every love song on the radio. When winter settled in he was in the Christmas lights, in each snowfall, in a single beautiful snowflake.

She didn't have to walk the school hallways alone and lonely anymore, watching undeserving skanky bitches and macho assholes all happy and pretty and holding hands.

Now she had Noah—though it was hard getting used to calling him her boyfriend. Applied to her the term seemed so ridiculous. Other girls had boyfriends. She had never been one of those girls.

And the kissing. God, she could kiss Noah forever. She was an ardent supporter of public displays of affection, not shy at all to blatantly make out with him in school, much to the chagrin of hall monitors and teachers. Noah, so cute and old-fashioned, would try to stop her at first but then not put up much of a fight at all, just letting it all flow, the magic, the fire.

She had also finally gotten back to work on her graphic novel. Though after rereading some recent passages that centered around the love story subplot, she realized that the old Charlee would have gagged at some of the sappy shit she was writing now.

But it seemed all she could write these days. Writing and art had been an outlet for her for so many years because she was a tortured and miserable person. And now—in love and happy—she had nothing to suffer over anymore. Life's problems—family, school, homework, other people—paled in comparison to loving Noah. Her writing and her drawing suddenly seemed more like a chore. Though at least now she could finally describe what a kiss really felt like, could put into words the sensation of a lover's hand on your cheek, your eyes reflected in his, his fingers in your hair or on the back of your neck.

She had even fashioned her female superhero's love interest in the likeness of Noah. When her lovestruck writer's block stifled her typically anguished prose, she could still sketch frame after frame of scenes with Noah's face, those sensual almond eyes and that chestnut skin.

Sex was the one thing she could still not write about, not from experience at least.

She wanted to make love to Noah and she knew he wanted it too. But she knew he planned to be true blue Catholic about it and wait until marriage, the way it was supposed to be. She felt the same way but knew she would break if he asked. He would never be the one to ask though—if anyone, it would definitely be her. She masturbated to him at least once a day, and the mere thought of connecting with him that way, in body and mind and spirit and soul, took her to incredible physical heights.

She met him after school one winter day as students poured out, snow falling from a slate-gray sky. She surprised him from behind, jumping up on him for a piggy-back, covering her gloved hands over his eyes and laughing.

"Agh!" he cried, mock grunting and struggling.

"What's wrong?" she said. "My one-hundred and ten pounds too much for you?"

"Half of that is your winter coat and your backpack," he said.

"You shut up."

He dipped suddenly and almost plopped her into the foot of snow they had been walking through to the buses.

"Don't you dare drop me, Noah. I'll be so angry with you. I'm serious! Noah! Aaahh!"

He dropped her into the powdery snow. She made a snowball and threw it dead in his face. He fell playfully on top of her and they kissed and giggled and rolled around.

They got looks from passing students. Charlee noticed Alison's last crush, Graham Purcell, among them. He was on his way to the parking lot and the sports car Mommy and Daddy had bought him. He had some new girl with him. He gave Charlee a blank look and she wondered if he had or would ever experience love like this. Love when you look at someone and forget how to breathe, forget your name, forget anything except this feeling running through you like your entire life has been building toward this and finally, fucking finally, it was here.

One of the school monitors, an old heavyset woman, squawked at her and Noah from the sidewalk by the buses: "Hey! Enough of that! I see you, Charlee McCool! You too, Noah Faison! I have a referral to the principal's office with both of your names written all over it!"

Noah told Charlee as he helped her up, "With all this PDA, you've tarnished my goody-good reputation."

"You like it."

Noah waved at the monitor. "Sorry!"

"But not really," Charlee muttered.

They held gloved hands and walked toward the row of buses.

"Hey," Charlee said, "let's walk home, go to my house and have some hot chocolate."

"Sure."

It was about a half-hour walk. They had different bus routes, so this way they got to spend more time together.

They walked out of the campus, down a few side streets, crossed Main Street, and worked their way into the neighborhood. They slipped on ice every now and then, laughing as they fell or almost fell. Despite the cold, they took a longer route and followed a paved trail through one of the neighborhood playgrounds and the surrounding fields, collectively known as Collins Park. They climbed over snow banks and made snow angels.

They saw a sign for a neighborhood watch meeting down the street from Charlee's house. Alison Brown's father had formed the group in the interest of public safety and because of the police department's failure to uncover anything of substance in the investigation into his daughter's death.

Charlee was discouraged about the investigation too. No new developments, even with the addition of those private detectives.

By the time they reached her house their faces were red from the cold. They got warm inside, slipping their coats off, Charlee getting some mugs of hot chocolate going in the microwave.

"How do you want to celebrate tonight?" she asked him as they stood in the kitchen.

"Celebrate what?"

"See, I forgot until a few hours ago too. It's understandable for me. But I thought you were the sensitive type who'd remember."

"Um…"

"What day is it today?"

"Uh, January…eighteenth?"

Charlee sighed. "Dude, our two month anniversary."

"Oh, right, yeah, see what I meant was…"

"Save it."

The microwave beeped and Charlee took out the two mugs, added some whip cream to both.

"Two months," Noah said as she sat down at the table. He took her hand in his, looked in her eyes. "I love you so much."

He could still make her blush, still make her a giddy grinning fool. She hated him for it. She loved him for it. "I love you too. I love…this."

They both leaned over the table and shared a warm kiss. Then they took sips of their hot chocolate and stayed silent for a minute.

"You know," Noah said.

"What?"

"I'm gonna marry you some day. I'd marry you now if I could."

She grabbed his hand. "Me too."

"I have this image of us," Noah said, "like we are now, but old. On each other's nerves all the time but still crazy in love. Taking a break no matter what life throws at us to sit down, have some hot chocolate. Maybe coffee if you're into it by then."

Charlee smiled wide. She shook her head as if in disbelief. "It's weird," she said.

"What is?"

"Being happy."

Noah smiled. Charlee pushed her chair over closer to him, grabbed his face and kissed him hard.

"Ew! Yuck!" That was Kevin, the seven-year-old standing in the doorway to the living room with his backpack.

"Kevin, get out!" Charlee yelled.

"You two are gross!" Kevin said.

"Go upstairs and do your homework."

"I don't have any homework!"

"Kevin, I swear!"

"I'm gonna tell Mom when she comes home!"

"Go ahead and tell her, just leave us alone!"

He went into the living room but kept peeking his head back around the doorway. When he wouldn't stop, Charlee darted away from the table to the doorway and scared the crap out of him, chased him upstairs until he slammed his bedroom door shut and locked it.

"Good," she said, "keep it locked."

"You can't make me!"

"Try me."

She returned to Noah and laughingly apologized. Kevin was smart and didn't try her again.

They stayed sitting and talking at the table awhile longer. Kevin eventually came back down, bundled up in his winter gear to play outside. Their mugs were empty anyway so they went upstairs.

Charlee closed the door to her room. She and Noah sat on the edge of the bed. They kissed and smiled and gazed at each other. Talked about the future with the hopeful naiveté of the young.

"That would be great if we could find the same college," Charlee said. "I'll go for my English or creative writing degree, a minor in art, and you for biblical studies. We can get an apartment together."

"That one I'll have to fight with my parents about," Noah said. "We'd be unmarried, living in sin."

"Then we'll get married sooner."

"I'll have to fight with my parents about that one too. They'd prefer I was graduated from college."

"Mine too. But who cares?"

"Who cares?"

"Who cares. Soon as we're both eighteen, you and me have a date with the Justice of the Peace."

"Romantic." He laughed. "Yeah, something tells me you weren't the kind of girl who dreamed about her wedding day when she was younger."

"Fuck no. It's extravagant and useless."

"It's the marriage that's important," Noah said.

"Exactly. And why should we share our day with all those other people? Especially when they're the fucking people I've been trying to get away from my whole life. No, we'll do a hop skip and a jump down to the courthouse, find a hotel, and have wild sex."

"Well then." Noah's stomach did an excited flip.

Charlee blushed again. They had talked about sex before but always in the abstract. She started talking to act like it never happened: "Of course my parents would want me to get married in the church. Your parents too, I imagine. But it's just so…typical. I want us to run away, you know. Hell, let's even make it Vegas. Really get their panties in a bunch."

"I'd love to do all that. But we'd need jobs. Insurance."

"We'll figure all that out."

"Will we now?"

"Hey, it's us."

"That's what I love about you, Charlee McCool."

"Hope that's not the only thing you love about me."

Mother came home soon after that. She came upstairs and opened Charlee's bedroom door without even so much as a courtesy knock. She took one look at Charlee and said, "What did I tell you? If a boy is in the room, this door stays open." Then she looked at Noah and was all smiles. "Would you like to stay for dinner tonight, Noah?"

"Oh, no thank you, ma'am," he said. "I should be getting home to do my homework."

Mother nodded and Charlee noticed a bit of a suspicious gleam in her eyes. In the beginning Mother had milked every bit of her relationship with Noah, loving that her tomboy daughter was actually interested in a boy. But now, seeing how much time they spent alone together, she was beginning to raise her eyebrows a bit.

Charlee drove Noah home. "Sorry we couldn't really celebrate our anniversary."

"No, I had a lot of fun just now spending time with you."

"Me too," she said, then suddenly hydroplaned into a spin on some black ice. She regained control and kept driving.

"Whew!" she said. "Close call, huh?"

"If I didn't love you, Charlee McCool…"

Alison came back a month later.

It was night.

She wore an all-white gown, her curly hair shimmering in an aura of brilliant light. Charlee wore an all-black gown, even had long black hair that flowed straight down her back. Alison took her by the hand and led her through a grassy landscape of rolling hills under a thick vale of fog.

In a grove of oak trees they stopped at a cluster of ancient graves, jagged stones jutting out at sharp angles from the soft ground.

Alison rested a hand on her own grave, the name faded with time, centuries old. With her other hand she touched a grave marked 'Noah,' his name equally faded and old.

Charlee said, "No."

Alison smiled sadly and said, "Yes."

Charlee said, "But."

Alison said, "No."

And suddenly Noah was there by Charlee's side. He was hooded in a friar's robe. He slipped it off his head and looked down at the headstone resignedly. "Matter of time, I suppose," he said.

Charlee said, "No."

Alison pointed through the trees and Charlee saw the old Phelan house in the distance, sitting as she had once seen it, abandoned and decrepit. But here, instead of being hidden in the backwoods of Sleepy Hollow, it claimed a modest plot of dark Irish countryside.

Alison said, "It ends there. It has already been written. You know that, don't you?"

"I'll go there," Charlee said. "I can stop it."

"You will go there," Alison said, "but Noah will still die."

And before Charlee could say anything else, a dark mist crept out of the hollow cavities in the old oak trees. It floated like a dark fog but with life, with direction. It swallowed the white fog and shrouded the countryside and the cluster of trees in darkness. It amassed into a towering plume of dark swirling smoke, slithering like a mammoth cobra into the night air, poising the entirety of its shifting shape over Noah.

He nodded and closed his eyes and spread out his arms to accept the fatal embrace of the monster. Charlee had only a second to cry out an anguished "No!" before he was utterly swallowed up by the darkness—

She felt the nightmare's lingering hold on her all the next day. It was a Friday, two days before her and Noah's three-month anniversary, but they decided to start early on the celebration, make it a weekend thing.

He insisted on taking her out to dinner. Charlee preferred fast food over fancy restaurants any day, and they had gone on many dates to McDonald's and Burger King, but on this night Noah said he was taking her on a real date, treating her like a real lady.

"Such a gentleman," she said. "Too bad I'm no fucking debutante. Didn't I ever tell you? My mother made me take these horrendous classes when I was younger. How to be ladylike, cross your legs, table manners, where to put the salad fork and the dessert fork, shit like that. Let me tell you something. I use one fork for all my food, I don't mind belching at the table, and I'll sit with my legs however I damn well please. Makes me sick when I see these frigid bitches, got a stick so far up their twat you can see it coming out their mouth, right along with all the rest of their bullshit. That's how come they walk so stiff. I mean seriously, I remember some of these bitches in class, them and their fucking mothers, talking about what's prim and proper, going on about innocence and virtue and virginity. I still see some of these girls around now, and their minds are so warped because they've been scared away from sex completely. I'm all for waiting, but they talked about sex like it was a disease. They mentioned nothing about love, only the devil. A bunch of poor saps on their wedding nights are going to find those girls harder to get into than Fort Knox, I'll tell you that right now. Believe. Stop laughing. You knew what you were getting into with me. I like to rant. I'm a ranter."

And in true fashion, while Noah wore the appropriate jacket and tie for the country club restaurant, Charlee came decked out in some washed-out blue jeans, a Grateful Dead t-shirt, and a suit jacket peppered with studs and chains. Noah took one look at her and smiled. "God, I love you."

Everyone inside was dressed to the townie nines, which in the case of Riggsboro meant a jacket and tie complemented with some bootcut Levis and silvertip cowboy boots.

Some light jazz played for ambiance along with the tinkling of glassware that shimmered under the chandelier lighting. They were seated by an uptight ma?tre d' who looked to be somewhere in his twenties.

"Uh, excuse me, Miss," he said, leaning over Charlee, giving her that patented once over, eyeing her wildly colorful t-shirt. "This is a respectable establishment."

"Oh," she said, "right, I'm sorry." Out of her jacket pocket she dug out a black clip-on tie. She smiled at the ma?tre d' and clipped it to the collar of her t-shirt. Noah pressed his lips together to hold back laughter. The ma?tre d' widened his eyes, leaned back stiffly, and left.

"The fuck did I do?" Charlee asked Noah, only to then take her cloth napkin and hang it from her collar like a bib.

Noah didn't hold back his laughter now, spreading his own napkin across his lap and shaking his head.

"Pretty snazzy place," Charlee said, holding her pinky out in mock politeness as she arranged her silverware. "Can we afford this?"

"I saved up with some summer job money, don't worry."

"With these prices," she said, looking through the pages of the menu, "that's like your whole summer. Holy shit."

Later when the drinks came, she raised her glass and said, "So what is it you Mexicans say, Salud?"

"Si, salud. And while I don't drink, but if we had some tequila, we'd have to give a real toast." He raised his glass up, then down, then halfway back up, and then in toward his chest, all the while saying: "Arriba, abajo, al cento, al dentro." He downed a swig of water as if it were a shot.

Charlee laughed, then stumbled over the words and gestures as Noah tried to teach them to her.

After they ordered, Charlee got up to go to the bathroom and Noah stood up from his chair.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"A gentleman always stands for a lady when she rises from the table."

"Oh." Charlee mulled this over. "Don't ever do it again."

Noah smiled as he sat back down. He'd gotten that same remark over and over again any time he tried to hold a door for her or open her car door.

When she came back from the bathroom he nodded across the room. "Check that out. Corner booth."

She turned around. Three men and a woman were being seated. Two of the men were rough, grizzled types. Big guys, cop faces. Even the woman, larger and unappealing, had a gait similar to the men. But the third man—poised and self-possessed in a dapper three-piece suit—was stunningly handsome.

"Damn," Charlee said, looking back at Noah. "Pretty hot for an old guy."

"That's David Collins III."

She chin-jerked: who?

"You remember a few months back, you were doing some research into those old murders on Sleepy Hollow Drive…"

"Oh shit, that's right." She turned back around. "That guy's the father of the girl who got killed. Melissa Phelan. He's that big-time developer."

"Right. You see who he's with?"

"Who are they?"

"That one guy he's sitting next to, that's the police chief, Obadiah McDermott. The other two—McDermott's deputy chiefs, Suzanne Graves and James Alcott."

"How do you know all this?"

He shrugged. "I read the papers."

"You would."

"Oh and look at this…"

Another gentleman approached the table to say hello to Collins and his cronies. He appeared flushed as he greeted them, nervously shaking their hands.

"Who's that?" Charlee asked.

"Thomas Dunn. The town supervisor."

"Mmm. David Collins definitely hobnobs with some pretty powerful people."

"He's the powerful one. My parents took me here when we first moved to town. This is where I first saw him. He was brownnosing with some county executives and state senators then. Not to mention the governor."

"The governor?"

Noah nodded. "Who knows the land deals they were negotiating? All that money Collins has. There were some pretty rough campaign ads about the governor during the primary and the general election back in '94, all about how he was allegedly in bed with developers like Collins."

"Mmm." Charlee was only half-listening now. She had turned back around, was staring at Collins. She looked away finally as his gaze met hers, piercing blue eyes bearing her down.

She looked back at Noah and shuddered.

"I read into him a little after you looked up the murders that time," Noah said. "He's been married three times, and his first marriage—"

"Yeah, yeah, to that woman who went crazy. She was the one who found the bodies. Fucked her all up."

"Right. Diane Fischer. She came from money herself. And David Collins's dad, Junior, he got the company into some pretty big financial trouble back in the early sixties. They were about to be ruined. But then his son marries Diane and problem solved."

"Arranged marriage?"

"Probably."

"Like a soap opera."

"Yeah. Junior died in a boating accident or fishing accident or something, and Son David took on the family business."

"Hmm."

Noah noticed Charlee was in a bit of a trance. "You okay?"

"Those private investigators that talked to me?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"I told you how they made me remember this feeling I had the night Alison was killed, like someone was watching me, watching us."

"Right."

"I don't know, I was just thinking about that. Even after Alison was killed, I felt it for weeks. Like someone was still watching me."

"Do you still feel like that?"

"No. I haven't all winter now that I think about it."

"Well, that's good, right? Maybe it was just all the stress after what happened to Alison."

"Well, he did pretty much go away after you and I got together."

"Confession to make," Noah said. "It was me watching you. I've been stalking you for a long time now, had to make you mine."

She laughed. "I always did think stalking was kind of sexy. I was a bit of a stalker myself with you before we got together."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah," she said, playing with her food and laughing a bit nervously. "But you're right. It was probably just nerves after Alison. Whoever he was, he's gone now. Still…" She thought about her dream last night—why now, why after it was all over?

Or what if it wasn't over?

"Still what?" Noah said.

"Nothing. I'm fine." She smiled to cover the dream up.

"If you're sure."

When the food came, Noah said grace and Charlee stared down at her meal. Centered on a square plate was a measly helping of steak, dressed up all fancy-like with some herbs, a pitiful dollop of mashed potatoes, and a skimpy drizzle of sauce.

"What the fuck is this?" she said. "This steak is like two bites. This plate looks like modern art, not dinner. Where's the rest of my meal?"

Noah held a fist to his mouth to keep from busting out laughing. Charlee picked up a flower garnish in the corner of her plate and examined it in disbelief. She stared at Noah who just kept chuckling.

"Mickey fuckin' D's next time, dude," she said, pointing at him. "I ain't about this shit. You took me here on purpose. You knew how I'd react."

They ate and they smiled and they laughed a long time.

"But speaking of the murders," Charlee said later into the meal, pointing a thumb back to the corner booth. "What are all the top cops doing here dining fancy when they're supposed to be out finding Alison's killer?"

"Got me." Noah looked back across the room and exchanged glances himself with Collins for just a moment. "But I'm sure our friend David has his reasons."

They hopped over to Blockbuster on the way back into town and scanned the aisles holding hands. Noah, never the moviegoer, just kept by Charlee's side.

Not too long in she had a stack of videotapes and showed them to Noah. "I need to school you on my top movies of all time." She showed him the boxes one by one: "The Crow. Absolutely phenomenal piece of work. Huge inspiration on the look of my graphic novel. Next, Darkman. Great movie, great superhero. Then, underrated sequel, direct-to-video Darkman II: The Return of Durant. This guy, Randall Boyll, he wrote a handful of Darkman novelizations. Have them all, of course. A third movie's coming out later this year, very excited. And—you remember the show, check the movie out: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. Action, romance, a great story. Far better than any of the live-action movies they've done. Your pick."

"But we haven't gone by the documentary section yet."

Charlee stared at him.

"I don't want anything that's rated R," he said.

"What's wrong with rated R?"

"You have to be careful what you put in your mind. All that violence and cursing and gratuitous sex. It can affect you even when you don't think it does. Philippians chapter four, verse eight—"

"All right, forget I asked!"

"—'whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.'"

Charlee shook her head and held up Batman. "Well, this one's PG. You happy?"

"Very happy."

"You're such a square."

"I know. But you love me."

"I do."

Later Noah hugged Charlee from behind and rocked her as they examined a rack of microwave popcorn and candy.

A pair of bottle-blonde mean girls flirting with the guy at the register turned around and gave them disgusted looks. "They're so weird," one of the girls muttered to the other. Charlee just barely heard it.

She whispered in Noah's ear, "Hey, go with me." She turned around and kissed him hungrily, jumping up onto his frame and wrapping her legs around his waist. They made out aggressively. Patrons looked at them.

Charlee got a glimpse of the girls as they rolled their eyes and flicked back their over-conditioned hair.

"You're bad, you know that?" Noah breathed in between kisses.

Charlee laughed sneakily as she kissed him more.

"Uh-uh," a manager type coming out of one of the aisles said. Charlee and Noah looked at him. He made a slicing motion over his throat. "Cut it out, kids. Not in here."

Noah set Charlee down with a smile.

When they came back to Charlee's house her parents were gone for the night. Her father was away on business and Mother was out late with a women's church group. Her brother as a nice bonus was at a sleepover. Charlee could not have asked for a more perfect night with her boyfriend.

They never got to the movie. As they sat on the living room couch, Charlee confessed last night's nightmare to Noah. They were nestled together under a blanket, half-dressed. Despite their abstinence, their comfort level was ever-evolving. Neither of them had seen the other naked, though Charlee had felt his erection on several occasions while they made out.

"You miss Alison," Noah said. "And since they never found her killer it's like there's no closure. Nightmares, they're…only natural."

"But what about the part with you? And when I woke up, I swear, it was like this feeling in my bones like, like he was coming after you next. Like I knew it."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said, brushing back some of her crazy hair from her forehead. "I'm right here."

"I'm sure Alison thought that too," Charlee said.

"Hey," he said, and kissed her forehead. "Sure, it could happen. Anything could. To anyone. The good die young and the wicked go on to live a long healthy life. They talk about it in Psalms all the time. Life isn't fair in this fallen world. Only in the next world, our next life."

His fingers brushed Charlee's bare feet and she suddenly went wild in moans of pleasure.

"I'm sorry," she said with an embarrassed laugh, still getting over the feeling, panting and breathing in sharp gasps. "I never told you. I have this thing with my feet."

He kept playing his fingers across her heels, rubbing down the arch to her toes. "Ooh God," she moaned. "Ooh, that feels so good, don't stop."

The sexual nature of her moans was not lost on them. Noah, so hard right now that it hurt, leaned in suddenly to kiss her passionately, sucking in her moans and wishing he could suck in her heart too, eat it and possess her.

She whimpered sweetly into his mouth that was molded to hers like a vacuum. She released all the fear she had felt in the dream, all the anxiety that had built up during the day. She kissed him until the man who killed Alison was gone.

They breathed heavy and grew sweaty under the blankets, skin against skin.

"I love you," Noah said.

"I love you," Charlee said. Her light skinny body fell completely in between his and she felt his massive hard-on through his boxers. It settled against her crotch and she gasped sharply. She felt herself getting wet, could smell herself.

They stared at each other awhile.

Charlee said, "Baby, what if we…do you think…I wish…we could…"

"Make love?"

There it was. In the air for weeks and there it was.

"I know we shouldn't, that we both want to wait, but…I just…"

"I know. Believe me I know."

"It's just…these dreams. And, and with Alison, I saw for real how sudden and unfair death can be. She died never knowing what love like this was like, never knowing intimacy. And…I just…"

"I know. Baby, I don't want to die either, especially not knowing what it would be like to make love to you."

"So."

"So…"

Their eyes locked nervously. Slowly, ever so slowly, Charlee removed Noah's glasses, brushing her fingers against his temples after she set them on the coffee table. Her hand traveled down his chest until she played with the top of his boxers. She reached her hand underneath and felt his pubic hair.

"Wait," he said, grabbing her wrist. "Wait. We…this…" His voice said no. His eyes said yes, please God yes.

"We can't," he said.

"You're right…you're right…"

She removed her hand and he felt pain in her doing so.

But they stared at each other again and their gazes betrayed their convictions. Noah placed a hand on Charlee's bare stomach under her shirt, felt his hand travel up with a seeming life of its own. He stopped by nothing else than sheer force of will.

But Charlee's hand slipped, right down into his boxers before he could stop her. She grasped his manhood and he shuddered, kept shuddering. He felt utterly weak, dizzy, drunk. "Oh Charlee," he said.

"I'm sorry, I…" But she didn't move her hand.

Noah moved his, just a few inches up under her shirt, warmly cupping one of her tiny breasts, tracing his thumb over her hard nipple. She shuddered, kept shuddering. "Oh…God."

They stared at each other, trembling.

"I," Noah said, "we…"

"I know, I…I know…"

Noah swallowed, breathed heavy. Many long seconds transpired.

"I," he said. "I…"

"Yeah?" A whisper.

He gave up. "I have to have you—"

He dove into her arms.

She grabbed him.

They tore each other apart.

They kissed and groped and even bit each other in the frenzy to remove clothing. Noah reached his hand down her underwear and cupped his hand there, felt the wetness between her legs. "God yes," Charlee sighed, "oh God yes."

As he kissed her he said, "I don't…we don't…have…anything…"

"Um…um…um…" She had to stop kissing him and breathe for just a second to think. "Oh! That assembly. That safe sex assembly last year. The nurse handed out free condoms. You remember? All the parents flipped shit about it."

"Right, right, yeah, I remember."

"Alison and I sat together, laughed through the whole thing. Anyway, I got some. Bedroom. Quick. Please!"

In the bedroom, Charlee ran naked to her desk drawer where she had the rubbers hidden beneath some sketch pads and colored pencils.

She turned around and grabbed an equally naked Noah. They tumbled onto the bed and rolled around, kissing and moaning and feeling each other all over.

When it came time, Noah fumbled with the condom wrapper. They both laughed when he had a hard time tearing it open. But finally he got it and wrapped himself up. He looked down at Charlee lying underneath him and kissed her long and slow, his hardness rubbing against her leg, making its way up.

"I should tell you," Charlee said quickly, laughing to herself. "I masturbate a lot. Have for years. This is just to say…I popped my own cherry a long time ago, blood and all. Poof, no more hymen. So, it won't hurt, if you're worried." She laughed again. "Anyway, now that I've thoroughly embarrassed myself…"

They both just laughed a long time. When they calmed down, they looked into each other's eyes and Charlee nodded. Her voice was a trembling whisper as she cupped his face with her hands. "God, I've wanted you so bad."

Noah moved up into her, slow and hard and with such an intensity of sensation he could only describe it as feeling like being set free.

"Oh my God," Charlee sighed, riding the sudden physical rush that made it seem like every burden or worry or care she ever had was gone.

She wrapped her arms tightly around Noah's back. He moved deeper inside of her, giving her all of him. Her fingers gripped his back hard, clawing their way down.

"God," she whispered in his ear, smiling so hard tears came to her eyes, "this is actually happening."

"I love you so much," Noah whispered, breathless. As they talked their lips touched, brushing as they quivered but never parting, every part of them connected.

"I love you," Charlee breathed, trembling with pleasure. "I've always loved you."

She moaned deeply in the magic of their slow, rhythmic swaying, and wrapped her legs around his waist, gripping him even harder to make sure he wouldn't dissipate into the nothing of what she was sure had to be a dream world. She couldn't be, was she, finally sharing this moment with the man she was so desperately in love with, in the bed she had spent so many lonely nights and mornings dreaming, yearning for that man, that fantasy, that love that maybe wasn't even real.

It was.

"Oh God," Noah said, "oh baby. I love you. You feel so good."

"You do too—oh, oh, oh, oh! I love you inside of me—oh!—I love it so much…oh God, I can feel it coming…you're gonna make me come already…"

"Me too…oh God…oh…Charlee…"

"Oh God!" Charlee cried. She grabbed Noah's cheeks, his face. They locked eyes. She said, "Yes, yes, I want to see your eyes when we get off, oh yes, like that, oh God, oh baby I love you, I love you!"

"I love you, Charlee, I love you!"

Staring into each other, into their souls, they came at the same time, soaring as one, riding the clouds and moon and stars, crying out, gripping each other fiercely.

Afterward they breathed heavy, tangled in hot flesh, smiling and quivering in the aftershocks of pleasure. They spoke no words, none were necessary, and rode that warm night sky until a cloud slowly and gently took them down, put them back into bed.

They lay sprawled across the messy sheets, mouths agape and eyes wide in post-sex paralysis.

Later Charlee rested her head on Noah's chest.

"Your heart's beating so fast," she whispered.

"Yeah." It was all Noah could say.

She held up her hand. It was trembling. "And I can't stop shaking," she whispered, laughing.

Noah took that hand in his. "I've wanted this my whole life," he said.

"Me too," Charlee said. She shook her head in awe. "Oh God, nothing—nothing in life feels as good as that does. And knowing it's with you…I just…I love you. I love you so much, Noah."

He smiled lazy and full. "I love you too. God, I love you."

They kissed. Silence for a moment.

Then Noah said, "I should feel bad. But I don't."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not right. Before marriage. But…it just feels…so perfect. I'm so…happy." He turned over onto his side, facing Charlee and looking into her eyes. He wiped a few strands of hair across her sweaty forehead, a moment at once touching and erotic. She also smiled lazily. He could have stayed in that moment forever, died in that moment.

"The closest I've ever felt to God is with you," he said. "The two of us, sharing this. It's…divine."

"I feel that too. I want you to know, I'm like you—I wanted to wait until marriage. I didn't do this lightly. You're the one, Noah. I never want to do this with anyone else."

Charlee wished he could spend the night, hide him in her room. She wanted to see him when she woke up in the morning. Every morning. Noah told her he wished he could.

But they were already pushing their luck. Mother would be home soon.

So Charlee took him home. She drove as if on auto-pilot, smiling stupidly. The heat and sweat of their lovemaking was on them like an aura, a second skin, the winter cold hardly breaking through.

Noah looked over at her and put a hand behind her neck. He smiled the same stupid smile.

They made love again the next day.

This time it was at Noah's house while his parents were out for the afternoon. They had a condom at the ready and wasted no time. In his bedroom they tore each other's clothes off, held each other passionately in the warm delight of their naked flesh, and collided in a frenzy of love, surrendering to each other in a way that wasn't really surrendering at all but the sweet fulfillment of the heart, the realization of love found and love forever.

When it was over, a nearly breathless Charlee said, "I now know why they say 'You fucked my brains out.'" She still shook from the orgasm, her entire body ripe with satisfaction. "I literally…can't even…think…oh my God…"

Noah, his body still heaving, lay entwined in hers. A laugh escaped somewhere between heavy, relaxed, utterly contented breaths.

"I mean you're so unsuspecting," she said. "Fooling all the girls with your old man sweaters and your books. If they only knew..."

"Me? Baby, you are…wild."

She smiled, sighing heavily. "God, everything makes sense once you start having sex. Colors are sharper. There's music in everything. It feels like I'm really living my life for the first time. I have pep in my step. I noticed it today. Me. Pep. Fucking incredible."

"It feels like drowning," Noah said. "But in a good way, the best way, like I would die if we had to stop. And when it's over I only want more. I keep needing you so bad. And I can't help it, I just…"

He got as close to her as he could manage, wrapped up in her body and her warmth, his head and heart spinning in that swirling confection of love and lust—glorious, sublime. She held him, running her hands all over him, moaning in the embrace.

"God," she said, "I just want…I want to ruin you. I want to love you so hard and fuck you so silly that you could never fathom another woman in your life." She came in close to his lips teasingly. "Ever."

"You already have ruined me. I could never imagine another."

She smiled. "And you've done the same to me. You've utterly ruined me and I love it. I love it so much."

Noah couldn't stop smiling. "Oh man. This is still not right, is it? With God, I mean."

"I don't know. Probably not."

"But I still don't feel bad," he said. "I mean...making love to you, lying in your arms like this, I feel…home. Really home."

Charlee kissed him to keep herself from crying.

Noah said, "Oh God, what do we do?"

"Well…I guess…"

"Guess what?"

She smiled. "Let's get married."

"You're serious," Noah said. "Marriage."

They were downstairs in the living room now, fully clothed and snacking on crackers, Rocko's Modern Life on the tube. They sat on the couch, Charlee with her legs propped up on Noah, Noah's hands resting on her thighs.

"I mean, I know it wouldn't be on paper," Charlee said. "But it's not about the paper, it's about commitment, before God. And I can promise right now—no hesitation, no doubt—that I will love you forever and be faithfully yours all of my days."

It was such a sincere statement coming from Charlee McCool, master of sarcastic nuance, that for awhile all Noah could do was look at her. His heart swelled like he could either cry or dance or both.

"I love you," he said. "God, yes, of course, it's not even a question. Let's get married."

Charlee smiled wide and even squealed. She never squealed.

"Okay," she said, "okay. So…how do we do this?"

"I don't know, um…"

"You do it," she said.

"What?"

"The ceremony. I mean, you're practically a priest already. If we weren't together, I could see you being a monk. Hell, if anything ever happened and I lost you, I'd join a convent." She nodded. "Yeah. There could never be any other guy."

"Well, I'd want you to be happy and…oh who am I kidding? I don't like the idea of you with another guy even if I am dead."

"Jealousy is sexy. Just like I'd come back and haunt your ass if I was gone and you ever got with another girl. But where were we?"

"Marriage."

"Yes. You're the Bible scholar. Is there anywhere in the Bible that says you have to be married in a church or before the state?"

He thought about it. "No. No, there's not. It could be just us."

"Guilt-free, sin-free sex," Charlee said. "Not that it's about the sex. It's about—"

"Commitment," he said, nodding. "The ceremony could be just us, because marriage is a covenant between us. Us before God. No one else."

"No one else would believe us anyway. They'd say it's not right."

Noah said, "I believe we still have a lot to learn about love and about facing the world. But I believe love is learning those things together. Growing together. Growing in Christ." He nodded several times. "But I also believe we're mature enough now to make this decision. In fact I've never felt this sure about anything."

Charlee smiled. "Me either."

"I don't believe in divorce," Noah said. "That's not an option with me."

"Me either. I take this covenant seriously, with all my heart." She took his hand in his. They interlaced fingers.

"As do I." He smiled. "We could do this. Heck, this is like our Pre-Cana class right here."

"Pre-what class?"

"Pre-Cana. Pre-marital counseling for Catholics."

"Fuck, that sounds dreadful."

Noah laughed. "It takes its name from the wedding reception Jesus went to at Cana. You know, John chapter two, verses—"

"All right, Father Faison."

He laughed some more. When he relaxed his smile, he looked his girl in the eyes and said, "Marry me, Charlee McCool."

"Of course, Noah Faison. But just so we're clear, I'm the one that asked you."

They abstained from sex the rest of the week. And late that Saturday afternoon they got married on a section of floodwall stretching the town's outskirts. The setting sun shimmered gold through the clouds.

They walked the wall holding hands, each bundled in a warm coat, hat, and gloves, trudging through the heavy snow in boots.

"Growing up," Noah said, "my grandfather told me never to trust feelings or follow your heart. Because the devil can deceive your emotions, lead you astray. Jeremiah seventeen and nine says, 'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?' So when he told me about love, he told me to always remember that love is a verb. He told me to remember Jacob."

"Jacob?"

"From the Bible. Israel. His sons are the twelve tribes."

"Oh yeah, he's, uh, what, Isaac's son?"

"Right."

"See, I'm smart too. I went to Sunday school." She laughed. "Anyhow, sorry, go on."

"Jacob was so in love with Rachel that he worked seven years for her father before he could take her hand in marriage. Seven years before they ever made love, before he ever touched her. He told me it's when I find a woman like that when I am truly in love. You can't love an idea or sex or beauty. You love that person, you love her flaws, and you'd do anything for her, die for her. Love is a verb."

"I should have known Father Noah over here would deliver a homily," she said. "So do you read our vows now or what?"

"Well, I did some research." He reached into his pocket.

"Of course you did."

"I knew there was a Catholic prayer for marriage somewhere. And I thought it would be appropriate. So I found this." He took out a small prayer book and opened it to a bookmarked page. He cleared his throat for effect.

They stopped. Noah took Charlee's hand in his.

He read, "'We thank you, O God, for the love You have implanted in our hearts. May it always inspire us to be kind in our words, considerate of feeling, and concerned for each other's needs and wishes. Help us to be understanding and forgiving of human weaknesses and failings. Increase our faith and trust in You, and may Your prudence guide our life and love. Bless our marriage, O God, with peace and happiness, and make our love fruitful for Your glory and our joy both here and in eternity.'"

Charlee said, "Now is it the part where you kiss the bride?"

"God, yes." Noah pulled her in, held her fast, and kissed her slow.

They made out easy, in a way not lusty and frenzied, but deep and sensual and tender.

They kissed until they started crying. Then they kissed the tears off each other's lips and ate the cries out of each other's mouths.

They laughed at the utter absurdity of their happiness.

And they kissed until dark.

They spent their wedding night nearby at a ramshackle inn called the Hawkeye Motel. Their night was really more of an early evening, as despite their secret nuptials, they were still just shy of seventeen years old and still had parents, still had a curfew.

Charlee felt it would be safe for them out here, less likely to be seen by anyone they knew in town, given it was a nearly barren stretch of country road with little more than a neighboring gas station and a country-western bar up the street.

The motel manager, a heavily-bearded husky older fellow, told them he didn't rent rooms by the hour and certainly didn't rent to anyone under the age of eighteen. But then Charlee and Noah showed him some cash they had pooled, offering him a fair sum up front.

They got a room.

The coincidence was naturally lost on them that their room happened to be the same one rented out to Eliza Lehman and Andrew Daly only months ago.

Charlee fooled with the radio on the nightstand, feeling nostalgic for a little Collins Mall smooth jazz. Finding none, she settled on an easy listening oldies station.

Stripped of their winter apparel and getting warmed up in the room, they exchanged rings now that their hands were bare.

They had bought them earlier that day at an obscure gift shop in the mall that specialized in odd trinkets and cheap jewelry. There they had been sized for a pair of inexpensive Claddagh rings.

"You're always sharing your Mexican heritage with me," Charlee said, sliding the ring on the ring finger of his left hand. "So this is some Irish heritage of mine right here."

Noah put Charlee's ring on the ring finger of her left hand as well. They stared at them, the stainless steel wedding bands in the traditional Irish design: two hands holding a heart with a crown atop the heart.

"Love, loyalty, friendship," she said. "And when we wear it like this, on our left hands with the heart pointing in toward our wrists, it means we're married."

"My wife," he said with a smile.

"My husband," Charlee said.

They cupped each other's faces as they went in for a long passionate kiss, their ringed fingers brushing each other's cheeks. They fell back onto the bed.

They made slow sweet love, taking their time with it, exploring each other in that unique glory of the young and in love. Charlee learned teasing tender caresses while Noah discovered a certain finesse and love for giving oral pleasure.

When they finally connected, Charlee's body receiving Noah's with that magical compliance, it wasn't long for them both. They reached a simultaneous orgasm of such profound heights, they blacked out in each other's arms and both cried a single tear.

The newlyweds spent nary a second apart.

They went on long walks, kissing in Collins Park or on the side of a road. They had sex after hours on the bench at the Collins Mall when they couldn't get a free moment at either house, an extra thrill in doing it at the place of their first kiss, making love to smooth jazz and the night.

They walked the sidewalks downtown at night and the hallways at school between classes, their fingers constantly interlaced, hands warm and damp with the other's sweat.

They became a fixture around town, this cute odd couple who couldn't keep their hands off each other: gangly and rail-thin Charlee McCool, who at 5'11'' was an easy three inches on the leaner, broader Noah Faison; Charlee with the short crazy hair and those eccentric outfits, Noah with the distinguished parted hair and rimless glasses and old man sweaters. An aura of enchantment emanated off them like an actual presence.

Sometimes Charlee worried it was too much, this love that made her heart feel like warm neon, like it could grow wings and burst out of her chest. How long did they get to have this? How long before the law of averages caught up with them, before the hammer of life came along swift and certain and cruel?

She told Noah once, "We're too perfect, you and I. Love isn't like this in the real world. You know that means we're doomed, right?"

They were walking the length of the floodwall hand in gloved hand. It was one of those late winter days in mid-March, the sun out, sky clear of most clouds. The snow had almost all melted from the latest blizzard, looked to be going away for good. They sloshed through the slush in their mud-spattered boots.

Noah put his arm tight around her waist and said, "I know. They'll say we're na?ve. That love fades. That we're young. We're fools. And maybe we are."

"You believe that?"

"No."

Charlee smiled.

Her smile, the sun on her skin, the way she felt against him—it was all a constant swelling of music in Noah's heart that had not stopped playing since the day he met her.

She stopped walking and he did too. She looked him dead in the eyes and said, "You can't ever leave me."

He felt the gravity of her words and understood it. He felt it too.

He matched her stare with his own. "You know I won't. You're my wife. This life, the next life, every life. Eternal."

Charlee smiled again, then shook her head and laughed. "God. Gag me with a fucking spoon. We're disgusting, you know that?"

They walked for miles down the floodwall, high above the town's elevation, feeling as on top of the air as they almost were. Their figures became silhouettes against the horizon as the sun died, bleeding red, shadows thick and heavy across the land.

Charlee and Noah, above the town, felt above the world. Caught up in love. All its wonder, all its mystery.

All its music.

TEN

The fax machine rang in Dr. Loomis's office.

He turned in the swivel chair at his desk and rolled over to the machine, snatching up the papers as more continued to spill out.

He splayed the documents out among others already on his desk.

Missing persons. Dozens of them. All girls or young women.

He had started with Livingston County, Illinois. Haddonfield was there, the hometown of Michael Myers. But then he expanded his reach, requesting missing person reports as far back as November 1978 when Michael disappeared, and from all the counties bordering Livingston—La Salle, Marshall, Woodford, McClean, Ford, Kankakee, Grundy.

Loomis knew that Michael's reach went far beyond even that, as evident from his sprees across the Midwest. For years that was how he tracked Michael's whereabouts.

But since his discovery of the tunnels underneath the old Myers house, he began a more localized approach.

That was where all the missing girls came in.

Like this one. Loomis looked at the most recent posting he had. A girl named Chelsea Bowles. She was pretty. She was seventeen. She had disappeared just three days ago from her hometown of Russellville.

While Loomis knew of only a handful of murders over the last eighteen years he could with certainty attribute to Michael, the gaps always bothered him, the years between killings.

Because as long as he was not locked up, Michael would not stop. Killing was his addiction.

Every victim, every kill, every hapless teenage girl in his sights—Michael needed them. Needed them ever since the age of six when he killed his seventeen-year-old sister, Judith.

Every girl was Judith to him—starting with his younger sister, Laurie Strode, and then all the ones that came after. Melissa Phelan. Katelyn Gregory. Isabelle Harris. Alison Brown. All of them.

Michael was killing her again and again and again, forever trying to capture that ecstasy of blood and pain with every brutal stab of his long blade.

So there had to be others.

It went something like this: Sometimes Michael wanted an audience, those sporadic Halloweens when a victim was made well-known. But other times he kept quiet, killed silently. Made sure the victims went missing and their bodies were never found.

Maybe Michael did spend the majority of his year wandering the Midwestern countryside, scoping out girls that reminded him of his sister, planning for years the inevitable kill.

But what if sometimes he came home? Like now—in the dead of winter. Came home to live underneath his old house and ride out the cold and wind and snow. What if then he went on the hunt close by?

It made sense. The missing girls from Livingston and the surrounding counties. Coupled with the occasional sighting of an ominous stranger around the old Myers home and the fact that Loomis had never found a trace of Michael actually living within the house itself.

But down in the tunnels…

How many girls, Michael? How many of them have you dragged down there quietly over the years to try and satisfy your insatiable lust for blood and screams and tears, for the sacrifice of nubile young flesh in the name of your evil pagan god?

Loomis wished he could still drive, could still get up out of the house whenever he wanted to and go to work like back in the day. Work meaning his hunt.

Being locked up in his nurse's house was hell. He could leave, of course, if he wanted to—he was a grown man. But he knew it could compromise his investigation if Marion found out what he was doing.

So he had to improvise. For weeks this winter, in the midst of sorting through missing persons reports, he made calls to the sheriff's office in Haddonfield. His inquiries into the tunnels underneath the house fell on uninterested ears.

He had precious few friends in the department. And he had to tread lightly with his phrasing. No one liked to hear 'Michael Myers' and 'still alive' in the same sentence.

But it was this day, looking through the recent missing persons reports, that he finally got hold of someone, a Deputy Earl Ramsey, an old timer who told Loomis he had worked that night in 1978 when Michael returned to Haddonfield.

"Listen, Doc," Ramsey told him. "If I'm going to do what you're asking it's got to be on my own and off duty. Folks around here, cops 'specially, they don't like hearing your name and they for damn sure don't like hearing Myers's name. Last thing anyone wants around here is a panic. So if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it quietly and I'm going to do it my own way."

It didn't feel right to Loomis, but he had to take what he could get. "Thank you, Deputy."

When he was off the phone, Loomis winced, a familiar pain in his chest flaring up that crippled his entire left arm. Like usual he told himself to relax and breathe. After several long seconds the pain went away.

He thought of a worse pain—Michael.

He put a hand to his chest, a lingering shockwave spreading strong at first before it withered away into nothing.

This could be it, Michael, he thought. You and me face to face again. And I'll be damned, before I leave this world, you're going to leave it first.

Some hours later, Deputy Earl Ramsey rode up slowly to the old Myers house on 45 Lampkin Lane in Haddonfield. It was late into the night and he drove not a standard-issue police cruiser but his own Ford sedan. And he came not in his crisply ironed police uniform but in plainclothes: some blue jeans, a flannel button-up, and a heavy winter coat.

His badge, gun, and flashlight were the only things left on his person department-issue.

A light snow fell gently over the two or three inches already covering the ground.

Ramsey walked up the sidewalk toward the abandoned home and checked his surroundings. Lampkin Lane was as normal a street in Haddonfield as any other. Tree-lined and homey, with manicured lawns and yards that were kept tidy and prim. Idyllic. Even now, buried under a sheet of snow, the homes had a certain clean-cut elegance.

Excepting that Lampkin Lane had the Myers house, you couldn't tell it from any other lane in the quiet old town. To its credit the house seemed aware of its ugliness and appeared to recede from the street as if back into the darkness itself.

And in winter, the snow certainly helped.

The old home's sagging porch and weathered frame hung back in the night shadows as Deputy Ramsey made his way across the beaten, snowed-over pathway, his crunching footfalls lost amidst the sawing chirrup of crickets and a faraway barking dog.

In the corner of his eye he caught sight of the garage, separated from the house off to right, situated even further back in the darkness, shrouded in overgrown grass and shrubbery that was weighed down by snow.

Ramsey headed in that direction. The old doc had told him one of the entryways to the tunnels was supposed to be in the garage. He'd take that for sure if he could avoid going the long way through the house and into the basement.

On his way over he scoped out the windows of the house itself, pointing his flashlight through the two by fours and the broken shards of glass, pointy edges glinting in the strong beam.

All he could make out was an arid empty darkness inside.

He moved on. He shone the beam through the windows on the garage doors before he went in. It was an old structure, no automatic doors, you just pushed them open.

The garage was as vacant as the house. A dusting of snow had blown in through the cracks in the doors and windows, through the old warped wood rotted from age and neglect.

Sweeping the interior with his flashlight, he scanned the walls, peppered with the occasional tool. Rusty hedge clippers, a garden trowel, a shovel, a chainsaw. The floor was mostly barren, weeds poking up through cracked concrete. An old lawn mower sat vacant and covered with cobwebs in the corner.

And in that corner the floor appeared to drop off.

Ramsey walked that way and pointed the beam down into the darkness. A heavy old rug seemed to have sunk into the ground. Loose floorboards were scattered underneath and about it.

He removed the rug and pushed the pieces of wood aside. He coughed in the cloud of dirt that rose to meet him. Beneath all that—

A narrow set of stairs, four steps, a manhole cover at the end.

The old doc was right. There was his entryway.

At one point the old floorboards and the rug may have held up just fine, covered up both access to and knowledge of the tunnels all these years, but with the decay over time it had collapsed. Either that or someone had caused it to collapse—

Ramsey drew his gun, proceeded.

He removed the hefty manhole cover with a little effort. He wasn't in as good shape as he was when he was young but he was still a big man.

Sliding the covering to the side once it was removed, he pointed the gun and flashlight into the hole that opened up.

A metal ladder descended into thick darkness. Dripping water bounced off the sewer walls like whispers, conversations, secrets.

He stuck his head in just enough, gun drawn and light aimed to sweep the area.

What got him first was the smell, a lingering foul stench like damp garbage mixed with sweet raw meat and rotten eggs on a hot summer day. He didn't think these sewers were active anymore, but maybe he was wrong.

He took the ladder, found it to be sturdy enough to support his big frame, and went down step by step to the damp floor of the subterranean crypt.

On the ground he took position with his flashlight and weapon. Behind the ladder on one side was an old iron gate. Behind it was deeper darkness and still more tunnels going under the other homes on the street.

He shook the gate. A rusted chain and padlock had the thing secure. Many of the bars were bent and broken, jutting out at sharp angles.

The deputy turned the other way, slowly walking down the tunnel toward the bowels of the house. He had the flashlight gripped above his gun. The beam led the way.

With the light he traced the floor and ceiling. The old sewers were made of brick, the walls cylindrical like a long archway.

He turned a corner and made his way down another tunnel. Toward the middle he found an alcove situated in the wall. Stepping inside the cramped space he gave it a quick sweep.

On the far wall he noticed a massive hole in the concrete foundation. Ramsey reached inside the hole. His hand met up with another wall, only it was not brick or concrete like the rest of the catacombs, but a thin layer of plaster.

It was old and cheap. He gave it a push and felt a slight give, almost as if he could—

He kicked it. Kicked it again.

He busted open a small hole in the wall. Dust went flying into his face and he held his breath, thinking asbestos.

He gave it a few more kicks and squatted down to peer through the concrete hole and into the new hole he had created.

There was a small room in there, presumably the subbasement that led up to the basement itself, a ladder on the opposite side leading up to another hatch door. The second entryway. Unlike the garage, this access door was already open.

Good to know.

He backed up again, continued down the corridor.

A loud scraping sound suddenly permeated the dark silence of the tunnels.

Ramsey spun, weapon drawn.

At first it seemed like it had come from behind him, but with the echoes that followed he couldn't tell worth a damn.

And the flashlight beam revealed nothing.

"Hello?"

No answer, just his own echoes now.

He thought about if anyone could actually be down here. The subbasement entryway was blocked by a plaster wall, and the garage entryway had long been covered with the rug and pieces of wood. No one could get down here and stay down here without leaving one of the entrances uncovered. Unless they entered from somewhere else. Another house maybe. Or even an abandoned access point far across town.

Breathing slow as the echoes of his voice grew softer, he turned around and kept going, stepping over rusty nails and scrap metal.

Up ahead he saw light.

Glowing.

Around the next corner.

He heard a menacing squeak as two rats turned a corner and scurried away from his flashlight beam into the darkness.

He walked toward the glowing light that he saw flicker as he came closer. It cast shadows on the wall, tall dark shapes—

He rounded the corner, weapon ready—

It was a little room.

With a bed.

And candles. Candles everywhere.

The flickering glow of the flames illuminated the makeshift cot in the center—a tattered mattress that rested atop planks and old milk crates.

Ramsey thought, Squatters? Homeless in Haddonfield? Who—

He stepped slowly into the room. The setting aside, it was kept freakishly neat and tidy. Moth-eaten blankets and plastic tarp acted as sheets on the perfectly made bed. Empty aluminum cans lay stacked in even rows across the room aside a line of mason jars.

Ramsey got closer, shone the beam on the glass jars.

Bones. Animal carcasses at various stages of decomposition. Whiskers. Lifeless beady eyes.

Rats.

"What the hell…"

Another thought: What if…Michael Myers…after all these years…

A sound.

Back in the tunnels.

Like rattling pipes. Or a cage. Or—

Or someone struggling against an iron gate.

"Hello," Ramsey bellowed, even the echo of his voice commanding. "Who's there?"

The clanging sound continued. It was faint but there.

He took a breath and followed the sound. He tried to retrace his steps, remember his way around here, but the darkness was disorienting, and that sweet rancid meat odor was only getting worse, combined now with something that smelled metallic, acidic.

He came to a long corridor in the tunnels he didn't remember searching. The sound grew louder.

He aimed the gun and flashlight ahead. The beam illuminated some brick on the damp curvature of the wall but was utterly swallowed up by the darkness of the long hallway.

He proceeded into the tunnel when suddenly there was no floor underneath him.

Stairs.

He tripped down a small set of steps and careened forward to the ground. He braced himself, but something soft and uneven cushioned his fall, something carrying that stench—

He rolled over onto more of the same, his grip still intact on the gun and flashlight. He stood up and felt a squishy sound underfoot that was accompanied by a sick crunching noise.

He pointed the flashlight down.

The decomposed face of a long-haired female corpse stared back at him, her eyes hollowed out in her sockets and her mouth locked in a permanent scream.

"Oh shit!"

And he had stepped into her torso, busting through ribs and rotted flesh. He quickly stumbled back, only to hit another body, another girl, this one fresher, recent—

Her eyes were wide open in terror and her face was pinched in rigor mortis. Her neck had been carved open ear to ear and long-dried blackened blood covered her naked chest.

"Oh Jesus, oh Jesus." He instantly went for his shoulder radio before remembering he didn't have it. He had no communication with the outside world down here.

He pointed the flashlight and gun at the entirety of the hallway.

Bodies everywhere. Most of them naked. Corpses like the rats in jars all at different stages of decay.

There were fresh bodies, putrid ones that bloated hideously, and other ones long since disintegrated into piles of bones.

All of the ones still identifiable were pretty adolescent girls. Pretty at one time.

He keeled over and vomited. The smell, the sights, it was getting into his pores, his soul—he couldn't take it—

He had been in Vietnam, had been a private at eighteen, had seen villages laid to waste with the bodies of women and children.

But here, Haddonfield—

Ramsey had moved here after the war, became a cop in this quiet town where really the only notable night in his long career was Halloween 1978 when Michael Myers returned.

The sound again. Ahead of him. A gate rattling vigorously.

He pointed the gun and beam up again. He saw another small set of stairs on the other end of the corridor.

He wasted no more time as the metallic pounding continued. He navigated through the slew of festering corpses and bolted up the opposite set of stairs. The sound was loud now, close, beckoning, to his left. He got his weapon ready, rounded the corner—

A dark shape.

It stood in the shadows before another chained-up iron gate, shaking against it like a rippling blob. With the flashlight he saw that the figure was covered with a dark blanket.

He stepped closer, slowly. The shape was squirming violently as if trapped against the gate.

He took a quick look behind him. The hallway dead-ended on the other side. The tunnel with the bodies was the only way back out.

He reached out his hand. It trembled. He grabbed the blanket and tore it off—

A terrified girl lashed out at him.

"Oh Christ!" He stumbled back.

He could only tell she was screaming by the way she moved her mouth. But all that came out were dry pathetic gasps, almost as if her throat—

Yes. He could see the bruising across her neck where pressure had been applied to silence her cries—

"Oh Christ—"

The girl was tied to the gated door. Struggling against her chains. Shivering against the winter cold, teeth rattling. Like most of the corpses she was naked.

She was young. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Blonde. And pretty, like the others, even now, her face twisted in horror, days-old make-up and mascara smudged by torrents of tears.

Her desperate whisper wasn't even a whisper, something less. He had to come closer just to hear the forceful words make their way out of her pulverized throat—

"Help…me…please…"

She looked like she had been starved for some days now, her nude body emaciated and her cheeks sallow.

And there was blood—

He noticed that her bonds were not chains. They were barbed wire. It cut into the flesh of her forearms and around her ankles, wrapped several times over, even—

"Oh shit—"

Just below her throat, hanging across her chest, was a noose also made from several coils of barbed wire, too loose right now to cut into her flesh.

She had probably kept still for so long for fear of bleeding out from where she was pierced, but then when she heard him rooting through the tunnels calling out hello, figured it worth it to make herself noticed.

"I'm getting you out of here," Ramsey said. "You're going to be okay."

He fumbled, where to start. With his flashlight he followed the noose around her neck to the strands of barbed wire that went up from it into the ceiling and down somewhere behind the gate.

He set the gun and flashlight down and looked at the noose, tried to estimate if it was loose enough to slip over her head. Not yet.

He started with her hands, taking the wire as gently and efficiently as he could from around her wrists and peeling it back.

The girl squirmed and let loose with her silent screams as the sharp points tore out of her skin, leaking blood one by one.

"You're doing great, doing great," he said, breathing heavy. "I'm moving to your ankles now."

The girl weakly moved her freed hands to the wired noose. Her fingers and palms were pale white and nearly useless from blood loss, her wrists utterly threshed.

Ramsey moved down to her ankles, loosening the strands of wire out of her pierced flesh. These wires were wrapped around the gate, keeping her tied down.

From somewhere back in the tunnels—a loud scuffle.

Followed by slow wet footsteps over the damp floor.

The girl's eyes grew wide and she squealed silently, shaking in her bonds.

Ramsey whispered, "No, no, shhh, almost done, I've got you, I'm getting you out—"

The footsteps grew louder. Still far back but coming their way.

He forgot about gentility and merely tore the wire out of her ankles as fast and clean as he could. Warm blood poured out, covering his hands. The girl flinched and cringed, emitting a sharp gasp that if given voice would have been an agonizing howl.

Just a little bit more and he could work on the noose around her neck. He held her frantically swinging feet down and kept at it.

That was when he noticed how tautly pulled the last wire was. He had to grip it tight just to get the remaining piercings off the girl's left ankle. He grunted, gritting his teeth as the sharp edges of the tough wire cut under the skin of his hand, his own blood running now.

He could hear the methodical footsteps coming down the stairs now at the other end of the body-filled tunnel—

He kept on pulling until finally the girl's feet kicked free.

He let go of the tough wire. It recoiled as if by some tension release, springing back with a metallic shing—

—and triggering a mechanism on the other side of the gate.

Then he remembered the wire that was connected to the noose, the one that disappeared into the ceiling and down the other side—

"No!"

He lunged for her but it was too late.

The barbed wire noose tightened around the girl's neck and hoisted her body up into the air like a limp rag doll.

Blood spurted from her newly opened throat. Her flaccid hands tried to clutch the noose as her eyes bulged in shock and pain. Her body convulsed, seizing violently before all energy and life drained out of her.

Then she just hung there. Rocking.

Her lifeless body twitched sporadically, swinging gently in the tunnel gallows. Warm dark crimson flowed in a thick stream down her supple breasts and flat stomach.

"No, no, no, no…" Ramsey touched her arms, her face, the noose. Finally he backed away, staring at her, shaking his head, the blood on his outstretched hands running down his sleeves.

For a moment he couldn't move. His gaze wandered absently to the floor, to what the beam of his flashlight rested on—a pair of carelessly tossed skinny jeans and a pink wallet that had fallen out of the back pocket, the laminated slot revealing her driver's license.

Her name was Chelsea Bowles.

In her picture she smiled wide and full. She looked as fresh as a budding rose, so much life ahead of her, so young, so beautiful—

The footsteps.

Still coming.

Ramsey grabbed the gun and flashlight, spun back around the corner, aimed and—

Nothing.

The footsteps had stopped. There was no one in the corridor. Just the bodies.

Breathing heavy, he stared down the corridor for awhile, sweeping it with the beam and his weapon.

Then he moved forward slowly, stepping carefully this time around the corpses, inching toward the stairs at the other end of the hall. He heightened his senses for any hint of movement, for the slightest sound. Even the intermittent plops of dripping water echoing throughout the maze of tunnels kept him on edge.

There were no more footsteps. And that meant this killer—whoever was down here—was hiding somewhere, waiting, ready to strike.

He took the stairs slowly and cleared both directions that fanned out on either side. He started retracing his steps back to the garage entrance, ready to get the fuck out of here and call in back-up.

He took the tunnel in the direction of the garage and was only a few steps down before he heard the wet squeak and heavy plop of a footfall behind him—

He spun around, gun drawn.

Darkness.

He inched forward slowly but still the flashlight beam revealed nothing. He checked back around the corner of the stairs to the corridor with the bodies, did a quick sweep, nothing there either—

Except something was different.

His flashlight beam rested on an empty spot on the floor.

A spot that hadn't been empty when he walked back through here.

One of the dead bodies was missing.

No.

Someone lying in wait, who had been playing dead—

Ramsey split.

He remained as poised and alert as possible as he hurried back through the tunnels. Even in the dank cold of the catacombs he was sweating profusely.

It took all his will to keep his weapon steady, to suppress the tremors that yearned to take over his body, break him into sobs.

Soon he saw the familiar ladder at the end of the tunnel—the garage—and broke into a full run.

He hopped the ladder, hurried to the top—

The hatch door was closed.

He hadn't closed it himself, had specifically left it open.

And then he remembered that first sound he heard upon searching the tunnels, that loud scraping—

Someone else had closed the door.

And now it was locked.

He pushed against it with all his strength. "No, no!"

No use. It was sealed.

"Shit!"

He was trapped.

He climbed back down the ladder and tried to steady his breathing. He looked behind the ladder to the locked gate he had first seen upon entering. He touched the bars, tested their strength, fingered the heavy lock and the rusty chains accompanying it.

It would be tough but if he had to, he could get through the gate, find another exit to another house on the street or on the block. But if those were sealed…

Well, he knew the streets of Haddonfield backwards and forwards. These tunnels had to eventually lead to the old sewage plant miles out on Scottsdale Road right past the Lost River Drive-In.

It would be long but he could do it.

Before that he still had one more exit to try. The hatch in the subbasement he saw earlier that would lead him up into the Myers house.

He headed in that direction, taking turns carefully but quickly. His rising terror, the lingering smell and sights of those bodies, poor Chelsea—all of it made it his head spin. He couldn't focus. Each tunnel looked the same. He was losing his bearings.

He stopped at the intersection of three corridors, sure he had been going in circles. He started toward another tunnel and almost tripped.

The ground was uneven. There was a shallow hole about two feet wide and two inches deep on a slant.

He paused to look at it, leaning down and pointing the beam into the hole.

Another manhole cover.

A hatch door with a crudely scratched number, 616, written on top. It led to something else, something even deeper below the tunnels…

A bomb shelter.

Ramsey recalled Loomis mentioning something about it. Maybe there was another exit this way.

There was a medieval-looking key already placed in the hatch door. The lock clicked loudly as he turned the key and swung the door out, letting it rest open. He took a quick look around before heading down the ladder into the dark hatch, weapon and torch first.

It was a deep cavern. From atop the ladder, at first glance, he could only make out dark shapes below.

But then he got hold of a rung and shone the flashlight down.

His eyes grew wide. His jaw fell.

He might have stayed like that awhile if the footsteps didn't suddenly return.

He looked up and back out of the circular hatch door, listening close.

There they were. Steady footfalls slow but sure.

They came closer.

He couldn't risk trying to get out of the hatch in time, or getting out halfway and not having the high ground if he was spotted.

So he turned off the flashlight and closed the hatch on himself, keeping only a thin sliver of it open so he could peer out into the murky darkness.

The footsteps grew louder still, echoing, taunting, until—

Heavy muffled breathing accompanied the black work boots that walked slowly across his field of vision.

They moved systematically, searching.

Ramsey felt almost as if the boots themselves had eyes. Especially when they stopped and aimed themselves directly at the hatch.

Ramsey felt the end. He had been noticed. And he had left the fucking key in the door. All the killer had to do was lean forward, close the hatch, and lock him in to die.

He waited for those stationed feet, for the large ominous black work boots to make their advance.

No.

He took his only chance. He drew his weapon and brought it before the sliver he had made in the door. He'd shoot out the killer's feet, get him to the ground.

Finger on the trigger—

The boots turned and walked away.

Just like that.

The footfalls receded into the vast darkness.

Ramsey waited to rise out of the hatch only when he was sure the footsteps were long gone. When he emerged he did so slowly, turning the flashlight back on and doing a quick once-over with his weapon.

He wasn't going to waste time anymore. He closed the hatch and hurried cautiously back through the tunnels. He saw the flickering candlelight of the psychopath's lair and knew he was heading in the right direction this time.

He passed through the bedroom, the ramshackle cot with the surrounding jars and cans. And down the corridor he came upon the alcove in the wall, the hole in the concrete foundation with the busted plaster. He poked his head through to the subbasement and shone the beam inside, saw the ladder and the hatch door above it, still open.

He dove through, eyes never leaving the hatch—his exit, his escape.

That was how he missed the round pan that he stepped on, the trigger that set off the waiting bear trap—

Two steel jaws snapped shut over his foot.

Blinding pain. He tripped, twisting his ankle with a sickening snap, and fell to the floor, dropping the flashlight and the gun.

He let loose a long guttural cry and turned on his back, reaching for the trap, moaning and gritting his teeth as he tried to pull his broken ankle, get a closer look.

Blood seeped down his leg, into and over his boots. His foot jutted out at an impossible angle. He tried to move it and the struggle only caused the tension springs in the trap to tighten, further clamp down the shark-like teeth into his flesh.

He screamed again, then tried to stop and breathe. He grunted as he gripped the jaws, trying to pull them apart himself. Nothing doing. He nearly passed out from the effort.

He was dizzy, in a panic, but still had to get out, all he could try to do now.

He began to crawl, leaving a slimy trail of blood as he dragged the bear trap across the floor of the subbasement, his limp foot hanging inside, nearly severed.

The hatch door. Still open above him. A beacon. If he could just…

He fought, crawling still until he reached the first rung of the ladder, grabbed it with a sharp sigh of relief, grabbed the next with his other hand—

A strong hand clasped his bloody foot and twisted it.

There was the sharp crackling of bone. He screamed.

The hand pulled him by the leg completely back to the floor and his screams turned from pain to terror. He fumbled, arms searching the floor for the gun, there—almost—no—

Another hand grabbed his good leg and suddenly he was being dragged back toward the plaster hole in the concrete foundation. He could not see his attacker, only darkness, the darkness itself dragging him—

"No!" he cried, arms and hands searching the bare floor, nails scratching across concrete. "No!"

He held onto the edges of the subbasement wall until his bloody knuckles grew white and living shadows sucked him back into the tunnels, eating him alive.

His cries were swallowed by deepest darkness.

It was nights later when Loomis, watching the late news on the little television in his office, saw Ramsey's name and photograph appear on the screen.

A young female news anchor said, "And out of Livingston County, police in Haddonfield are investigating the disappearance of one of their own. Deputy Earl Ramsey was reported missing just three days ago…"

The rest was a blur.

A heavy guilt came crushing down on him and made one of his chest pains flare up, worse than ever before. He wished suddenly that the pain would take him, kill him. It was better than living with the knowledge of what he had done.

He played a thought over in his head: The fact was that he could have sent Eliza Lehman and her partner on this one from the beginning. They could have done it much faster, much cleaner, much more thorough and effective than the Haddonfield police.

But only now did he consciously realize the truth: Lehman and Daly were too important to him. He needed them working, not walking into traps. But some Haddonfield cop on the other hand…

Loomis had known deep down just what could happen to Ramsey when he sent him into the Myers house. But he had been so used to coming up empty in his hunt over the past two decades that he honestly hadn't expected anything to come out of it.

Now this.

He had sent a man into that house to die. A man with a wife, perhaps, kids even.

Loomis turned off the television so he wouldn't have to find out.

You should have known better, you old bastard, he thought.

And you knew, Michael, didn't you? You knew the lengths to which I would go to find you. That I would get a man killed.

He grabbed the phone and dialed the number for Haddonfield.

"God damn you, Michael," he said as he listened to the ring, tears escaping his eyes. "Damn you to hell."

Later the same night, under the cover of darkness in the wee quiet hours of a pre-dawn Haddonfield morning, the SWAT unit of the Livingston County Sheriff's Department stormed the old Myers house like the Green Berets.

Officers in black commando gear, riot helmets, and flashlight-equipped submachine guns fanned out inside in tactical formation, while more focused teams took the tunnel entries in the subbasement and garage.

They shouted orders as they swept through the maze of tunnels efficiently, heavy boots sloshing over the damp flooring of the old sewer system, weapons aimed at every pocket of darkness, every hidden corner, around every new tunnel that branched off.

There was a faint burning stench in the air. But they discovered no trace of embers or ashes.

And they discovered no bodies. And no bed or animal carcasses.

What they did discover were several small, empty industrial vats of perchloric acid.

Shouts of "Clear!" echoed through the labyrinth and over the radios.

The men outside searching the front and back yards noted the conspicuous absence of a vehicle. Deputy Earl Ramsey was gone, if he was ever here, and so was his car.

"There's an APB out on it already," a sergeant mentioned.

Below, as the officers cleared out of the tunnels, not one of them paid attention to a slightly loose slab of concrete on the floor, a slab that covered up the hatch door to an old bomb shelter, to an even deeper underground cavern…

ELEVEN

The boy sitting across from Andrew Daly was about twenty years old, gangly yet handsome, preppy clothes and eyeglasses giving off an air of the intellectual. He came from money. He could afford Lehman-Daly Investigations.

Right now he sat restless in the chair on the other side of Andrew's desk, jumpy, unable to keep eye contact for more than a second.

Andrew held out a thin manila envelope over the desk. The boy, Peter Tisdale, hesitated and sighed. He reached forward and took it.

"What's in here?" he asked, hopelessness in his voice like the plague.

Andrew frowned.

Peter nodded, sighed again.

Andrew waited as the young man in front of him slowly opened the envelope and slid out the glossy photographs. He looked away and pushed them back in. His lips quivered, his eyes fighting tears.

"I'm sorry," Andrew said.

Peter was shaking his head. "I love her. I love her so much."

'Her' was Lisa Hall, Peter's fiancé, a young woman Andrew had kept under surveillance the last week and took photographs of during sordid meetings with a gentleman suitor.

A case as old as time. Lisa Hall was a bad boy girl. And Peter Tisdale was a nice guy, the kind every girl claims she wants before she gets bored and fucks around with some well-hung asshole. Andrew didn't have enough fingers to count the number of Lisa Halls he'd run into in his life and on the job.

Poor bastard. He wanted to tell the kid it'd be okay. That this wouldn't happen to him again. That the hurt of the betrayal would pass, that he'd get over it, maybe salvage the relationship or find a new girl as faithful as he.

But he didn't want to lie to him.

"Thank you," Peter said, dropping off a check as he left.

Alas it was the job, but Andrew hated taking money in these cases, felt like a dick getting paid to deliver someone a lifetime of trust issues and sexual insecurity.

When the kid was gone, Eliza looked up from the paperwork on her desk. "These cases flock to you, don't they?"

Andrew shrugged and leaned back, drank more from his second cup of black coffee, loosened further his already loosened tie.

He got personal with cheating cases. His father had been a philandering scumbag who played his mother for years before finally running out on the entire family. As a little kid he swore that he would never do that to a woman. So as an adult he'd only have multiple women at once if that was the understanding. Otherwise he had had girlfriend after girlfriend and had been faithful to them all.

And he had been faithful to his wife. It was she who had cheated on him, and it wasn't something he could forgive. His mother had forgiven his father, time and time again, and it killed her. She died young, Andrew believed, because of it.

"I'll take the next one," Eliza said. "I could use the excitement. Give you one of my background investigations, or this fraud piece right here. Or how about this one? Insurance. Tracking down missing beneficiaries." She fingered a thick file among many atop her desk. Their business was growing. They looked into most cases separately to lessen the work load, bouncing ideas and theories off each other when need be.

When it came to the job, Eliza was at home in the office, running computer searches and scouring through droves of paperwork. Her OCD gave her a gift for the paper trail, picking up the small details and inconsistencies that busted cases open. And at the end she could write a mean report, mail it off to their client, and wait for the check. She worked cases with no illusion of romance or high adventure.

Andrew preferred the field, the muscle work—bodyguard jobs, car repos, bail jumpers. He had wanted to be a cop back in the day and loved working the streets, didn't mind kicking in doors and cracking in skulls.

Eliza told him, "You look like shit, you don't mind my saying. More than usual."

He flipped her the bird but knew she was right. He hadn't combed his long hair, hadn't shaved in days, and was wearing the same outfit as yesterday. Usually this meant a long night, a good night, but not this time.

"The wife called last night," he told her.

"Ex, you mean."

"Ex." She was eight years out of the picture but he still said 'wife' more than 'ex-wife.' "Well, it's the technicality of the 'ex' issue she was calling about."

Eliza jerked her head in question.

Andrew held up his left hand, signaled the ring finger. "Sean officially popped the question," he said. "So, because we never officially got divorced, stayed married for tax benefits and the kid issue—"

"The kid issue?"

"Chloe."

"Your daughter."

"Yeah. It was easier filing the joint benefits, but now…" He shook his head absently.

Eliza said, "Yeah."

"God, I miss Chloe," Andrew said. "But I hardly see her because her bitch of a mother has me painted as the fucking antichrist." He shook his head. "Nine years ago? Shit. I loved Amanda more than anything. And when she got pregnant, I did the responsible thing, so, marriage. And then…" He shook his head again. "Anyway, she wants to make it official so she can marry that douche."

"You all right?"

"Fine. But she wants to meet tonight, go over some things. Talk in person."

"Mmm." Eliza left it at that. She was pretty sure that in many respects Andrew was still in love with Amanda and always would be. You don't hate someone that much unless you were once very much in love with them. Of course Eliza could never relate to such matters, but she could intellectualize.

"She says she's gonna bring Chloe," Andrew said. "Been about three months since I've seen either of them."

Eliza nodded, offered what she hoped was a comforting smile. He looked pitiful. Few things could break her heart anymore. Andrew was one of the few.

She knew that it wouldn't be the cigarettes that one day killed him. And it wouldn't be the bottle. It would be women.

In those remarkably rare instances when Eliza felt a tinge of regret at never getting married or having children, all she had to do was think of Andrew.

Andrew met his ex at seven that night in an Irish pub in downtown Smith's Grove. Amanda had made the drive up from Russellville, a little town a couple hours away she had moved to with their daughter after the separation.

He was sitting at the bar when she walked in. Fine as she ever was. Honey blonde hair. Legs that reached heaven. Curves that could kill a man.

He might have let himself get distracted if he hadn't noticed that walking alongside her was him. Sean.

The nerve. The fucking audacity.

The bastard was awkward as hell. He was tall and lanky, his handsome features eclipsed by shifty eyes that never seemed to make contact, especially with Andrew. Andrew wondered as he always did, she went behind my back to fuck this?

"Andrew." Amanda nodded at him, her smile small and forced.

"Amanda." He ignored Sean. "Is Chloe in the car?"

"Chloe's not here."

"Not here, where—"

"She didn't come, Andrew."

"Didn't come? But—"

"I know. I know what I told you. She didn't want to come, Andrew."

He didn't say anything.

Amanda said, "You remember Sean."

Sean offered his hand, met his eyes for a flicker of a second and said, "Andrew. How are you?"

Andrew looked down at the man's hand and then back up at his face. He thought back to the time Amanda cheated and when Andrew tracked down and beat the shit of this motherfucker.

And now the man wanted to shake his hand. He just smirked and Sean let his hand fall.

Amanda scowled and rolled her eyes. Andrew knew the look. Fucking vintage. In their years together he had often overlooked her beauty because her face was always plastered with an infuriating grimace that screamed bitch.

He wanted to slap her, wanted to say, I fucking loved you, I gave you everything and you cheated on me. All this is your fucking fault.

But in another sense, he actually felt an urge to shake Sean's hand, smile widely, and warn him that one day Amanda would come up with an excuse to cheat on him as well.

Andrew was the jealous type. When it happened all those years ago, all he could ever picture was the two of them fucking. Another man moving inside of Amanda, making her moan, making her orgasm. He couldn't take it. He felt his mother's hurt all those years when his father was unfaithful. To Andrew, making love was the closest thing to a religious experience he had ever had. To abuse that, to betray the one you love and share it with someone else, it fucking stung.

And right up there with the jealousy, he was fucking pissed. When they were together, Amanda had constantly given him shit because he always wanted sex. She liked to forget that he only wanted it so bad because suddenly when the kid popped out and they got married she stopped giving it up. He practically had to beg for it. And then she's the one who goes and cheats.

It all came back every time he saw her.

Andrew asked her, "Why didn't Chloe want to see me?"

"Andrew."

"Simple question, Amanda."

"She was tired."

"Chloe was tired? Or did you decide for her that she was tired?"

"Well, she has school in the morning, and she's doing band, did you know that, she—"

"How the hell am I supposed to know what she does when you don't even let me see her?"

"You're the one who hardly ever calls, hardly ever writes. She doesn't even know who you are—"

"Oh she knows. She knows everything you tell her. And that's enough to make her never want to see my face."

"I don't deserve that. You backed out on your child."

"I backed out?" He slipped off the stool and stood up. "I backed out! The fuck—!" He had to calm himself. He had gotten the attention of waiters and waitresses, a bartender. He pointed a finger in Amanda's face, lowered his voice. "You! And him!"

"Hey." Sean stepped forward with his hand out.

Andrew got up in his face. "Step, motherfucker. Step. Please. I want you to do it."

Sean put his hands up and actually backed up. The guy was a pussy.

"Andrew, please," Amanda said.

Andrew thought back to when they were together, God, the good times they once had. She had been the love of his life. How did they get here?

"I wanted to see my daughter," Andrew said.

"Andrew."

"Don't."

"What?"

"Say my name."

"I want us to be civil."

"Civil."

"We're adults here."

"Mmm."

"Let's all get a table, talk."

"I'm all talked out." Andrew walked away to leave.

"Andrew."

Sean finally spoke up, "Dude, hey. We don't want to start anything."

"Eight years too late for that."

Amanda did that bitch of a scoff thing again.

"I want to see my daughter," Andrew said again. He felt tears behind his eyes. Jesus. "I want to see Chloe."

"I'll have her call you."

"She was supposed to be here. You brought him."

"Sean is part of my life now. I want us all to be civil."

"There's that word again."

"I want you to grow up."

"Me?"

"I want us to grow up. All of us. Get past everything and just try to be…amicable."

"Amicable." Andrew started to make his way to the door.

"Andrew, please. We drove over two hours for this."

"Not my problem."

"Andrew—"

"Fuck you both."

He left. They didn't even come after him, though he could picture Amanda asking Sean what he was going to do about this; she was worthless that way.

Andrew guessed they stayed there for dinner because an hour after he got back to his apartment, his phone started ringing. The second he heard Amanda's voice he hung up.

She kept calling and eventually he picked up the phone and slammed it over and over into its cradle until he busted the frame and pieces of it came apart. He tossed the whole damn thing off the table and ripped the cord out of the wall.

He went to the liquor cabinet in the kitchen, got out a glass and poured himself some Jameson. He hesitated before pouring another. He didn't feel like drinking alone tonight. Drinking with others was a party. Drinking alone was alcoholism.

He cursed himself for breaking the phone. He wanted to call up his buds, see if any wanted to go have a taste with him.

He decided to leave anyway. Chances are one of them would be somewhere. Or maybe he'd meet a nice girl, someone who'd remind him what love should be like. At least for a night. They all turn into bitches eventually, even the nice ones.

He went back downtown to a cop bar called Pop's, a decent joint where a guy could have a good smoke, a good drink, and good company. A lot of Andrew's friends were police. That had even been his plan back in the day. He never saw himself becoming a private dick, had always seen himself as a street cop, walking a beat and knocking heads together. He came out of Hardin County originally, downstate, had applied for the county sheriff's department there and also the state police. Both times he was denied based on a psych evaluation, some shit about repressed hostility. That was about the time Amanda got pregnant and he dropped out of community college. He ended up working security for some years after that, even after his divorce. And just when he was growing weary of the rent-a-cop routine, he met Eliza Lehman and trained under her, got himself an investigator ticket.

He chased a shot with some beer and stared at the reflections of bar patrons in the mirror. Cops, informants, criminals, all of the above. He scanned the dive for women, spotted a few potentials he wouldn't mind talking to when he got some drink in him.

He looked back at the pay phone, considered giving one of his friends a call if he got lonely and desperate enough. But just being around people felt good. He had a couple more shots and another beer.

Then Kathleen walked in. She turned heads as always. Andrew's too. She was easily the finest thing in the establishment. He had forgotten she liked this place. Kathleen was a reporter for the Grove Gazette, and the place was a gold mine for sources.

He nodded to her and she smiled at the friendly face. She took the seat next to him. He got a lot of jealous looks from the male patrons who knew no other love than the bottle.

Kathleen ordered up the same as him, shot and a beer. He liked a woman who could drink, who didn't bitch around with fruity shit. He had met her on a case awhile back when he gave her a quote for a story. They had fun for a few weeks after that.

She was hot as hell despite condescending eyes and a mouth that was always ready to bitch. But her bedroom skills more than made up for it.

Andrew knew women. He had been with dozens and he could tell the types.

He knew never to go for the sensual ones, whose sultry demeanor and teasing glances promised paradise but whose performance in the bedroom was often dispassionate and lackluster. He knew instead to go after the shy ones, the repressed ones, the ones so unsuspecting but the most adventurous and eager, who fucked you unconscious and slapped you awake for more. And the bitchy ones too, like Kathleen here—the ball-busters and I don't need a man ones—they were the horniest of all. You break down their walls and they'll break you in half.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey."

A half-hour later they were back at his place undressing in a buzzed frenzy. They moved into the bedroom kissing. His bedroom was sparse, just a dresser, a closet, and a bed. And the bed was no more than a covered mattress on the floor with some pillows and a comforter.

Kathleen grabbed his crotch and let up a bit on the kissing. "Gotta make a call, hold on," she breathed.

"Will do." He sat on the bed unbuttoning the rest of his shirt, untying his shoes.

"What happened to your phone?" he heard her call from the other room.

"Long story."

"No problem. I have a cellular."

He overheard her talking: "Hey baby, I'm gonna be late. Yeah. No. Just working this deadline. All right. Bye."

Andrew stood up, started re-buttoning his shirt. Kathleen sauntered back in, kicking off her shoes. She put her hands all over his chest and leaned in for a kiss. "Where was I?"

He put a finger to her lips before they could reach his, stopped her, shook his head.

"What?" She frowned.

"We're not doing this." He walked away and picked up her clothes from the floor as she just stood there.

He held out her clothes and pushed them to her when she didn't respond. She looked more confused than angry. Andrew knew she wasn't used to hearing no. Especially pertaining to sex.

"What's the problem?" she asked.

"You have a boyfriend," he said.

"Yes." Like it meant nothing to her.

"You guys have one of those open relationships or something?"

"No, but it's…it's not like he has to know."

Andrew shook his head. Unbe-fucking-lievable. "I don't get with women who're involved."

"You're not serious."

"Yeah, actually, I am."

She stared at him awhile as if she could change his mind, then forcefully grabbed her clothes and shoes, said "Fine," and stormed out half-naked.

Andrew grabbed a beer from the fridge, went back to the living room, sat on his futon, and fired up a blunt from a box he kept under the coffee table. He watched a late-night show and then an infomercial for a soul music collection.

He was horny as fuck so he jerked off to quell the itch but only ended up feeling worse after, even more alone.

"I'm tired," he said out loud. Not to anyone. The universe maybe.

He was tired of the unfaithful—those who'd as soon cheat as tie their shoes. He was tired of the excuses, tired of seeing his drunk cheating bastard of a father's face in every busted spouse. Tired of boy-crazy girls hounding after other dick, of men going after wild pussy when they had a good girl right at home. Tired of people who didn't care and went after someone else's girl or guy. Tired of tools.

He wondered what it was all about. Are we all attracted to the bad boy, the bad girl? Are we all so bored that nothing is sacred anymore, no relationship of any value to be worthy of monogamy? Are we unable to sacrifice the thrill of forbidden sex for the greater good of lasting love?

Andrew had had girls like Kathleen proposition him before. He saw the kind of guy he had become to women. The embodiment of the guys he hated. The guy a girl has as her wild last fuck before settling down with a nice guy, a guy who knows how to love her right but can't give it to her in the bedroom damn near as well.

He fell asleep on the futon with the TV on, woke up to a morning show hours later.

He had a nice scalding shower and cooked up some ham and eggs. He made a call to Kathleen's place, knowing she'd be gone. He got her boyfriend like he wanted and told him what had happened.

"As a guy, I'd want to know," Andrew told him. "Drop her like a fucking rock."

He hung up and got ready for work.

At the office, Eliza saw him coming in late and going straight for the coffee maker.

"Long night?" she asked.

He didn't say anything. He made his coffee and sat down at his desk, stared out the window, the spring sunlight harsh that day. But birds chirped. Flowers had sprung. Green was coming back in style.

"Sorry I'm late," he eventually said.

"How did the, uh, thing with Amanda go last night?"

He waved it off. That told her everything.

"We got a call," she said.

When Andrew again didn't speak, she told him, "Sam Loomis."

He scrunched his face like, who?

"You know, the doctor. Michael Myers guy."

"Oh right. Was there another murder?"

"No. But he's convinced he's dying. Heart condition. He says the Alison Brown case out of Iowa we worked a few months back was the closest he's seen in awhile to a tangible Myers connection. He asked if we could give one more look into it before he dies."

"Before he dies? Is that what he said?"

"That's what the doctor said."

"And?"

"I told him yes. I mean, it's probably busywork, a case this cold. But it's a paycheck."

"True."

"Figure we'd spend a few days like we did last time, going over what we know. Old stuff. Then maybe another trip to Iowa."

"I'm always up for a road trip with you, boss."

The phone rang. Andrew's extension. He told Eliza, "Answer it for me."

"What?"

"Please. Answer it."

Eliza made a face, answered it anyway. "Lehman-Daly Investigations, this is Eliza Lehman."

A woman: "Is Andrew Daly there?"

"May I ask who's calling?"

"Kathleen Morrow."

"Yes, hold on."

"Kathleen Morrow," Eliza told him, her palm over the receiver.

Andrew shook his head and made a slicing motion across his throat.

Eliza frowned, spoke into the receiver, "I'm sorry, he's not here. Can I take a message?"

"I know he's there," Kathleen said. "He's being an asshole."

Eliza covered up the receiver again, told Andrew what she said.

He frowned and nodded to her, I got this. She put the phone down as he took up the line on his desk, putting it on speaker. He slumped back in his chair.

"What," he said.

"Andrew?"

"Yes."

"You called him? And you told him? I don't fucking believe you!"

"He deserved to know."

"Fuck you. Why did you have to do this to me? He just called and broke up with me! Are you fucking happy? You did this!"

"You did this to yourself."

"It wasn't your business. He was good to me. I was in love with him!"

Andrew's laugh was bitter and hearty. "All you fucking women are the same. Fuck you, bitch. Maybe next time you'll think different."

"Fuck you, you self-righteous bastard, I'll fucking—"

He hung up on her. She tried calling back several times before she gave up.

"Trouble?" Eliza said.

Andrew gave her a look.

Later that day as Eliza got out the old files of the Alison Brown case, Andrew's ex-wife called. This time Eliza said he was on the road working a case for a few days and she'd have him give her a call.

"You know, I'm not your fucking secretary," Eliza told him.

Andrew stared at her. He nodded, the apology in his eyes.

"I should have married you, boss," he said.

She stared back at him.

He said, "You've been my longest relationship. Definitely the healthiest. And you're my best friend."

She smiled.

"I'm serious," he said. "You're the fucking love of my life, boss. No other woman for me."

"Yeah, I bet. You're just saying that because you haven't had sex with me yet."

"Hey, who's talking about—wait…yet?"

"What?"

"You said 'haven't had sex with me yet'. That means you were planning on having sex with me one day."

"Oh fuck you, Andrew." She went back to work, covering up a smile and also her suddenly flushed cheeks.

They spent the rest of the day wrapping up paperwork on old jobs and planning courses of action for the current ones. The Alison Brown file remained untouched. Eliza figured they'd get to it tomorrow.

She stopped by the sports club after she left, did a couple courses of fire on the range, one with her favorite, a compact .38 snub-nose revolver, and then one with a heavy Smith & Wesson Colt Commander .45. She stopped by monthly to self-qualify, shot a 100 every time. She was no gun nut, but her OCD eye was born to shoot right on target, so it had become somewhat of a hobby. It came naturally with very little training beyond the mechanics. It was on her to-do list to one day take some actual training courses beyond mere target shooting, and defensive tactics too. In all the years in her line of work, she had never had cause to draw a weapon or fight, but she knew the chances were higher than most jobs. And she was a woman living alone on top of that.

She took Andrew to the range one month and watched as he shot off a respectable yet wide spattering of rounds at center mass. She put up a clean sheet and told him to watch, taking out an entire mag of fifteen. When she ran her target back down the belt, there was only one hole, dead center. Andrew laughed until Eliza showed him how big that hole was. His eyes grew large realizing she had fired each round at the same spot so exact it looked like only one shot.

The men at the club called her Annie Oakley. And while they respected her skill, they also knew she wasn't one for conversation, so they typically ignored her, like today. She used the club for the range. She wasn't one for making friends and even if she was, they weren't exactly her crowd.

It was a nice day so she went on a long jog when she got home, followed it up back at her apartment with some stretches, a few sets of crunches, and some dumbbell reps. She took a long hot shower and when she got out checked her body in the mirror, not with the admiration of a narcissist but the pride of a perfectionist.

She kept in incredible shape. It had nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with keeping a fit body that appealed to her OCD sensibilities. She had the limber legs and arms of a girl in her twenties and a hard flat stomach. It was not about fat and flab being unattractive, but rather that she viewed the human body as something that was meant to be tight, taut, rigidly symmetrical. Symmetry was right up there with cleanliness, orderliness, godliness.

It was by this same design that Eliza picked out her outfits or did her hair. It had nothing to do with beauty and everything to do with looking neat and put together. She didn't even believe in wearing oversized mismatched clothes around the house when she was cleaning or lazing around. Everything had to match, always. Even now as she dressed after her shower, she settled for nothing less than a matching shirt and pants pajama set, her hair tightly wrapped in a towel.

For dinner she made a healthy salad with romaine lettuce, grilled organic chicken breast, unsalted almonds, and no dressing. She ate in front of the television and watched the news.

Afterward she cleaned. Dusting and scrubbing and mopping and vacuuming. She had a system and did the same thing every night. Her apartment was never dirty, never the slightest bit disorganized, had looked absolutely the same ever since she moved in. She never decorated and never rearranged lest a new book be added to a bookshelf, a complex system based on size, hardcover versus paperback, genre, and authors in alphabetical and copyright order. Every book looked bookstore new, not one spine creased and all of them perfectly lined up next to one another in a neat row.

One whole wall was dedicated to criminology and law texts. Journals and periodicals and state code books, along with her issues of P.I. Magazine that kept her up on the latest in detection techniques, gadgetry, surveillance, and the burgeoning world of computers and the Internet.

Her apartment was so utilitarian it was practically post-modern.

The walls were white and plain, naked of any flare, and the furniture was all varying shades of beige, placed at perfect angles in relation to one another. It was the picture of geometric order, stiff and cool in its calculation with that easily forgettable nature of the nondescript.

It was a one-bedroom apartment. Small. Efficient. It was all she needed and all she had time to clean. She never entertained guests because she never had visitors. Not even Andrew.

But the place suited her lifestyle. Like her father before her, she had always been all work and no play. He also was anal attentive and developed an ulcer. He eventually worked himself into an early grave, passing when Eliza was only a teenager. But she thought that was noble. She had a lot of respect for her father. Eliza's mother never understood him. She saw his work ethic as familial neglect, constantly whining when he couldn't make it home for dinner or take her out for a nice evening. In the same way, Eliza's older sister did nothing but complain about him not making her sporting meets or piano recitals. Eliza had her things too but never once did she care. Dad was out making money to pay for those piano lessons and to put that food on the dinner table. While she never spent enough time with her father to ever actually get close with him, they understood each other in ways that escaped everyone else in the family. Her father once told her, because he knew she would appreciate it, that a man was meant to work until he was dead. He never understood things like retirement or personal days. Eliza modeled her life after his. Her relationship with her mother and sister was always strained because they could see she was cut from the same cloth as the old man. When he died it got even worse. Eliza left for college and never spoke to them again. She concentrated on creating the life she believed her father would have wanted for himself, a life spent living alone and going to work. All those years ago when he got her mother pregnant with Eliza's older sister, he had gotten himself trapped, forced to marry and be a family man, a life he never wanted but that he worked hard to support.

Eliza got her tubes tied as soon as she was able. She hated kids and never planned to marry.

She liked her independence. The idea of waiting up on a man to come home, of answering to one no less, appalled her. And it wasn't from any feminist notion but simply because she enjoyed her freedom. She liked coming home to an empty apartment and doing her own thing. She didn't like change; she had an everyday routine and was comfortable in the same old groove. It made for a remarkably self-sufficient and quiet life, a good life for an obsessive compulsive.

And in her eyes it was a respectable life. She knew society disagreed. People had a tendency to define her less by what she was than by what she was not. She was not married. She was not in any relationship. She did not have kids. She did not own a house. Her academic and career accomplishments counted as little to the outside world. Instead it only brought to mind words like lesbian and feminist or even frigid.

But Eliza had no interest in women, no real passion for feminist ideology, and she did in fact enjoy men on the occasion, even if that was mostly in her past. She was forty-five years old now and hadn't had sex in years. And back then she had never sought actual relationships, only the occasional man with whom to share some physical recreation. In high school she had noticed the downfall of silly girls who got themselves into trouble mixing sex with love. Eliza was lucky enough to notice the pattern as a virgin and keep a clear level head about both. And that knowledge had done her well in her sporadic dalliances with men. As long as her suitor was hygienic, clean-cut, and realized it was sex just for sport, he would do just fine. And though she never made it mandatory, it was always nice when the man respected her wish to do it in the shower. Sex was messy and she hated the way it made her feel afterward, just lying there in bed, especially with a clingy guy who wanted to keep feeling all over her.

In recent years she had conditioned her body to desire sex less and less. These days when the craving came along, she had a perfectly good albeit rarely used vibrator that could get the job done faster and better than any man.

She got to thinking about that vibrator tonight as she was taking her second shower of the night, post-cleaning. She felt an embarrassing tremor of excitement because she was also thinking about Andrew. She hated herself in the rare moments when Andrew, who aggravated her in everything he did and every way he looked, somehow managed to turn her on.

She tried not to think about him.

She put lotion all over her drying skin, blow-dried her hair and combed it meticulously, then threw her cleaning pajamas into the hamper and slipped into a fresh set.

She relaxed on the couch with a cup of herbal tea her doctor claimed was good for ulcers, and read from the latest issue of P.I. Magazine. She made a note of upcoming seminars and conferences.

The water she had on to boil in the tea kettle Eliza poured over the thistles on her toothbrush. She brushed her teeth for exactly two minutes, then flossed vigorously and swirled around some mouthwash. She poured more boiling water over the toothbrush and cleaned the sink. Finally she retired to the bedroom. She set her alarm clock, re-checking the time and the volume at least ten times. Then she climbed into bed and made sure she was situated in the center, propped up on two pillows.

She closed her eyes.

But then she thought about Andrew again and looked over at the top dresser drawer where she knew her vibrator was buried beneath a pile of crisply folded undershirts. If she gave in she knew that would only make the desire stronger. She knew how to tame her body, knew that contrary to modern ideas about repression, it was being strong and not giving into urges that got them out of your system, that made the cravings fewer and farer between as time went on. Giving in was toxic, the stuff of addictions and bad habits. And she had enough to deal with as an obsessive compulsive. The disorder made her a damn fine investigator, but it made her home life exhausting. Thus she made life about work the most she could.

So she closed her eyes again and thought about what needed to be done at the office tomorrow.

She was feeling better already.

She slept.

She jumped into work first thing next morning at the office. She could do that quicker these days. When they first moved here, the burden of boxes and loose files lying about had kept her from concentrating. But now, with new filing cabinets, with everything neat and in its proper place, she could breathe easy in her consistently tidy workspace.

Andrew sat quietly at his desk, sipping coffee and looking over the Alison Brown file. Eliza sat at her desk looking through a box of old files related to the first Riggsboro murders, everything the police and Dr. Loomis had to offer.

It was at the bottom of the box where Eliza found the pack of old photographs. Melissa Collins-Phelan was in each one. She remembered now: David Collins had given them to her and Andrew last year. She had looked at them then and dismissed them as irrelevant. But with the other files exhausted, she flipped through them just to say she was thorough.

At first she did it with a rather absent mind. But then the thrill of potential revelation crept under her skin. She felt beneath her composed exterior a burst of joy and pride. She loved this job. She was damn good at it.

She glanced up and looked over at Andrew. She stared at him, kept staring until he noticed, looked up from his file, jerked his head questioningly.

With her hand she gave a small gesture to come over.

He walked across the room and hunched over the pictures she had in two separate piles on her desk. She looked at him, tapped one pile, tapped the other.

He picked up the piles, looked closely at the photos. He recalled them vaguely from a few months back.

He wanted to impress Eliza and quickly notice whatever she had just seen. But he was much more quickly distracted by Melissa Phelan. She was a tall great-figured brunette, with wispy bangs that went well with a tease of a smile you could also see in her eyes. What you noticed first was her cuteness. That was the word. She had an open friendly face, her eyes warm and inviting, smile soft and modest. She was a girl you look at and suddenly you need to hug, squeeze so tight she sighs longingly in your ear and it's too much for you to handle before you have to kiss her, have to have her, corrupt that unbearable cuteness and sweetness with wild vigorous sex—

Jesus, he thought. Thinking this over a seventeen-year-old girl. A kid.

But women had always been Andrew's frailty. He loved the legs, the tits, the ass, sure, but there was something to be said about every part of a woman. Her eyes, the small of her back, the hollow of her throat, hair tossed just so over her face or shoulders, even something as simple as her hands, her fingers, the arch of her bare feet. So many parts to kiss, to taste, to own—if just for a night.

He would often find himself staring at a beautiful woman. On the street, in a bar, on television. He'd fantasize what her neck would taste like, what her breasts would feel like in his hands, the way she'd look at him as he entered her, mouth open ever so slightly in a sharp gasp, a gasp that would turn into a moan as he moved deeper inside of her and worked his hips, learned the moves she liked, the kisses, the tongue work—each woman was unique—all that would drive her to an incredible orgasm.

He had to physically will himself out of his sexual trance to concentrate. He hurt his head going over the dates written on the back of the pictures and then staring at the details in each one. He couldn't get anything. He looked at Eliza finally with a frown, shook his head.

She grabbed the pictures back and turned them over, pointed to the dates in the one pile and the dates in the other.

He shrugged but looked again, looked carefully. In one pile all the dates were late '78, early '79. In the other pile was everything earlier than that.

It was the same tall thin lovely young girl in all the pictures. The only difference he could stretch somewhat was the clothes. In the earlier pile she wore clothes that, while conservative and tasteful, were form-fitting and flattering. In the later pile, she favored some looser apparel, billowy and relaxed. But it looked good on her, made her look free and happy, a bit more of a rosy blush to her cheeks, a glow in fact, a glow to her entire—

His eyes widened and he threw the pictures down in two rows across Eliza's desk, comparing them side by side.

It couldn't be.

It was subtle but he could see it. In the one pile of photos, Melissa was incredibly skinny. And in the others, while still slender, she had begun to fill out ever so slightly, a bump hidden behind the slack of pregnancy clothes.

Andrew looked at Eliza. She smiled and made like she was pregnant, tapping her belly.

Andrew leaned forward and opened one of the files. He pointed from the latest date in the set of later pictures—1/12/79—to the date listed on Melissa's death certificate: 11/01/1980.

He looked at her. She looked at him. They were both thinking the same thing:

Melissa had delivered the baby some time before her death.

Andrew stood back up. His eyes were squinted as he thought about it. He looked back at Eliza and held out his hands like what the hell. She knew what he was asking: where's the baby?

She smiled furtively before he dug into another file and pulled out the information they had on David Collins III's current family: his wife Ilene, his daughter Chelsea.

He pointed at Chelsea's name. Eliza shook her head. She tapped Chelsea's D.O.B., 10/16/1982. Too late.

He frowned. But Eliza still had the smile when he looked at her. He furrowed his brow when she suddenly got up and crossed the room to his desk.

Andrew saw what she was going for and could hardly breathe as she brought the file back over to her desk, opened it up, let it fall.

She tapped a finger right over the D.O.B. on the paperwork inside: 04/05/1979. Then she pointed a finger to the school photograph clipped into the file right behind the cover, the teenaged baby girl that filled in the fifteen-year gap between the two Riggsboro cases, Melissa and Dylan Phelan's daughter:

Alison Brown.

TWELVE

Charlee and Noah made love every day. Often it was several times a day, in all different fashions.

Their sexual appetites were insatiable. And it wasn't the carnal wantonness of two hormone-driven teenagers, or even the crazed lust of the recently wed. To them sex was the physical manifestation of their love.

They could only have sex because they were in love. It was its main thrill, the knowledge that they had found each other and had the audacity to be happy in a world that had left them lonely and longing for so long.

Sometimes they'd cry together after, beholden to the awesome power of this love, love that translated into their sex life with pleasure so good it was blinding, orgasms as explosive as shooting stars, as sustaining as their love itself.

Their sex was as crazy as their love, and as Charlee liked to say, "Crazy love is perfect love when it's mutual."

And they were love in its purest form, its most raw and wild, most untamed and true, "the hot bubbling nucleus of the love atom incarnate," Charlee said. To them, making love was clawing each other's flesh open, eating like cannibals their restless hearts.

Anytime they could, they did. In the back of cars, in each other's houses when the parents weren't home, or even when the parents were home—sometimes they would sneak over to each other's places at night and make hushed love in the basement, see how quiet they could be and how long they could get away with cuddling together afterward.

In one particularly close call, they had shower sex late one night at the McCool household when Charlee's mother suddenly strolled into the bathroom to look for something. Two curtains shielded them from certain death. But in a moment of can't-stop passionate insanity, they continued, their suppressed moans turned into heavy sighs muffled by a heavier shower spray. Noah nailed Charlee to the tiled wall and they came together with such intensity and such tenderness it took everything in them to keep silent, their faces twisted in sweetly vulnerable expressions of love. They held each other like that even afterward, as streams and beads of water ran over their connected bodies and Charlee's mother finally left. When they were sure she was long gone, all they could think to do was laugh, laugh quietly but laugh long.

When the weather got warmer, they moved out of the Collins Mall and found a secluded place to themselves on a high stretch of floodwall that overlooked the Lost River. They'd make love there on a hill that gave them a sweeping view of town. Made love at sunset with the sky painted shades of pink, made love at night to the stars, made love to a harvest moon and its reflection that shimmered across the surface of the river.

One warm spring day, they lay there naked and sweaty in each other's arms after a botched attempt at a shared orgasm. Noah laughed while Charlee tried to hide her embarrassed face.

"This always only happens to me," she said. "I'm always the one who comes too early. All the time."

"Not all the time. I've had my fair share."

"Not compared to me. It's like I'm the guy in this relationship!"

Noah laughed some more. "Oh I love you, baby."

"Clearly I love you too much. You're just that good. Come on. You're still hard. Keep going, maybe I can make it round two."

But Charlee was too drained for the moment, and Noah came to a gasping finish after about thirty more seconds. They stayed connected for a while just staring at each other, then finally separated as Noah grew soft. They lay on their backs with their naked sides touching, smiling and gazing at an open blue sky, only a few wispy clouds to be seen, golden in the soft sun.

"We're just so…small," Charlee said. "Us against the world."

"Works for me," Noah said. "If it's us, we can conquer the world, all of it."

Charlee looked back at him and smiled. She was the kind of beautiful that reaches its warm hand inside your chest to take hold of your heart and give you life, fill your lungs and give you breath.

When he and Charlee were helplessly and desperately entwined in the throes of their lovemaking, he often experienced near-blackout sensations, overcome with this seemingly lethal combination of beauty and love. It was the stuff of music and poetry, the stuff that drove mad all the romantics of old.

"Look at us," she said. "Lying on a hillside basking in our love. We are horrifically cliché. Not to mention dreadfully saccharin."

"I know," Noah said, "but I love it. I love the way you're underneath my skin, like a sweet cancer."

"I like that. I'll have to write that one down. Can I use it?"

Noah got real serious. "I love smelling you on my bed sheets after you've left. I love smelling you on my fingers when I rub my hand on my face. I love your short breaths and your moans that play like a song I can't get out of my head."

Charlee stared at him with wide-eyed tenderness. "That's gold. I have to write it down. I don't have a notepad. Please don't forget it…please." She felt like crying. "God, I love you so much. The things you say, I didn't know guys actually said the things you do. They just don't. Even girls don't. It's sad when you look at so many relationships today. Couples have hurt each other so much that they go into each relationship with walls up from the beginning. They use each other, manipulate each other, can't trust one another. They just tolerate each other, and they call that real love, they call it maturity. And when they've put up with it for years, they call that marriage. You believe that? Anything they used to feel in the beginning they call childish or na?ve. They look at us with these patronizing smiles and turn their backs and roll their eyes." She shook her head.

"Sad," Noah said. "You're right."

Charlee said, "Look," as her eyes caught something in the sky. She stretched out her arm.

Noah saw it too. High up in the sky was a plane, no bigger than a speck. It left behind a thin white line.

Charlee said, "Promise you'll take me away from here someday?"

"On a plane just like that. The two of us."

"I've never actually been on a plane."

"Me either." Noah kept losing focus on the things around him—the sky, the river, the countryside—and kept staring back at her. As Charlee noticed this, she met his gaze, smiled softly, and leaned in for a kiss.

He loved that, loved the way her face looked when she closed her eyes after looking into his and moved in shyly yet eagerly for a kiss. There was something subtly erotic about it, perhaps something deep-seated given dreams he'd had all his life in which he'd finally get up the nerve to talk to his crush but when he leaned in to kiss her she'd back away in repulsion.

"I can't believe you're here," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"Here, you, with me, this." He took her left hand in his. They interlaced fingers, matching Claddagh wedding rings gleaming in the sunlight.

"I still can't believe no other bitches out there tried to snag you," Charlee said. "I mean, you must've had girls like you."

"No."

"Come on."

"Really. I was always the goody-good, the Bible thumper, do the right thing and get good grades, stay in instead of go out. Every girl's parents wanted me to date their daughter, but I wasn't the kind of excitement those girls were looking for. Not with the way I dress, the things I like, the way I am."

"You're a mature taste. Too good for them. Too good for me too. But they missed out. I'm just glad I got you first and only. If only they knew how good in bed you are. And how much you love eating pussy."

"I prefer to call it going down on, or perhaps oral sex."

"The dirty and freakish things you do to me in bed, and here you are blushing over semantics. God, the things you do with your tongue down there? I come so hard I see God."

Noah smiled. "Dirty and freakish is all you, baby. Where do you think I learned it from?"

"I'm the more fiendish sexual deviant of us maybe, but baby, you…I'll tell you what it is. Everyone else looks at you and sees Mr. Rogers. They can't picture you with that sweater off, picking me up and slamming me against walls like you do, giving it to me good. Plus, I know Mr. Rogers got nasty with Mrs. Rogers. She has stories to tell. You never see her on the show because she's too busy recovering in the bedroom, came so much she done blacked out, couldn't walk if she tried. That's why it's a wonderful day in the neighborhood. Won't you be my neighbor? Yeah. That's for real Mr. Rogers right there."

Noah laughed a long time. "You're scarring my childhood."

"I love scarring childhoods."

"Well, I had my sweaters, but you…surely boys had to like you."

She shook her head. "No guy ever saw me like that. Not with how I dress, the things I like…the way I am." She chuckled. "I was never too scared to tell a guy if I liked him—well, a little bit with you—but I can't tell you how many times I got that same answer, you know, I just see you as—"

"A friend," Noah finished. "Yeah, I know that one. That's what I was good for. Some girl would invite me over to study, share all her secrets with me and all the problems she was having with her jerk boyfriend. Like I was one of her girlfriends. One minute she'd swear up and down they were done, the next minute they're getting back together. One day he's a no-good, cheating, lying S.O.B., the next day he's really a great guy who's just made some mistakes and she loves him again." He shook his head, smiled.

"It's a pitiful sight," Charlee said, "the way all these fucking girls out there get their panties flattered off by worthless pieces of shit. Like they get this drug put into them that keeps them crawling back. I hate to say this as a feminist but I see that shit all the time, girls who will never admit it but who like to be treated like shit, or who like to be controlled. And any guy who comes along who shows them the least bit of consideration or kindness, it's so alien to them they see it as weakness or a lack of confidence. You know, he's too nice or he's too whipped. And then guys, they'll all go after certain types, either these easy slut-bag whores or these silly little girls who don't have one thought of their own in their pretty little heads, only those he puts there. That's how come when he starts acting up or acting a fool, she's there justifying it all, giving him chance after chance. Most likely he was either the one who popped her cherry or was the first one to give it to her really good. And he counts on that to cloud her mind. Guys will take a girl like that over one who might challenge him a bit, someone smart and strong, a girl not fazed by empty charm or displays of testosterone…a girl who's maybe a little different than the rest of them…"

"I'm glad nothing happened with you until me," Noah said. "I'm glad nothing happened with me until you. I'm glad we're our firsts. Firsts and only."

They smiled and kissed heatedly some more. They gave each other matching hickeys and Charlee grunted. "God, yes, mark me," she said. "Oh God, the things you do to me. Man, all those years before you…it hurt like hell. Just feeling totally alone. Like no one would ever understand."

"Yeah. Me too. I knew to trust in God, I knew He understood, but it was like there was this…piece of me…out there somewhere."

Charlee cupped his cheek with her palm. "It was all worth it just to be here with you now. My husband. God—we're married. I could die now and it would be okay."

"Me too. I love you, I just, I love you…desperately."

"I like that," Charlee said. "I love you desperately. That's exactly how it feels."

Then came the spring floods.

Waterways and reservoirs, lakes and ponds, all the meandering streams that shot off the behemoth Lost River, overflowed from the torrents of April showers and the last of the melted snow. Even the levees against the Lost River itself threatened to give way.

It happened every year, the old waters teasing the town as if by an ancient leviathan, reminding the people how easily it could reap destruction upon their hapless and helpless little valley town, how easily it could give life to the waters, overrun the hills and the floodwalls and swallow everyone alive.

It rained late into the night on the last day of April, the eve of Charlee's seventeenth birthday. She turned over in bed restlessly, listening to the steady pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof.

It was a school night. She knew she had to get to sleep. For some reason she couldn't.

She watched the digits on her clock turn to 12:00. May 1st.

She sat up. If she wasn't tired now, she could at least get some stuff done. She had that old work itch. To write. To draw.

She slipped out of bed and tip-toed downstairs. The house was silent, interrupted only by the muted roar of the outside rain.

She felt through the familiar corridors and doorways in the near pitch darkness. Past the whirring clock in the living room and the humming refrigerator in the kitchen. Down the carpeted steps to the basement.

There was a lounge area there, an entertainment center with a sectional and a loveseat.

This here had been Charlee's lair for years. Her middle of the night escape.

She had many memories here. Moments in the wee small hours with her music, her books, some shows or movies she might tape that her parents didn't like her watching. Then maybe a round or two of masturbation and some real time on her sketches or her writing.

A part of her soul had been down here, had stayed here until she gave it to Noah with the rest of her. The first time they made love down here was like the consummation of all the hopes and desires and secrets of her heart these walls alone had knowledge of.

Tonight she sprawled out under some dim lighting on the couch, holding a cushioned writing pad Alison had given her for her birthday last year. She opened her large notebook, a mess of frayed pages and stuffed-in sketches and outlines for her graphic novel project.

She spent time revising some prose and dialogue, then reviewed some crude storyboards for key scenes and expositional shots throughout the narrative:

A gothic city skyline. (Bop City—she came up with the name for the fictional town when Noah with his love for jazz gave her a crash course in its history, its eras such as bebop, hard bop, soft bop. Jazz itself provided a nice backdrop for the tone of her novel.)

The protagonist Alicia Banks. Tall. Black. Beautiful. Looking tough in a tattered black leather jacket, some tight jeans, commando boots.

Alicia's love interest, the handsome half-black half-Mexican Martin De Porres Renaldo Jones.

Alicia and Martin in a smoky jazz bar.

Gunfire in a dark alley—drug crews beefing.

Martin hit with a stray fatal bullet. Dying in Alicia's arms.

Alicia donning a black outfit and becoming the Ghost Orchid. Fighting dirty and street with some thugs on a corner.

And Alison Brown, an inquisitive white reporter with curly blonde hair, working the police beat. (She discovers Ghost Orchid's true identity and becomes Alicia's confidante and only friend; as Charlee planned to make her graphic novel the start of a long-running comic series, Alison Brown would become a staple).

It was as Charlee was sketching the likeness of her deceased best friend that she suddenly heard banging on the back door.

She turned and gazed into the thick pockets of basement darkness behind her. Squinted at the door on the opposite wall.

The screen door outside was beating the frame in a gust of wind.

That was all.

It soon went away, and even when it started up again Charlee didn't bother looking up from her work.

She only looked up when she heard the squeaking of hinges on the inside door. As it opened she heard the hammering of the wind and rain grow louder.

She looked up.

The inside door seemed to be swinging open slowly all on its own. Rainwater mist fought its way through the screen on the still-pounding outside door.

Charlee hopped over the back of the couch and scurried over there. Her socks grew damp on the wet floor. She shut the screen door firmly and did the same to the inside door.

Then she locked it. Her parents never did but Charlee did that night. She had a certain dread she couldn't well explain.

She went back to work and kept at it until her eyelids grew heavy. Eventually the pencil slipped out of her hand and her body went limp and supine across the couch.

She went to sleep.

Something woke her up a couple hours later.

The wind.

She could hear it especially clear because the inside door was once again open. Wide open.

Its hinges creaked.

She got up slowly and took the long way around the couch this time, approaching the door with that same sense of dread that made her lock it earlier.

It was unlocked now.

The screen door outside was fully closed, but the latch on the inside door was clearly in the unlocked position. The wind, it couldn't, couldn't have…

Again moving slowly she grasped the handle of the screen door and pushed it open, peering out for a clear view of the backyard. She gave it all a quick look.

It had stopped raining.

Large oak trees were mere outlines in the darkness, the branches swaying gently in a soft wind that carried with it the damp memory of rain. The tool shed sat undisturbed beside a long hedge that acted as the border against the neighbor's yard.

Nothing unusual.

She ducked back in, closed and locked both doors. In the sudden silence she could hear each tick of the second hand moving on the clock. It was hanging on a lit portion of wall. It was 3:23.

She walked back over to the couch, began to pack it in for the night.

But as she was doing so she noticed the piece of paper.

A blank page torn from her notebook sat atop a handful of loose sheets. It was all blank except for the one word messily written in large capital letters across the lined sheet, scrawled in black crayon as if by a child:

BELTANE

She looked back up and quickly gave the basement a sweeping glance, took in what she could see of it in the soft lighting.

Who the hell…

She shook it off. She wasn't doing anything about it tonight. She was tired now. She collected herself and darted back upstairs to her room.

It was cloudy that Saturday.

Charlee and Noah had lunch at a drive-in on the outskirts of town called Teddy's Snack Bar. They ate outside on a picnic table that overlooked the sprawling valley town. Looking one way you could see a sweeping patchwork quilt of countryside—the only compelling reason, Charlee assumed, why some decide to stay in Iowa until they die. Looking the other way you could see the network of neighborhoods that made up the small town, from the grid of downtown to the winding streets of the suburbs and the nestled pit of the Valley. Beyond that, on the town's outer edge, the distant Collins Development building loomed massive against the acres and acres of ground to which it lay claim.

They had made the long trek on foot, part of it across the floodwall and part of it up those steep streets on the far side of town that ended on a lone stretch of country road that if followed long enough weaved out into the county, toward Malcolm and Grinnell.

Charlee used to make this walk herself. When she was single she often went on long brooding walks, the beauty of the countryside almost tortuous, not unlike the way masturbation can be tortuous, that an experience shared is everything and an experience alone is just, well, loneliness.

At the snack bar, she and Noah shared a large Coke and chomped away hungrily at their orders of crispy Iowa skinnies, cole slaw, and fries.

"So," Charlee said, talking with her mouth full, big bites that still amazed Noah—where did it all go? "I've been doing some research this week about Beltane. The word was left for me on Wednesday. Wednesday was May first."

"Your birthday."

"Yes. But it's also the traditional day of the festival of Beltane."

"Ah."

"See, you're not the only nerd in this relationship. I don't know if I can outdo your Day of the Dead spiel from that day we went to see Alison, but I'm gonna try."

"That was before we were together and I was trying to impress you."

She smiled. "You never had to impress me. I was always yours. But I digress. Look, I got this book from the library yesterday." From a drawstring bag she carried, Charlee took out a substantial hardcover volume.

Noah took another mouthful of his pork sandwich and leaned over as she opened up to a bookmarked page.

"Let me read you some of it," she said. "Okay…

"'Beltane, a.k.a. Bealtaine, in Irish mythology, refers to an ancient festival observed by the Celtic people to celebrate the beginning of summer. Historically, it takes place from sunset on April thirtieth to sunset on May first.

"'According to Celtic legend, the celebration was observed especially by the Tuatha de Danann, the 'People of the Goddess Danu', the tribes who first invaded Ireland. Danu was their mythical mother goddess, and she has been associated with war, nature, and fertility, not to mention remarkable sexual prowess.'"

"I see the connection to you now," Noah said, looking at a picture in the book that even in black and white showed Danu to be an utterly beautiful goddess, with long flowing hair and an ample bosom. She floated before a majestic forest, beaming in splendor.

Charlee gave him a furtive smile, then continued: "'During Beltane, great bonfires were lit and prayers were offered to usher in the season for a bountiful harvest. Pagan rituals were performed by druid priests in both reverence and fear to the spirits of the Otherworld.' Here, look, look…" She showed Noah another picture in which a group of tribespeople danced in a circle around a large bonfire.

"'The Milesians," Charlee read, "who conquered the Tuatha de Danann, paid special tribute on Beltane to the Otherworld spirits called the Aos Si, the 'People of the Mounds'. The Aos Si were a supernatural race of faeries—'"

"Wait, fairies?" Noah said.

"Faeries," Charlee said, "yeah. Like fae, fae folk, faeries spelled f-a-e-r-i-e-s." A full illustrated page depicted a cluster of winged faeries, some beautiful, others ugly. "But listen…

"'The Aos Si were a supernatural race of faeries," she repeated, "made up of the Tuatha de Danann people that, when conquered by the Milesians, retreated underground to live in the Sidhe, the hills or mounds across the vast Celtic land.'

"See," Charlee explained, "they're spirits. They live in the Otherworld. And, oh, where is it…?" She traced down the page a bit. "Here it is, listen…

"'The Otherworld, in addition to being associated with the afterlife, has also been referred to as a parallel universe, or invisible world, in which the dead walk alongside the living. During Beltane, the barriers are down between the natural and the supernatural, the worldly and the otherworldly. Thus the spirits of the Aos Si come out. For instance, there is the Banshee, the 'Woman of the Mounds,' a spirit whose cry foretells an inevitable death. There is also the Siabhra, lesser spirits, those with an affinity for mischief. But it is the Slaugh Sidhe…'" Charlee paused for a moment, not for effect but for something else, fear maybe. Her voice dropped a bit.

"'But it is the Slaugh Sidhe," she re-read, "the 'Fairy Host,' that is considered the most evil. It is made up of restless spirits rejected by the Otherworld, by both heaven and hell, even the earth itself. These cursed spirits take their form like a flock of birds in the night sky, flying together in one dark shape. The Slaugh Sidhe roams the earth as one entity, moving amongst the living, searching out innocent souls and leaving a trail of merciless destruction in its path…'"

"Hmm," Noah said.

"There's more. Sometimes they would kidnap a human child and replace him with a fairy child."

"Like a changeling."

"Yeah, that's what they called it. Make them do their evil bidding. In fact they could command any man in their path to do what they wanted. What it wanted. Use them and leave them for dead." She turned a page. "Creepy, right?" A macabre illustration in the book portrayed the Slaugh Sidhe as a sinister shape riding the night air like an undulating cloud of heavy black smoke, a monster much too familiar to the one from her nightmare, the one who swallowed Noah.

"I mean," she said, "why did I get this? Who…?"

Noah looked at her.

"This has something to do with Alison," Charlee said.

"Alison?"

"I feel it, babe, I just feel it, it's something…dark…"

"But, but baby, you don't think that some…evil fairy spirit or whatever…that something like that had anything to do with what happened to Alison? I mean…what I mean is, this is just someone's idea of a joke."

"No," Charlee said. "You know any meatheads at our school or anyone else in this town for that matter who would know what Beltane is? I mean, you're the fucking smartest person I know and you didn't even know what it was. Nah, this is too smart. It's some…one else."

"Hey," Noah said.

"I mean, look around," Charlee said, waving at the surrounding landscape. "All the hills. That's Riggsboro, a town of hills. The only one in Iowa. And now I get this Beltane shit which relates to these people of the mounds, these hills in Ireland—where that nightmare I had a few months back took place. I mean, coincidence? I just, I mean it's, I know it's all fake mythical bullshit, I do, but still, it's all too…"

"Hey," Noah said. "It's beautiful up here. You're beautiful. Let's not be morbid today."

"Hey, you married me, remember?" Charlee flashed him her wedding band. "You know what you signed up for."

Noah smiled, flashed her his. "I remember."

"But you're right," she said with a relaxed smile. "This is ridiculous. It's all very interesting though. Fascinating."

Noah said, "It reminds me of something my mother used to tell me when I was young about el cucuy."

"El coochie?" Charlee said.

"Yeah. He's basically the Mexican bogeyman."

"The bogeyman?"

"Even worse. He's big and hairy, hides under the bed or in the closet. And eats children. Eats you if you don't go to sleep or you don't do your chores or you don't eat your vegetables."

"Can he eat my little brother?"

Noah smiled. "My mother used to scare the nonsense out of me when I was younger. Portate bien o te lleva el cucuy! Behave or he'll get you. Horrible nightmares."

Charlee laughed. Noah was glad to hear it.

They finished their meal and sat atop the picnic table staring out at the town, Noah's arm around Charlee, her head on his shoulder.

"Let's stay up here 'til it's night," she said. "I love the way the whole town looks when it's dark and the lights come on. Makes it seem not so bad."

"Let's do it," Noah said. "Actually, let's get some more exercise, make the walk to the floodwall on the other side of town. See that new development they're planning over there."

And so they did. They walked a country road and some stretches of floodwall, followed some abandoned railroad tracks across a bridge over the Lost River, and strolled the rolling hills of town as around them the sun got lower and dusk crept in. A kaleidoscope of muted hues painted the expanse of sky, melting into the horizon.

Across town they finally reached several unnamed freshly paved streets in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

It felt like an odd ghost town, no houses up yet or even any indication of construction. A large billboard before the new neighborhood depicted a homey all-American street lined with oak trees and Victorian homes. It read:

HARVEST RUN

Coming Fall 1998

Brought to you by Collins Development

& the Citizens of Riggsboro

They moved on, trekking back up the floodwall to a shortcut back into town.

Advancing cumulus clouds—the kind that promised more spring floods—turned gray with the darkening sky. A flock of crows squawked out of tall trees and into the purple twilight. Lights slowly peppered the hillsides and the valley from houses and streetlamps.

"Wow," Noah said at one point. "Hold up a second."

They stopped and he stood in front of Charlee on the floodwall, turning her at an angle just so.

As Charlee stood there, she smiled at him, wondering what he was up to. He shook his head, overwhelmed by it all. Before the blackening sky and the gothic countryside, his wife looked ethereal, a dark angel. He lost himself in her and the moment and felt a powerful spirit dance inside of him, wailing hopelessly and abysmally at the prison gates of this natural life.

Unable to comprehend the beauty of a girl so fine, he yearned for the other side of eternity, for the realm where there were words enough or something better than words that could explain this love, this moment, this feeling of having this girl so totally his, and if he, if he could just…

"God," he breathed.

She gave him a confused smile.

"I need to kiss you right now," he said.

He had to hold the spirit at bay somehow. He rushed up to her before she could even get a word in, taking her face in his hands and her lips in his and absorbing her.

Charlee moaned into his mouth and returned the embrace.

Her heart swelling with the romance of the scenery, of Celtic myth, of her crazy love for Noah, she had them pause in their walk a few minutes later to make short sweet love on a secluded hillside under the canopy of a weeping willow, reveling in that freedom of lovers to drop anything at a given moment and indulge in passionate sex, a release that went far beyond mere animal primal instinct and spoke to the thrill of engaging in true lovemaking, to finally love someone like this after years of terrible loneliness and sexual repression. It was a feeling of complete contentment—souls conjoined, shared immortality, heaven in their grasp.

In those moments, their spirits could conquer that other side of eternity.

When they finished, they leaned into each other against the encroaching cold of night and floated back into town, smiling as lovers do, blind to the world and the coming darkness.

"You didn't call," was the first thing Mother said.

"Sorry." Charlee was barely in the door.

"I tried calling Noah's parents."

Charlee thought, Of course you did.

"They said you two went out," Mother said.

"We like to go on walks."

"Well, it's late. We had to start dinner."

"Sorry, Mom."

At the dinner table, her little brother got restless in his seat and yelled, "Charlee's in trouble! Charlee's in trouble!"

Mother shot him a look. "Sit still and be quiet, Kevin."

Charlee joined them at the table. She said her own grace and then ate her fish sticks, carrots, and mashed potatoes in silence.

"What are you smiling about?" Mother asked.

Had she been smiling? Charlee hadn't even realized. She looked up at Mother and felt for the first time her silly slap-happy grin. These days she caught herself smiling often. It wasn't the first time Mother had asked her this, hadn't been the first time she noticed a smile or a certain spring in her daughter's step.

"Noah just makes me really happy."

Mother was not amused. In fact, she frowned.

Charlee could read her thoughts, could see the wheels turning behind that humorless porcelain face: Her daughter had only ever been miserable. And now these past few months, sudden glee. A guy making her that happy could mean only one thing.

As she cut her food, Charlee could feel Mother's glare on her hand, her fingers, the wedding band on her left ring finger.

Mother said, "You know you're wearing that ring like you're married."

Charlee looked at the Claddagh ring as if for the first time. "Oh, am I?"

Mother looked at Charlee and to Charlee it seemed like she was seeing the whole picture, their secret wedding and sex life and everything.

"Well," Mother finally said, her eyes remaining on Charlee's. "I just hope you two are being good."

Charlee tried to combat the accusatory glare with a look of seemingly genuine confusion. "We are," she said slowly.

Her father cut in. "You and Noah getting pretty serious, huh?"

"Yeah," she said, smiling again. "I love him."

Her father looked across the table, exchanged frowning glances with his wife. Charlee had used the 'L' word in regards to Noah around them before. And each time they shared a condescending look.

It was fine. They wouldn't take her smile. Not anymore.

"Love," Mother said, as if testing the word out, scoffing at it. "That is serious."

And once again Charlee found herself on the business end of Mother's glare, could still read her thoughts in the fierceness of her eyes: Love to young people means nothing but sex.

"Noah's a good boy," her father said. Charlee knew he too could read his wife's thoughts. "A good Catholic. His whole family is."

Mother was still unmoved. Her look told Charlee that she didn't care how good and Catholic Noah was—he was still a boy, and boys had thoughts.

Charlee just looked back at her father, grateful for the defense. He was typically aligned with Mother, as she had long ago locked away his balls, but in some rare acts of passive aggressiveness, he played the good cop. Of her parents, he was slower to discipline and more apt to understanding. But he was wrapped around his wife's fingers and kept the peace in their marriage by doing what she said.

In fact, right now Mother moved her stare to him as if to say he better not be disagreeing with her.

It had only been in her recent months with Noah that Charlee felt she had really come to understand her parents for the first time. She saw clearly now the pathos of their existence, the dreams left behind for that too-often baby boomer fate of suburban ennui.

Mother—she was a beautiful, beautiful woman, who in her mid-forties looked no older than thirty simply because she never cracked a smile beyond that haughty commercial one she saved for public occasions. She was angry constantly, her contempt masked by that fa?ade of tact and grace only a wife and mother can manage. Charlee wasn't sure the reason for Mother's rage, but she knew now that it had bubbled under the surface of her life long before Charlee was ever born.

And her father—God, such sadness. His smile was always weary, as if dulled over the years from the pain of living with such a domineering wife. But with that smile he got by, muddling through an obviously sexless marriage and taking happiness in the scraps of his life that didn't bust his balls—sports programs, his work friends, a drink or four every night to take the edge off. For years he had tried to hide his drinking and only now could Charlee see the closet alcoholic he had become.

She had once caught the tail-end of an argument between her parents when Mother—in odd form, raising her voice and using unbefitting language—proclaimed, "Do you ever think that maybe I don't put out because of all your drinking?"

Her husband, as was typical, did not respond. But Charlee wished she had the courage to barge in and scream what she knew to be the more likely truth: "No, Mother, he drinks because you don't put out!"

After dinner she and Kevin were excused from the table to do their chores. Charlee did the dishes while Kevin took out the garbage.

When she went upstairs afterward to do some homework, maybe get a little graphic novel work done before bed, she felt for the first time truly sorry for her parents.

They would never change. They would remain unhappy people, long-suffering in their pride to uphold a Catholic front. To them Catholicism was religion and ritual and tradition, words to live by but never fully embrace. It was about self-righteousness and high ground, not a means to the true joy and spiritual renewal that comes from a relationship with Christ.

Charlee had to smile again. Clearly she had been listening to Noah too much.

But she also frowned for just a moment, feeling guilty at her own happiness, happiness that perhaps her parents had never known, would certainly never know again.

Her alarm went off at 3:00 that morning.

She awoke with a start and assumed it was time to get up. But when she reached over to turn off the incessant beeping, she saw the time and frowned.

She remembered when this had happened before, months back. This time she got up, sleepy, her vision blurred and made worse by the darkness. She blinked several times, trying to make out some outlines. She stumbled to her doorway and found the light switch. It didn't work.

She heard once that you knew you were in a dream if the light switches didn't work. Then again she also heard that you couldn't read clocks in dreams either. She had read hers just fine.

She sat on the edge of her bed. She watched the clock change to 3:01. Something about the hour, something about three in the morning…

It was after three on Wednesday morning when she woke up to discover the Beltane note.

She stood up on her bed and reached under the glass cover of her light fixture. She felt around some dust for the bulb. Found it.

It was loose. Like it had been tampered with.

It obviously didn't unscrew itself. The same way her alarm clock didn't just randomly go off in the middle of the night, like that other time months back…

…also after three in the morning…

Before she tried turning the bulb she saw it.

Outside her window.

A shape.

Atop the bed she had a decent vantage point looking out on the tree-lined street below. And there he was, a faceless shadowy figure standing across the street beside the neighbor's lantern, obscured under a large oak tree.

Her eyes grew wide and then her bed collapsed out from underneath her.

She fell, stifling a scream, the mattress cushioning her fall before she rolled to the floor.

Catching her breath, she saw that half of the metal framing holding up the bed had busted apart. It now leaned at an angle.

Before she went to look closer, she got up and bolted to the window.

The shape was gone.

Of course.

A quick sweep of the street brought the same null result.

She sighed, turned back around, realized her heart was pounding.

She walked back to her tilted bed and squatted down to assess the damage. She had no light to see what she was doing, so with another sigh she grabbed the chair at her desk and stood atop it to keep working on the bulb.

With one easy turn it lit up again, hot and bright in her hand.

And then she heard the footsteps. Slow heavy footfalls—coming up the stairs.

No one would be downstairs this time of night. Everyone was up here. In bed. Asleep.

She remained frozen atop her desk chair, thinking, the man from outside, Alison's killer, in the house, here for her now—

The footsteps reached the landing and grew louder, tracing methodically down the upstairs hall, toward her room—

By the time she leapt off the chair toward the door to turn the lock it was too late. The doorknob was turned and there was the shape—

Her father.

She stifled another scream and sighed in relief.

He came shuffling in with his flannel pajamas and worn slippers, squinting against the light.

"Charlee? I heard a thud. You okay?"

She smelled whiskey on his breath, thought, that's what he was doing downstairs.

"Oh Dad, it's…I…" She searched for the words, for what part of the whole mess she wanted to tell him. "I'm fine. I was sleeping and suddenly the bed just…fell. I was trying to fix it."

"Well, let me have a look at it."

She yawned in the first dull moment since her surprise wake-up call, watching her father negotiate the bedframe back together.

"Here, hold that other end for me a minute, will you?" he said.

She held the opposite end and helped her father slide the connecting rods back into place. He tightened a fastener and shook the bed to make sure it held sturdy.

"Looks good now," he said. "But it's weird. No amount of jumping or shaking on the bed should put the frame that much out of place. It's almost like someone adjusted it."

"Yeah…weird."

Deputy Earl Ramsey stayed missing.

Loomis's guilt was hardly assuaged when the police found nothing in the tunnels underneath the Myers house. No sign of Ramsey, no sign of anyone living down there. No evidence of any activity, the police said, besides the scent of something recently burned. They guessed it was kids playing with matches underneath the other houses on the street, maybe even squatters working with some kindling.

But then there were those bottles of acid they found. Loomis knew better.

In his office, he looked at a thin newspaper article from weeks back he had tacked to his wall among the years worth of other clippings. Missing Deputy's Car Found. In early spring Ramsey's car had been discovered abandoned in some Haddonfield woods, riverside past a vacant lot behind the Lost River Drive-In. There was no evidence of foul play.

Again Loomis knew better.

You fucking did it, Michael. You killed Ramsey and destroyed whatever lair you had. You knew that one cop meant more would be coming so you covered your tracks. Burned and buried any trace of you down there.

You'll wait out the heat for now. And one day when it's safe again you'll rebuild. The winter months are over anyway. For now, Michael, you're back on the prowl.

Loomis had called up Lehman and Daly, sent them another check to take back up the Riggsboro case. It was the freshest trace of Michael he had and Loomis didn't know how much time he had left. He felt weaker each day. Chest pains came on stronger and lasted longer. Marion took him to a doctor recently who ran some tests and diagnosed him with something they called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The doctor said it was odd because HCM was more common in athletes and usually asymptomatic. But because of Loomis's advanced age they said he would be more susceptible to pain. The chest aches were stress-related—angina, the doc said it was. But he added that the pain was a blessing, as they were able to recognize the disease before anything worse happened. Now they could put his name on a heart transplant list. In the meantime he took beta-blockers.

Loomis truly didn't care if this did get to him as long as he could get to Michael first.

The true blessing, he knew, was that Lehman and Daly had found a connection this time around, the closest since those two sisters who had been victims, Katelyn Gregory and Isabelle Harris.

It turned out the first victims since Michael's disappearance from Haddonfield in 1978, Dylan and Melissa Phelan, had had a child, a child who was missing from the police report. Lehman told him she suspected it was the work of Melissa's father, the influential developer David Collins III. Loomis remembered talking to the man in his own investigation fifteen years back. He was a handsome devil of a chap, that scary kind of good-looking that grants you privileges in life, gives you power to buy anything and room to have secrets you can hide easy.

"Alison Brown," Loomis had said, his eyes growing large as he sat at his desk, receiver to his ear. "She was the Phelan's child."

Eliza told him, "Her age matches up with Melissa's expected delivery date, based on the dates of the photographs we studied. We have to look into it to be sure."

It was big. But Loomis also now feared that Michael's work was done in Riggsboro, that he had left without a trace and any leads into this new connection would dead end like all the rest.

"Keep looking," he told her. "And find him."

He slammed the phone down, leaned back in his seat, rubbed his goatee, and crossed his arms. He gazed at his desk for a few long moments before he glanced upward, back at the article about Deputy Ramsey, his car found by the Lost River Drive-In…

He turned his head toward the large U.S. map he had on another wall, push-pins peppered across the Midwest region. Sightings of Michael.

He stared at it a long time before frowning and getting up for a closer look. His eye caught the long blue line that ran from Illinois to Iowa. He traced it with his finger. In Illinois it ran through Haddonfield, Russellville, and Smith's Grove. It traveled further west into Iowa—right into Riggsboro.

The Lost River.

THIRTEEN

They shot out of Smith's Grove early in the morning for the long drive. Daybreak met them on the road in brilliant beams of sunlight.

Around noonday the familiar countryside welcomed Eliza and Andrew as they hopped off the highway some miles outside of Riggsboro. Eliza drove past acres upon acres of corn fields freshly seeded for the season.

Andrew said, "We should have at least called Alison's parents, just to get the confirmation that she was in fact adopted."

"I don't want them asking too many questions yet," Eliza said, "wondering what we're looking into, especially if it was a closed adoption."

"Well, it would have to be," Andrew said. "If they knew it was the Phelan's kid, they would have known why Alison was killed."

"Right," Eliza said, "And the Browns are listed as the parents on her birth certificate. If Alison was indeed adopted, it was in secret. And who do we know that could have birth certificates faked?"

"David Collins."

"And if the Browns are keeping Collins's secret, going through them won't work. Plus, they're grieving enough. No, to do this right we're going to have to backdoor it."

"I want to find proof just to see the look on that smug bastard's face."

"Well, if things work out, hopefully we won't see him at all."

Andrew was shaking his head. "You believe his giving us the run-around about letting his seventeen-year-old daughter get married, move into a starter home with her beau? Dylan knocked Melissa up and Collins gave them a house just to make it look legitimate. Can't let a teen mother daughter sully his public image. Then after the murders he washes his hands of the baby completely."

"Maybe he did the kid a favor," Eliza said. "She didn't have to grow up with the stigma of being the kid whose parents were butchered."

Andrew shrugged.

"Either way," Eliza said, "we're not going to find proof the old-fashioned way, going through the adoption registry."

"Shit, the only legal documents that passed hands in that deal were dead presidents. But if we can't go to Alison's parents and there's no adoption records, that leaves the police. And we already saw there's no mention of a baby in any police report. That's another dead fucking end right there."

"No, we stay clear of the chief's office this time. I don't want anyone to know we're here, least of all big-mouthed McDermott. He'll run off to the papers again, let everyone know the case is still active, he's still getting the job done with outside help. No, it'll probably come out eventually, but I want to stay hidden as long as we can, get what we're coming for before Collins gets wind."

"So what do we do?"

"We go back in time, visit the chief's office circa 1980."

"Huh?"

"Neil Gerety. He was police chief when Dylan and Melissa were murdered. He would know. And I think we can make him talk."

"And if we can't," Andrew said, "there has to be someone. Another cop, an EMT, someone who was there before Collins had a chance to cover it up. And people had to know—old neighbors, family friends at least—that Dylan and Melissa had a baby. If the baby really is Alison, then she was around for over a year before the parents were killed. Maybe there's some old timers around who would talk to us."

"But even if they knew there was a baby," Eliza said, "it ends there. Precious few would know what happened to that baby after the murders. And Collins is the kind of man who pays big to keep mouths shut, even those old timers to whom it's nothing other than small town gossip. He didn't want even a whisper that there ever was a baby."

In town, Andrew put his wedding band on and gave Eliza her fake rings. They pulled into the same motel they stayed in last time, even wound up in the same room.

They ordered take-out and Eliza changed the bedspread to one of her own. They dove into the files, reviewed them for a couple of hours so the details were fresh in their minds and their cards ready. Then they called the ex-police chief and hit the road again, going deeper into town.

Neil Gerety had long since retired. He had hit his twenty the same year Dylan and Melissa Phelan were killed and left the department soon after. He didn't live too far from Sleepy Hollow Drive.

He met them at the door and let them in with a grumble.

"Now I don't mean to be rude," he said, "but I'm hoping y'all will make this quick. The old lady is at her women's book club and this is the only time of the week this retired old man can get some damn time to himself."

He was a gruff man with a thick mustache and a perpetual frown and a large beer gut. He wore cowboy boots, a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, a bolo tie, and a faux leather vest over a flannel shirt. Eliza doubted this man had ever been horseback in his life. If she had to guess he was making nothing but a fashion statement, romanticizing old westerns and living off the nostalgia of an era he'd never seen.

He offered them beers which were declined, but took one for himself. He showed them to his den. Bear and deer heads were hung on the wall. A large bass was above the window behind his desk, right next to a picture of John Wayne. He also had two glass cabinets that showed off an impressive collection of rifles and shotguns.

He sat behind his desk as Eliza and Andrew sat on an old flannel couch with many pulls and tears in the fabric. Eliza made the mistake of touching the arm, then recoiled, dabbing some pocket hand sanitizer on her hands when Gerety wasn't looking. She kept her hands to her lap. Andrew looked at her and shook his head. She punched him in the arm.

Gerety took a pull from his beer and said, "I remember reading about you two in the paper last year when that girl was murdered. Terrible. Are you working with the department again? Usually I hear through the grapevine about these kinds of things."

Eliza said, "No. We're here on our own fruition this time."

He held out his hands. "How can I be of service to you?"

Eliza and Andrew looked at each other. Eliza nodded.

Andrew cut right in. "Mr. Gerety, one of the tasks in our investigation was to find a link between the murder of Alison Brown and the murders of Dylan and Melissa Phelan. The murders when you were police chief fifteen years ago."

Gerety nodded, his eyes going distant with the memory. "That's something I'll never forget. Hadn't even seen a dead body before that day, not a murdered one that is. I'd seen accidents, overdoses, but that? And the way they were murdered…there was nothing like it. Nothing prepares you for that."

They gave him a moment.

Eliza said, "This is why we're here: we know that Dylan and Melissa Phelan had a child, a baby who would've been a little over a year old at the time of the murders. We know that Melissa's father David Collins III covered up—with your help—any trace of the baby and got it secretly adopted. We're here to confirm that from you."

Neil Gerety gave no telling expression. After a long moment of silence he furrowed his eyebrows and gave them a confused look. "What are you two talking about?"

"Be careful," Eliza said.

Gerety glared in her direction and frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Mr. Gerety," she said, "You don't know how much we know and anything you might say to deny your involvement—"

Gerety's eyes flared, his lips taut and pursed when he interrupted. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't throw you two out of my house right now."

"Because we're not looking to incriminate you in anything," Eliza said. "We just want information."

He stared at them.

"If Collins paid you off," Andrew said, "and look, we're not suggesting corruption here or anything about you or your officers taking a little side action—"

"Damn right you aren't," Gerety said. "You'd be fixing to get yourself shot where you sit, throwing accusations like that around."

"Nevertheless," Andrew said, holding up a hand, "if you fear repercussions from Collins over this, rest assured, you were never involved. We were never here."

Gerety leaned back further and rubbed the mustache and stubble on his face, studied them. "You've talked to Collins before, haven't you?" he said.

"We have," Andrew said.

"Two minutes with him and you understand the kind of man he is."

Andrew nodded, ran an imaginary zipper over his lips.

Gerety leaned forward again and stared at them for a long moment. He took his beer and downed the rest in one swallow, crushed the can with his hands. Finally he spoke slowly: "What I'm about to say I will deny if you bring it public."

Eliza and Andrew waited.

Gerety said, "Abigail."

Eliza and Andrew looked at each other, leaned forward a bit.

"Their baby," Gerety said. "It was a girl. Her name was Abigail."

"You remember that exactly?" Andrew said. "Her birth name?"

He nodded. "Abigail Phelan, yes. Like I said, a tragedy like that, you never forget. Even small details."

Eliza said, "And David Collins asked you to cover it up."

Gerety gave that a terse nod. "He's not the kind of man you want on your bad side. Especially one who can put your career in jeopardy, your legacy. And his family created the department, provided generous donations over the decades."

"We understand," Eliza said. "But the baby girl. The baby is Alison Brown, isn't it?"

Gerety sighed. He took off his cowboy hat and rubbed his forehead, his receding hairline. "You've found out what you want to know," he said.

"We want proof," Eliza said.

"Proof?"

"Documentation. If anyone would have it, you would."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm betting you have concrete evidence of the whole thing," Eliza said. "You're a smart man. And you said yourself what kind of a man Collins is. You needed leverage against him in case he ever tried to get at you."

Gerety kept his eyes on her, a narrow burning gaze tempered only by a sudden weariness. He didn't move his head but his eyes turned and he gave the same look to Andrew.

"This is a dangerous game you two are playing," Gerety said. "Certain secrets are meant to stay buried. For the greater good. To preserve the image of this town. My town. I've been a faithful public servant here damn near my whole life. And now you two come in and ask me to compromise that loyalty?"

"We've talked to others from back then," Andrew said, playing their cards. "Not all documents were shredded. You're just our smoking gun. Even if you deny it we could very well still make this public. Smear your good name. We could be recording this right now. Even if it couldn't be verified, the mere accusation could cause quite a stir."

"You're bluffing."

Andrew pulled the Microcassette recorder out of his coat pocket and set it on the desk. The wheels were turning on the tape inside.

"You son of a bitch," Gerety said.

Andrew put the recorder back in his pocket. "We're coming to you out of respect so that none of that has to happen."

"Respect? You talk to me about respect? You two come into my home and ask for my help. Then you call me a liar, threaten me—"

"We want this to remain in confidence as well," Eliza said. "You help us and this stays under wraps. The department knows nothing about this. And Collins doesn't have to know. No one does. You give us proof, the only people that ever need to know about it are in this room right now."

"Mm-hmm, and what about your client?" Gerety asked. "You say you're here on your own fruition, but you're working for someone who cares enough to have you coerce me into giving this information up. How do I know they'll share our same discretion?"

Andrew and Eliza looked at each other.

"I want his name," Gerety said.

"Forget it," Eliza said.

"Then no."

"Mr. Gerety—"

"Give me his name and the proof is yours."

Eliza sighed. She toyed with the idea of giving Loomis up. But besides being unethical, his name would bring up Michael Myers's name, and that panic could spread around Riggsboro like wildfire.

So she spoke softly. "Our client's interest, we assure you, has nothing to do with you, Collins, or this town. He believes the murders are connected to similar ones in other states. He'll be quiet."

"We give you our word," Andrew said.

"Your word means shit to me," Gerety said.

"Perhaps," Andrew said. "But think about it. If this gets out, you'll have dirt on us. This recording? The tape is yours if you do this for us. You could discredit us if you want to."

"But," Eliza said, "we will not give up his name."

Silence.

Gerety stared at them.

Andrew offered his hand.

Gerety looked at it, looked at Eliza, looked back at Andrew. Finally: "Put your fucking hand down. I won't ever shake your hand. Come here."

He led them back up through the kitchen and to a cluttered living room. Eliza coughed on instinct just seeing the dust bunnies around the old furniture. She fidgeted with her hands.

Gerety meanwhile approached a painting on the wall. It depicted Stonehenge at night bathed under the light of a harvest moon. He opened the painting as one would a cabinet. Behind it was a safe. He twirled the dial some on the combination and opened it.

It was dark inside but Eliza could make out several files. Gerety sorted through the pile, opened one, and pulled it out. He looked briefly into another file, almost took it out, then decided against it. He left it and locked the safe back up, turned around with the file.

"What was that other file you were looking at?" Andrew asked.

"It was nothing," Gerety said. "I thought it may have been connected, but it was a separate matter."

Eliza held out her hand.

Gerety held up the file away from her grasp and gave her another look. "Don't fuck with me," he said. "Now you can make copies if you wish. I have a machine in my office. But this is the original and it's mine. You fuck me and this becomes public? I'll say they're fabrications. The originals will never be found. We clear?"

Eliza nodded.

Gerety sighed and handed her the file. He looked exhausted. He said, "I'm getting another beer."

Eliza opened the file and Andrew looked over.

Outside in the car, Eliza looked over the file of duplicated documents, the police reports and adoption papers that never had a chance to make it into the official records.

Andrew said, "We should tell her."

She looked at him. "We gave Gerety our word that we'd only be telling Loomis."

"How long before Collins sniffs us out?" Andrew said. "This may be our only chance for the truth before he starts damage control."

Eliza said, "Worse than the damage of telling her? She's just a kid."

He poked the file in her lap. "This may be why Alison Brown was killed. Charlee McCool was her best friend. She deserves to know."

Eliza just stared at him.

Andrew looked at his watch. "It's not too late in the afternoon. School's just about out."

Eliza sighed.

Andrew said, "We clear it with the parents first, okay?"

"And if the parents aren't home?"

"We tell her anyway."

Charlee McCool's mother met them at the door and stepped outside to talk business on the porch.

Andrew remembered her from their first interview with the McCool girl back in November. He looked her over. She had a tight body for a mother in her forties and a pristine beautiful face untouched by wrinkles. The only weariness he could find was in her eyes, but it was hidden well behind a very evident air of haughtiness.

One word came to mind: Bitch.

Of course then he got to thinking that all she needed was a good fuck, and that he was more than capable to take on that responsibility.

Eliza told Charlee's mother what they had learned. The woman's eyes grew large and her lips quivered. She swallowed. She walked slowly over to the edge of the porch and leaned against the rail, looked out into the sunny spring day.

When she turned back around, all composure had returned. She nodded.

They met with Charlee. Her mother did not join them. Like last time they sat at the kitchen table. Today the girl wore a plain white tee, a rainbow tie, and jeans that looked like they'd been through a shredder. Then there was her hair, cropped short like a boy with wild angles this way and that. Andrew fought off another fantasy as thoughts about this girl ran through his mind and through his pants. He had forgotten about those feelings from the last time they spoke with her.

He shook himself out of it as they opened up the conversation.

They told her that Melissa Phelan had given birth to a baby girl named Abigail some time before her death. They told her about the cover up. And they told her not to repeat this conversation to anyone.

Charlee was a smart girl. She said, "Alison was the baby, wasn't she?"

Then Eliza opened the file of copied documents and slid it across the table toward Charlee. Charlee looked down.

"No," Eliza said, "the baby girl was you."

Disbelief first.

A chuckle even.

But then Charlee saw her name all over the documents inside the file. She looked at two identical birth certificates, one with the name Abigail Phelan, the other with the name Charlee McCool. She looked up. The investigators' faces were grave.

Charlee said, "But…"

Eliza leaned closer across the table. She lowered her voice. "Ms. McCool, the last time we spoke there was something we didn't tell you. There's a possibility that the killer we're dealing with here, if indeed it was the same person that killed both Alison and the Phelans, well, it's possible he's connected to several murders across the Midwest in the last fifteen years. Murders mostly of women. At least we believe his targets are women. Any man that was killed was either someone that got in the way or had a connection to the target.

"We believe that Alison Brown was killed for the same reason Dylan Phelan was killed. Melissa was the real target but Dylan was her husband. And Alison Brown was your best friend. That's why she was killed. Because of her connection to you."

Charlee spoke as if through a tunnel, her blank gaze resting on the table. "So then, either I'm next or…Noah."

"Noah?" Eliza said.

"My husband." She said it soft, her eyes worried, searching.

Andrew cut in. "Your…husband?"

"Yeah," Charlee said. "Like Melissa, I guess, my real mother? Her husband was killed. Well, Noah is my husband." She showed them the Claddagh ring on her left hand. "I mean, it's not technically legal, our parents would never go for it, but…he's my husband. He's my life."

She looked Andrew square in the eyes and his heart nearly stopped. It was a look far beyond her years, beholden to a knowledge no seventeen-year-old girl could possibly have. This was no dreamy young girl wrapped up in a teenage romance; this was a level-headed married woman speaking with genuine concern and love for the person she cared for most in the world. A rush of emotions, hot and alive, bombarded Andrew like a freight train, his sick attraction for this girl suddenly multiplied with the knowledge of her worldly wisdom and the depths of her love. An insane jealousy burned in his heart for this Noah, clearly the luckiest bastard who ever lived—did he know just how lucky? He had to, yes, he did—the peace in Charlee's eyes spoke of a wonderful love, fully requited and satisfied beyond her wildest dreams. A sudden yet profound sexual frustration began to bubble in Andrew's loins, in his heart, the likes of which he hadn't felt since his early teenage years. When he had come of age he learned the art of picking up women and these days could get most any one he had his sights on. But he would never get this one. She was far too young and would never go for it anyway and even if she did he would never think of destroying what she and her boyfriend—her husband—had. And so she killed him right there, this young girl up on the pedestal where he placed her. He knew suddenly, deeply, madly, that the only way he would ever truly be happy is if he could make love to this girl. But she was forever unattainable. All this he could tell from just one look in her eyes. It was no projection—he could see it all. And he wanted to ask her: Where were you, my love, when I was young? When all the girls I ever had were silly fickle things, chasing fads and breaking hearts. But oh God, with you, with you it would have been different—I would have been different.

Andrew swallowed and rubbed his scruffy face, felt it burning up. He ran a hand through his mop of hair, tried to breathe easy.

Eliza thankfully did not notice. And Charlee looked away again, terror creeping into her eyes. "My dreams," she said.

"I'm sorry?" Eliza said.

Charlee looked at her. "I've been having these dreams. The man who killed Alison, in my dreams he goes after Noah. I knew it, I knew it." She looked at both Eliza and Andrew and spoke with terrible certainty: "He killed my best friend. Now he's going to kill my husband."

The phone rang in Sam Loomis's office early that evening. The sound had been exciting him lately. A sudden sharp pain struck his chest. "I've got it!" he called to Marion, wherever she was in the house. It hurt to yell.

"Okay!" he heard the nurse's distant voice call back.

"Dr. Loomis, this is Eliza Lehman," the investigator said when he answered.

Then she told him. She told him what she and her partner had discovered: the Phelans' baby was actually Charlee McCool.

And she was still alive.

Michael had killed her friend, Alison Brown, and now—

"My God," Loomis said. "Don't you see what Michael is doing there in Riggsboro? He killed the parents sixteen years ago, now he's going after the daughter! Listen to me, you must protect this girl!"

"Dr. Loomis," Lehman said, "with all due respect, we don't know anything beyond what we just told you. Anything else is…theories, possibilities."

"You don't believe me," Loomis said.

"It's not that."

"You don't believe that Michael Myers is still alive, that this is him. How could you not? I've told you—and you've read his file! You know what he did in Haddonfield! This is him! This is him, damn it!" He pounded the desk once with his fist and stopped to catch his breath, the chest pains flaring up.

Lehman spoke calmly. "Dr. Loomis, I'm just saying that we don't know anything for sure. If we were to drop Myers's name to the Riggsboro police, it's very likely we won't be taken seriously. Either that or the panic it could cause would be devastating. Especially if you turn out to be wrong."

"You don't know what you're dealing with here!" Loomis yelled. "A panic is justified. That town needs to get ready. I implore you to realize, Ms. Lehman, that this girl is in grave danger!"

"We told her to keep in contact with us if anything comes up," Lehman said. "She's shaken up as it is."

"Good! She should be!"

"If things get more serious, we'll contact the police and work from there."

Loomis's heart beat faster. With it came more pain. He said, "By then it will be too late! Don't you see how Michael works? Do you think Michael is a man?"

"What else would he be?"

Loomis spoke slowly and with a deep raspy chill: "Evil. Michael is above being merely a man. With a man you can negotiate. With a man you can reason. With a man you can beg for mercy. But Michael has no reason. The why does not matter, the how does not matter. All that matters is that he will stop at nothing until that child is dead!"

"But Dr. Loomis, why Riggsboro? Why any of the other towns across the Midwest these past fifteen years? Haddonfield made sense. It was Michael's hometown. He was returning for his younger sister. But beyond that? What's his purpose?"

He shook his head as if she could see him. "You don't understand. You are thinking with the mind of man, of which Michael is no longer. Think of it, think of Michael's world as a cornfield. Thousands upon thousands of stalks of corn, hundreds upon hundreds of rows of them. Michael watches them all, lurking behind the rows, watching as they grow. Some of them he decides to watch more closely than others. He chooses them for his reasons, reasons we may never fully understand. But he watches them, watches them until they're fresh and ripe, ready for plucking. And by then he's very hungry."

Lehman sighed in a way that told Loomis she just thought he was rambling. Had he been wrong about her? Was she just like all the rest of them?

He clutched his chest, the pain intensifying. He spoke softer: "Michael has been waiting. He is extremely patient. Sixteen years ago he murdered the Phelans and first laid eyes upon a baby girl. Picture him. Covered in blood. He just murdered—mutilated—that poor child's parents. And as he stood there looking down at that baby in her cradle, he planned his return. He was planting his seed. Over the years he watched her. Nurtured his crop. And now it is time for Michael to reap his harvest. And what a bountiful harvest it will be."

Lehman didn't say anything. Loomis could hear her breathing through the line. "Do you understand me, Detective?"

She sighed. "I understand your concern, Dr. Loomis."

"I respect you more than I've respected most people in this life, Ms. Lehman. But you are not taking me seriously. I fear that one day you will but by then it will be too late. Please…" He raised his voice: "I beg of you to protect this girl! He will kill the ones she loves. He's started to already. He will invade every part of her life. He'll get into her head, her soul! He will break her down until there is nothing left, until he owns her completely!"

"Okay, okay, Dr. Loomis, I understand."

"Do you? Do you really? No, you can't, can you? No one ever could. You…you never…" Pain consumed Loomis. His chest was on fire. His words barely came out and when they did it was more like panting. "You never saw his eyes…you never…" The fire found his arm and the hand holding his phone, crippling him. He gripped the receiver so he wouldn't drop it, his bones crying. He moaned.

"Dr. Loomis, are you okay?"

"I'm…fine," he managed to say, just barely. He could only whisper now. "I'm coming. I need to see Charlee. Michael is coming for her. I will find him first."

Eighteen years and I've finally got you, Michael. I'm on my way. This time I'll make sure you will be gone for good. I don't know how yet. Maybe it's not even possible. But you'll be seeing me soon.

The excitement spread the fire across his body. It was too much. He had to calm down. He reached for the orange prescription bottle on his desk, the beta blockers, the cap already off. It fumbled in his weakened hand and fell. It tipped over and off the desk, pills spilling out all over the floor.

"Dr. Loomis?" Lehman asked over the line.

Loomis was sweating. He loosened his collar with his free hand, a tiresome feat. "Tell this girl who I am. Tell her who is after her. Tell her I'm coming."

"Dr. Loomis?" Lehman repeated.

And Loomis realized that he couldn't speak. His words weren't coming out. She couldn't hear him anymore.

Finally his other hand grew too weak and he dropped the phone. He clutched his chest. His vision became blurry. He saw spots. He squirmed, the wheels on the chair clacking loudly against the wood floor.

He leaned to one side, crippled from the pain, and the chair tipped over. He fell to the floor with a crash, writhing.

The phone came with him. He faintly heard Lehman's voice from the receiver that dangled in the air from its cord. "Dr. Loomis? Are you there? Dr. Loomis?"

Marion came busting in. "Sam, what's all the noise, are you—" She gasped when she saw him on the floor. She came rushing over. "Oh my God, Sam, Sam…"

She checked his airway and pulse. Then she held one hand on his shaking body and ended the call with the other. She dialed 911. Loomis barely heard what she told them.

She hunched over him and wiped beads of sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Sam, just breathe. Breathe. I called an ambulance. Help is coming. You're going to be okay. You're going to be okay."

"I know," he said, though he knew she couldn't hear him. His mouth couldn't even move to form words.

"I know," he said again. I'll survive. I'm coming for you, Michael.

And then his heart stopped beating, his world went black, and Dr. Samuel Loomis, 76 years old, died on the floor of his office.

Neil Gerety sat silently on the old couch in his den long after the wife had gone to bed. He sipped from the first beer of his second six-pack of the day. Then he made the call he knew was inevitable since that afternoon. The call could certainly hurt him but it could also protect him from any potential fallout.

"Hello," a curt male voice said.

"Mr. Collins," he said. "Neil Gerety. We may have a problem."

FOURTEEN

"We did this to protect you," her father said.

Charlee's parents, her foster parents, stood in her room as she lay atop the covers on her bed staring blankly at the ceiling. They were trying to explain years of secrets and lies.

"You are our daughter," Mother said. "That has always been true. You're not someone else's. We loved you as we would a real daughter. Because you are our real daughter."

Charlee finally turned to look at them. She hadn't been crying, she just didn't feel like talking.

But she decided to humor them since it looked like they weren't going to shut up. Maybe it would get them out of her room faster. She wanted to go see Noah. She had told him what happened over the phone and said she'd come over later, that she needed to get out for awhile.

"But you're not my biological parents," Charlee said.

Mother took a breath. "No."

"I never knew about the Sleepy Hollow murders until a couple years ago," Charlee said. "Everyone else in town did. I always thought it was weird that I was never told. Now I know why."

"Charlee," Mother said.

"So I'm adopted. Just like Kevin?"

Mother looked at her husband and then nodded.

Charlee said, "You didn't think I could have handled knowing that part? That I was adopted?"

"It was decided upon when we got you," her father said, "that it would be better just to call you our own. To prevent you from wanting to look for your birth parents one day and…figuring out the truth."

"That wasn't your decision to make."

"It wasn't just ours," he said.

Mother shot her husband a glare.

"Whose else was it?" Charlee said.

Her father said, "It doesn't matter."

Mother cut in. "It was our decision. We were your new parents. We made certain decisions for your own good."

"Hmm."

Mother said, "Charlee, I…I can't physically have children. I never told you or Kevin. That's why your father and I adopted."

Charlee stared at her, saw a rare shred of humanity work its way across her face.

Eventually Charlee said, "The man who put this secret adoption together, David Collins III, my…real grandfather—that's who helped you decide not to tell me, right? How did he choose you two?"

Mother looked down. "We had been looking at the time to adopt, and well…" She sighed.

Charlee's father said, "Let me just tell her."

"Fine."

"David Collins agreed to pay all the adoption fees for us. Even give us a lot of extra support—money—to help raise you, to put you through college. And to ensure our silence as well. To both you and anyone else."

"Jesus," Charlee said.

"Charlee!" Mother said. "I know you're upset. But talk to God about your frustrations, don't say His name in vain. Now we did what we did. And now you know. I could have said no to those detectives, I could have shown them the door, and believe me that was what I wanted to do, but I thought maybe now you deserved to know. With all that was going on, with what happened to Alison, I thought maybe it was time. I didn't have the courage to tell you myself, but maybe I always knew a day like this would come, when somehow you would find out. So I let it happen."

"You're still our daughter," her father said. "You're still Irish even. Dylan and Melissa, your biological parents, they were both Irish. It was something we talked about with Mr. Collins, our desire to have a child we could share our heritage with."

"I don't even care," Charlee said.

"I know it may be hard to forgive us," he said. "And we'll give you all the time you need. We're here to talk."

Charlee looked down, gazing. "I'm all talked out, thanks." She saw Mother absently touching an off-white stain on the bed sheets. Any other day Charlee may have gotten nervous. It was a recent sex stain. She had been meaning to wash it.

"I want to go see Noah now," she said.

Mother looked up. Charlee knew she would normally have protested and said it was too late to go out. But today her parents were willing to give her space.

"And I already told him everything on the phone. So he knows. But don't worry, your secret is safe with us."

Mother nodded slowly. "Believe us, Charlee. You may not like us much right now, but we did all this for a reason."

"Okay."

Charlee left them in her room.

She drove over to Noah's and he was already waiting for her on the porch. They met halfway and embraced. Around them the evening was warm, breezy, pleasant.

They hopped in the car and rode to a street a few blocks over. They parked under the shadows of a grove of pine trees, a spot they knew from experience allowed for some privacy. They had an intense quickie, and as they came together they kissed deeply at the same time, moaning into each other's mouths.

Noah pulled her in as tight as he could and her body curled into his. The heat and humidity of a looming summer, combined with the closed windows, made the car feel like a sauna after their lovemaking, the windows completely steamed up. But red-faced and drenched in sweat, they held each other close.

"God," Charlee breathed. "You make everything better. When you fuck me it's…magic."

Noah kissed her and ran sweaty wisps of hair behind her ears. He was high off her, the heaven between her thighs, a warm paradise that transcended the flesh, joining his spirit and soul with hers.

It was fireworks and rainbows, the stuff of romance and high fantasy. They knew that, knew how artificially constructed their world was, how baseless it was in reality. But that didn't make their love any less real—in fact made it all the more real, all the more precious and sacred and divine.

There was something desperate to all their moments together, as if they knew on some conscious level that they were loving each other on borrowed time, that their love was a blessing too much like heaven to ever last on earth.

Life went on around them. And while they thrived in their fantasy world, they did so without sacrificing school and homework or family and chores, all the real-life obligations of the day-to-day.

They made sure their relationship stood on solid ground outside the bedroom. They even made compromises like any married couple. Charlee endured daily Bible devotions and missal readings and praying the rosary, not to mention Bible Study every Wednesday night at church. She even woke up at the ungodly hour of seven AM on her weekend to join Noah in time for the adult Sunday school class before mass. And the hours that she had to suffer through Mother Angelica Live on the Catholic channel—Charlee considered herself worthy of sainthood on that one alone.

Noah meanwhile put up with Charlee's violent movies and death metal and creative moodiness. He nodded and smiled at her endless explanations about the multiverse worlds in DC comics, the mythologies of Star Trek and Star Wars, and her theories about the Smoking Man on The X-Files. Then there were the hours he spent at the comic book store standing idly as she rooted through the stacks.

Their tastes and eccentricities complimented each other in a way matched only by the love they made—perfectly, a key in its lock to a door that's waited forever to be opened.

In the backseat of the car, Noah asked Charlee, "You want to talk about it?"

She shrugged.

"Do they even know who it is?" he asked. "Who killed Alison."

"They don't know. Only thing they said was he might be linked to a bunch of other murders over the last fifteen years. Someone who likes to kill young girls across the Midwest."

"Heavenly Father…"

After a moment, Charlee said, "She died because of me."

"What?"

"That's what they said. That Alison died because she was my best friend. If we never knew each other, then she would've been fine."

"They said that?"

"Not exactly that. But in so many words."

"Well, don't think like that."

"And it's you he wants next."

"Baby…"

"I just know it. My dreams, they've been getting worse. And this only confirms it."

"You're still having nightmares?"

"There's this monster…like a shadow…a flock of blackbirds or something. And I know it's him. It never ends well for you."

Noah just stared at her, running his hand through her hair.

She turned and started doing the same to him. She stared at him longingly, told him, "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

They stayed staring and smiling and touching each other's faces for a while.

"I wish you could have met Alison," she said. "She would have liked you."

"I wish I had."

"I really miss her."

"Yeah."

Silence.

Then Charlee said, "Let's drive."

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

She had Noah take the driver's seat. They rolled the windows down and the wind cooled the sweat off their contented bodies as a gray twilight hinted at night's imminent fall.

The wind drowned out the singing of crickets and cicadas hidden in the grass and bushes of the neighborhoods, the houses quiet and still, families settled in for the evening.

They drifted toward the outskirts, shooting up the ribbon of county highway that ran through the hill country up and out of the valley town. Wispy cirrus clouds were strewn across the darkening expanse of sky.

"Into the night," Charlee said. "Let's just ride into the night. You and me. Never look back."

Noah looked over at her and she at him. He reached out a hand and she clasped it in hers. Together they raised their conjoined fist and smiled.

Charlee leaned over and kissed Noah passionately as he tried to drive. For a split second she didn't care if the car toppled off the side of the road and they rolled to their deaths.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the sky window. "I love you so much," she told him. She stood up. Noah smiled and kept a steady hand on her ankle.

She rose out the top of the car and met the pounding wind in her face. She held out her arms, embracing the coming night and the sweeping panorama of countryside. She thought about Alison and she thought about Noah and she thought about what losing him would do to her.

She gave a long, defiant, exultant shout into the wind, so happy and so in love and suddenly so very scared.

They rode back some time later, the starless black sky a dark blanket over the town. There was only a sharp crescent moon that cut the clouds and the night like a knife.

Charlee dropped Noah off and they shared one of those desperate kisses that only teenagers seem capable of, when goodbye for a night tastes like goodbye forever.

Noah waved to Charlee as they parted ways. He headed up the stone pathway to his house and she walked back to the parked car.

"I'll see you at school tomorrow, baby," he said. "I have to check my alarm, make sure it doesn't go off early again like last night."

"What—" Charlee froze as she opened the car door.

"Yeah," he said, calling from the front door. "For some reason my clock radio went off at three in the morning last night. I don't know." He shrugged, said I love you, and was gone.

Charlee only had time to say I love you too, though he wouldn't have heard it. She remained standing there at her open car door a long time.

The next morning she found her school picture on the floor of her bedroom, the glass inside the large frame shattered.

The photograph had been sitting atop a shelf on her desk. In it, Charlee smiled her best fake smile and wore her most normal-seeming clothes, a simple white blouse with a black shrug, her Celtic cross necklace snug against her skin in the modest v-neck of her shirt. Even her short hair was done up in as feminine a hairstyle as Mother could manage. Because God forbid she not have a nice picture to give relatives and friends of the family.

Now the picture was on the floor and all she could think was how the hell did that happen. The window was not open so there could not have been any gust of wind. She touched the spot on the desk shelf where the photograph had been. If by chance it had fallen on its own it would simply have tumbled to the surface of the desk below.

But somehow it had defied the laws of physics, leaping instead of falling, and not onto the desk but onto the center of the floor, not very close to the desk at all.

And the floor itself, a rather plush tan rug, was hardly the kind of surface equipped to shatter the glass in the frame this bad. The glass lay in pieces all over the floor, and even the framing was snapped. More glass fell as she leaned down and turned it over, the photograph slipping completely from the frame.

There was a tinkling of glass shards as she picked up the loose picture. She stared at it.

There was a large slash across her face, carving her smile right open.

She told herself it was all coincidence. The photo had fallen and the corner of the frame hit the desk below. That's what caused the frame to snap and the glass to splinter. Because of the angle it hit the desk, it had gained enough momentum and rolled, right into a suicidal dive onto the floor, a lunge even. That would explain how it fell so far. And when the glass shattered it cut into her picture.

That was all.

She bent down to clean up the mess. It was mostly big shards she could get her hands on safely. Of course she'd take a vacuum to—

Pain shot up the heel of her hand. She looked at it and saw an elusive piece of glass that had impaled itself into her skin.

Wincing, she removed it from her flesh and the blood came running out. But before rushing for tissues, she watched the crimson flow, transfixed as the blood trickled down her forearm so wet and warm and rich…

Eliza and Andrew noticed the long black limousine with the tinted windows when they looked out their motel room window in the morning before grabbing a bite for breakfast.

"Collins?" Eliza wondered aloud to Andrew.

"Probably. You want to climb out the back window?"

Eliza gave a bored sigh. "Let's see what he wants."

"You think Gerety dimed us?"

Eliza nodded. "Covering his tracks with Collins."

The limo sat ominously in the parking lot, and only when they came out did the two big goons in suits and sunglasses step out, their faces blank.

Andrew snickered as the men approached them. "Man, check these secret service motherfuckers out."

"Mmm," Eliza said. "Professionals too. The one guy, look at his gait, ex-military. The other guy, that tension in his shoulders, he's not long out of prison. Done some serious years."

"You got your piece?"

"You know I rarely have mine. You?"

"Not when I go out for breakfast."

"Detectives," one of the bulky gentlemen said as they reached them, the former private. He was a baby-faced tough guy with a bad haircut. "Mr. Collins requests that you join him for a drink."

"A bit early, wouldn't you say?" Eliza said.

"I was gonna say," Andrew said. "And I'm a functioning alcoholic."

"Mr. Collins is very insistent," the man said.

"I'm sure he is," Andrew said.

"Tell him no thanks," Eliza said, and they kept walking.

The former inmate, a bald brick house of a man, stepped forward and wrapped a meaty hand around Andrew's forearm. "Get in the fucking car."

Andrew looked at him. "Not a smart move, friend."

The guy grinned, showing off yellow teeth. "Ain't your friend, Mister." The other guy pulled his jacket aside, hand poised over his holstered weapon.

Eliza said, "All right, gentlemen, let's be diplomatic about this before anyone gets hurt over a small matter of miscommunication."

Andrew and the inmate were still in a staring contest.

"Will you cooperate?" Bad Haircut asked Eliza.

"Show us some identification and we'll consider coming along."

"Fair enough." He looked at his partner. "All right."

Andrew's forearm was released. He resisted the urge to soothe the aching thing and kept on eyefucking the ugly bastard.

The goons pulled credentials out of their jacket pockets. It had their pictures and names next to the largely printed "Collins Security Services." Eliza recalled it as one of the many subsidiaries of Collins Development.

Andrew laughed. "Well, well. Our friend David certainly don't fuck around with your standard rent-a-cops, does he?"

"Let's hear these fine gentlemen out, Andrew."

"Man, I'm fucking hungry and I haven't had my first cigarette of the day. This shit better be good."

The armed guards ushered them toward the limo.

"Fuckin' hands off me," Andrew said, swiping his arm away as the inmate tried to place a guiding hand on him.

Eliza just looked at the private and he got the idea that it would be smarter to keep his hands to himself.

They rode with the goons in the back of the spacious limo, several feet separating them.

Andrew looked around, nodded. "Sweet digs. This the part where you fellas put bags over our heads? Take us somewhere out of town, make us dig our own graves?"

The private stared at him stoically. The inmate grinned.

They drove toward the edge of town to an exclusive country club surrounded by a golf course. The limo weaved up a long driveway to the restaurant and bar that was affixed to one end of a stately building, a restored nineteen century brick affair with an expansive porch upheld by Ionic columns. A back patio looked out over the vast acres of manicured green.

The large parking lot had maybe two or three cars this hour in the morning.

The guards opened the restaurant door for the investigators and followed them inside. Andrew made a kissy face to the inmate.

The place was closed but Collins sat at the bar drinking nonetheless. He wore a polo shirt and khaki golf pants and looked about as bored as he was handsome. The bartender, a nervous young guy, poured him only the finest top-shelf brandy.

"Detectives," Collins said with a smile, weary but not unconfident. He did not look worried, only annoyed that this was cutting into his morning tee time. He nodded to the guards. They made gestures for Eliza and Andrew to put their hands up for a pat down.

Andrew made a look. Eliza just nodded at him.

When it was done, Andrew asked Collins, "Gun or wire?"

"One can't be too careful these days," he said. The guards went to stand back at the door.

Eliza sat closest to Collins, as she did not trust Andrew in the slightest.

"Drinks on me," Collins said, waving to the shelves against the bar mirror.

Eliza waved a hand. "Don't drink," she said.

Collins looked at Andrew.

"Jameson, double," he told the bartender.

Eliza looked at him, made a face.

"Hey," Andrew said, "he's buying and you're driving us home. I don't give a fuck." Then to the bartender: "You got any breakfast up in this joint?"

Before the bartender could answer, Collins said, "You won't be here long, so let's spare us all."

The bartender laid Andrew's drink down and Collins waved him away. Andrew took a few easy sips.

Collins opened up a burgundy attaché case at his feet and took out a thick envelope, plopped it down on the bar in front of them.

Eliza reached for it and opened it only just barely, enough to see the packets of crisp bills inside. The packets weren't small and the bills weren't either. She showed Andrew. He whistled.

"Does she know already?" Collins asked, looking at Eliza.

Eliza looked in his eyes, nodded slowly.

Collins didn't seem surprised. He nodded, tapped the envelope once. "Well…to ensure your silence about it publically. And to request that you never come back to my town again."

Eliza slid the envelope back over to him. "Flattering, Mr. Collins, but unnecessary. Our work in this town is done. You won't be seeing us again."

He smirked, took a drink, and shook his head. "You see, I wish I could believe you. Unfortunately there is also the small matter of your client."

"Well," Eliza said, "you needn't worry on that end. Our client died of a massive heart attack just yesterday."

Collins looked at both Eliza and Andrew. Andrew made a mock-solemn face and finished his drink, motioned to the bartender for another.

Collins said, "Chief Gerety seemed rather upset that you would not release his name."

"Well, now that he is gone," Eliza said, "I'll be more than happy to tell you. Consider it a good-faith gesture, show you our work here is truly finished."

"Okay."

"His name was Loomis, out of Langdon, Illinois. A psychiatrist. Believed an old patient of his may have been responsible for the murders of your daughter and her husband. When he heard about Alison Brown, naturally he believed his patient may have been involved again."

Collins nodded slowly. "And was he?"

"No."

He took another drink.

Eliza said, "Look into him if you'd like. You'll find that his interest in this case, in addition to being far-fetched, had nothing to do with you."

He nodded again. "In any case," he said, sliding the envelope back Eliza's way, "my father used to tell me never to trust anyone who doesn't drink or doesn't take a bribe."

"Well, I don't drink for health reasons and I don't take bribes because it's bad business."

At that, Andrew toasted Collins with a big grin.

Collins stared at both of them for a long moment. When they remained impassive, he returned the envelope to his case with a sigh, finished his drink in one last swallow and stood up.

Andrew finished his drink and stood up with Eliza.

Collins said, "If I hear of either of you around these parts again, you're done."

"The fuck did you just say?" Andrew said, taking a step forward.

Collins's goons got excited, tensing up back at the doorway with their hands on their holsters. Eliza held up her arm in front of Andrew. Collins held up a hand to his men.

He smiled. "I have a reach so far you wouldn't believe. The only reason you're not out of business now is because I'm letting you stay in business. But if I hear from you again, it's over." He took a breath, gave them a friendlier smile. "Well. That unpleasantness is finished. You detectives have a good day now. And a safe drive home…"

The goons rode with them in silence back to the motel, dropped them off. Eliza and Andrew watched from beneath the awning as the limo disappeared down the road.

"Get packed," Eliza said. "I'll sign us out. We'll get some breakfast and coffee on the road."

"I know you ain't scared of that motherfucker." He lit up a smoke and took a nice long drag.

"He's the one running scared. But I do believe our welcome in this town has been overstayed."

As she turned to head down to the office, Andrew pointed to her car. "We better check your ride, make sure those fucking brake lines are intact. Hear the way he said 'safe drive home'? Check that shit out. I'm serious."

On the way out of town, Andrew said, "You know it's not over." He balled up the wrapper to the greasy breakfast sandwich he had just inhaled, looked ready to toss it to the floor.

"Hey, hey, pocket that shit up," Eliza said, putting down a healthy breakfast smoothie in the cup holder. "Don't you dare leave a mess in my car. Already got your crumbs all over my seat. Have to take a damn shop-vac to this thing whenever you're in it."

"All right, boss, shit."

"Thank you." After a pause, she said, "Don't worry. There's more dirt in Collins's past. I'm not even talking his family, I'm talking his business. If we can dig it up tactfully, we'll have some nice leverage in case he ever does decide to come at us. And we start where all rich guys are weakest: their taxes. There's always something they're evading, always something an auditor can find if you look hard enough. And who's better with numbers and a fine-tooth comb than yours truly?"

"That's not what I meant," Andrew said.

Eliza turned her head toward him.

"I'm talking about the McCool girl," he said, that look in Charlee's eyes from yesterday still haunting him, exciting him in ways sick and wrong. "What if it's not over? Loomis is dead and there's no one to hire us out anymore, but we told Charlee to contact us if anything happened. So what if something does happen? To her. To her boyfriend." Andrew looked out the window. "He's still out there…"

"Well…then we cross that bridge if and when we get to it."

And that was when they crossed the bridge over the Lost River, heading back toward Interstate 80 and the long ride home to Smith's Grove.

Some weeks later, Noah and Charlee sat outside the Poweshiek County Courthouse in Montezuma, their car hidden in shadow under the towering branches and green-leafed canopy of a tall oak. Charlee wore all black with aviator sunglasses. Noah wore his usual shirt and tie. He had shrugged off the cardigan and rolled up his sleeves as the temperature rose. A cool May morning had ushered in a summer-like May afternoon.

In between glances out the window, the couple sat quietly in the shade reading. Noah turned the page in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. He peered over at Charlee. She read from a comic book.

"Is that the comic you were reading during our devotions yesterday?" he asked.

"Uh…I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, baby."

"Mm-hmm. I see you hiding comic books in your Bible when we're supposed to be reading the Word together as a couple."

"Who, me?" she said, putting a warm hand on his knee, running it caressingly up his inner thigh. He grabbed her wrist and shook his head with a smile.

She laughed. "Well, don't think I don't see you pulling out your little pocket New Testament, reading that whenever we're at the comic book store."

"Why, I never." He motioned the comic book. "What is it anyway?"

Charlee turned the comic closed and showed him the cover: Super Heroes From the Mind of Clive Barker: Ectokid

"Ecto...kid," Noah said.

"It's fascinating," she said. "It's about this guy, this kid, he's fourteen, right. With his left eye he sees the world as we see it, but with his right eye, he sees the world full of all sorts of evil spirits. And it's about all the adventures he gets into. But it's great writing, great story, and just the best artwork you'll ever see. I mean look at this." She flipped through the pages, showing him the complex drawings. "Look at that detail. It's incredible. I look at this, it makes me want to give up all my shit, I'll tell you that right now. I'll never be this fucking good."

"Sure you will."

"You have to say that because you're my husband."

"I mean it."

She looked at him, smiled shyly. Her gaze moved from the comic book to the quiet sunny afternoon outside her open window. She stared at the Greek Revival brick courthouse across the street, the American flag out front rustling gently in a pleasant breeze. A small monument in front of the flag displayed the Bill of Rights.

She stuck her head out the window for a moment just to feel the breeze, take in the sun and the clear blue sky. She smiled. Days like this, she might not have any bad dreams. Days like this, she might not think about someone coming after Noah.

"Only you," Noah said, "would want to spend our sixth-month anniversary following some guy all over the county. We've watched him the past few weekends. What do you expect to find?"

"I don't know," Charlee said. "I just…I don't know. I mean, I have this whole family I never knew about. I just want him to see me. I don't want to talk to him. I just want him to know that I've been watching. I want him to know that I know.

"But what I do know right now is that the dumbass can't spot a tail worth a damn. He couldn't really be my biological grandfather."

"Listen to you, spot a tail."

She hit him and then gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I promise after this we'll go out for dinner, and then I'm going to fuck you so hard…" She looked at him in anticipation, biting her lower lip.

"And where for dinner? At the country club like our three months? We could recreate the loss of our virginities."

"Nice try. I want a Big Mac and fries."

Noah groaned. "Oh no."

"Oh yes. You had your fancy shmancy that time."

"Just think. Last time we saw David Collins there. I know you wouldn't want to pass that up."

Her eyes flickered with uncertainty before she hit him again. "We can go to Wendy's, okay? You like Wendy's, I like Wendy's. We can agree on Wendy's."

"I do like Wendy's. I'll load up on that salad bar."

"Salad bar..."

"Lot of good stuff on that salad bar. A man can get nice and full if he plays the salad bar right. Don't underestimate it."

"I want a Wendy's Triple," Charlee said. "Plus a large fry, large Coke." When she looked back out the window she frowned. "It's the weekend."

"Yeah."

She looked at Noah. "Courthouse is closed on the weekend."

Noah looked at Charlee and then out to the courthouse, the darkened windows, stared at it awhile. He looked back at Charlee and they shared a look.

As the afternoon dragged on, their clothes sticking with sweat in the late spring heat despite the shade of the oak, Noah said, "Might as well exchange presents early." He reached in the backseat.

"Sure," Charlee said. "Mine's back there too."

"Open mine first," Noah said.

Charlee did, tearing open the clean wrapping job. A book: "The Concept of Anxiety," she read. "Soren Kierkegaard."

"He was a philosopher," Noah said. "A Christian existentialist. Full of angst. In fact he invented the notion. He's very you, trust me, you'll love it."

"Hmm," she said, giving the pages a flip. "I will. All right, your turn."

Noah unwrapped his gift, messily taped together with tissue paper. Several comic books came spilling out. He went through them. They were all from the same series. He said, "John Constantine, Hellblazer."

"Now give them a chance," she said. "I promise you'll like them. It's all very rooted in Christianity, angels and demons and all that. Right up your alley, I swear."

He smiled. "Thanks, baby. You read that whole book without finding a summary on the Internet, I'll read all of these."

"You think you know me so well."

They shared a quick French kiss.

Noah breathed heavily, a hand on her cheek as the quick kiss turned longer, more passionate. "I need to get you home," he whispered.

"Oh God," Charlee breathed. She hit the steering wheel once and looked back out the window. "Get the fuck out here, Grandpa."

They waited some more. Charlee slipped her hot feet out of her flats, turned in her seat, and rested her legs on Noah. Noah lightly teased his fingers across her feet. She stiffened with a sharp gasp and said, "Oh God." He kept teasing, then fingered in between her toes and ran a hard thumb down the arch. She moaned and breathed fast and heavy. After a quick look around outside the windows, Noah took his other hand and slid it up her ruffled knee-length black skirt. She was already wet. He slid her panties aside and slipped one finger inside of her as the other worked her clit. Her moans grew high-pitched and her body trembled. As Noah moved his fingers, the other hand kept teasing her feet, driving her crazy.

Within seconds Charlee said, "Oh fuck baby, I'm gonna come so much," and she convulsed and cried out so loudly she had to cup her own hand over her mouth.

She steadied herself and panted and gave Noah a look that was pure jungle. She gave a cursory glance out the windshield before diving into his crotch, unzipping him and cupping his balls and placing his already hard penis in her mouth. He was gone in seconds too, moaning and burying his fingers in her short hair. As she rose up from his seat, they stared at each other in wide-eyed vulnerability, such open expressions of love it brought tickles behind their eyes that threatened tears. They settled on the soft laughter of disbelief at their incredible happiness.

David Collins came out half an hour later, two men on his coattails. He strolled coolly down the steps in his staple three-piece suit.

"Hey, shit, look, look, look!" Charlee said, sitting up from her slumped position. Noah did the same.

The two men behind Collins had their shirt sleeves rolled up and ties loosened, looking weary. Once off the steps, they each shook Collins's hand.

"Well, well, well," Noah said.

"You know who they are?" Charlee looked at him.

"Guy on the right is the Poweshiek County attorney. Guy on the left? Iowa Attorney General."

"What the hell…" She watched as the men parted ways, Collins to his Mercedes parked up the street.

"Hold on," Noah said. He grabbed the day's rumpled newspaper that sat at his feet, opened it below the fold. He pointed an article out to Charlee.

Proposed Casino in Poweshiek County

If approved, slated to open fall 1998

He pointed further down the article: "…at the helm of the contract is Collins Development out of the town of Riggsboro."

Charlee looked at him.

"It's big," Noah said. "It'd mean more jobs and the expansion of Riggsboro. Collins has plans for a whole hotel and casino right on the banks of the Lost River. You remember that new development they're building we walked by once? Harvest Run? It'll be not too far from there. Right now it's unincorporated county territory, but he's had his eye on that real estate for years. Of course the proposal is not without its opponents. There's anti-gambling lobbyists and the Sac and Fox Nation to deal with."

"Who?"

"The Meskwaki-Fox Native American tribes that still have some ties to the land. If he gets their backing, that punches some considerable red tape out of the way."

"I thought Indian-run casinos were a big thing."

"They are. But with white money like Collins attached to it, well, there's bad blood there and they hold grudges. Collins's ancestors, Harold Riggs and all of them at the founding of Riggsboro, you know it wasn't exactly peaceful."

"The Battle of Hollow Hills," Charlee said, remembering some tidbits from a social studies class way back when. She started up the car and slowly pulled out to follow Collins once he was a safe distance ahead.

"1863," Noah said. "A massacre. This was right on the heels of the Black Hawk War. Chief Poweshiek had signed that treaty. It was supposed to be peaceful. But then in comes Riggs. He liked the lay of the land, how different it was from the rest of the county and the rest of the state even. The valley, the hills. It wasn't flat like everything else. Plus the land was good for the harvest, good soil for a farming community. And he wasn't going to take no for an answer."

"You seriously read too much. You're the new guy in town and you know more than me."

"There's even an old Meskwaki legend," Noah said, "that after the Battle of Hollow Hills, the few remaining survivors looked out at all the carnage and cursed the land, praying that the white man who inhabited it should never be given rest. Well, since then the town's had a bad flood every few years."

"And now," Charlee said, "one hundred years later…the hills run red again."

FIFTEEN

It was a hot day in the dead heart of July when Charlee McCool's mother found the unopened pregnancy test in her daughter's bedroom.

She had been putting laundry away and first came across a bulging notebook peeking out from under the Star Wars comforter on Charlee's bed. It was beneath a library book, Drugs and Gangs in America's Inner Cities.

Mother flipped through the notebook idly, pages of non-cohesive notes and crude sketches. But then there were some loose pages on cleaner paper, drawings done professionally in color and in comic book type.

Her daughter's considerable artistic talent aside, Mother studied the frames suspiciously.

On one whole page—a dazzling city skyline at night. The caption read: Bop City. Jazz and violence fill the night like lovers.

On the next page, a storyboard depicted a tall beautiful black woman with an afro. She wore a leather jacket and stood on the roof of a low-rise building, looking at the streets below.

In another, her face was contorted in rage as she gave her all to a punching bag at a grimy boxing facility. Transposed as a parallel to these images, she also beat a corner boy's face in, pounding his face to a bloody pulp in rather graphic detail.

Give me the fucking name! she yelled at him. I know you know the name, motherfucker!

Mother sighed, turned the page.

There the heroine was outfitted in a sleek black jumpsuit, a thin white mask covering only her eyes. Her fighting moves were tighter, cleaner, as she took on two thugs in an alleyway.

Who are you? a bloody thug spat from the ground.

Who am I? she said. I'm the Ghost Orchid.

In the next frame, the heroine danced with and kissed her love interest on a distant street corner outside of a booming jazz club at night. They were fuzzy silhouettes against the city lights. The boxed narration read:

The only love I have time for is mad love, when you love so much it hurts, and hurts so bad your heart explodes across the sky and rains fire that burns red, red, red like hot jazz into a city night.

Mother turned the page again. Her eyes grew large.

Several small frames depicted the heroine and her lover in bed, both completely naked, entangled together in a passionate love scene. There were candles. City lights out the window. Her eyes were closed and mouth parted in a sweet moan of ecstasy.

I love you so much, she said.

And he said, Making love to you, lying in your arms, it's the only time I ever truly feel home.

Mother took a second to roll her eyes but then took a closer look at the paper, at the face of the heroine's love interest. He was a handsome half-black half-Hispanic gentleman who in no small part resembled Charlee's own love interest, Noah Faison.

She would talk to her daughter about this later. But as she finished putting the laundry away in the dresser, that was when she found the unopened pregnancy test stuffed under several pairs of balled up socks in an underwear drawer.

Later, Charlee came home from the neighborhood pool with Noah. Towels were draped around their necks and their hair was still wet. When she saw Mother sitting solemnly at the kitchen table with the pregnancy test box, she froze, literally felt an intense rush of cold despite the ninety-plus degree heat. Noah's hand clammed up in hers when he saw the same thing.

For several long moments Mother just looked at the two of them and didn't say anything. If Charlee cared what her mother thought, she would have felt bad, as she knew her look was meant to induce guilt.

But all Charlee thought was, son of a bitch, my drawer, idiot.

She pictured her mother yelling, screaming, throwing objects around and calling her names. But she didn't. She told Noah calmly, "Mr. Faison, I suggest you leave. I'd like to talk to my daughter alone."

He nodded and breathed, it sounded, for the first time since he initially saw the box and Mother next to it. He turned to Charlee, she nodded, and he turned around to leave back out through the garage.

Mother played the staring game again for long after he left. Charlee sighed and waited.

Mother opened her mouth to speak, sighed, put a hand to her forehead and said, "When did you get this?"

"Yesterday."

"You think you might be pregnant?"

"I don't know."

"Why do you think you might be?"

"I've been really tired lately. Headaches. My period was supposed to come four days ago. I was worried."

Her mother's face remained calm and resolute.

"How long have you two been having sex?"

Charlee shrugged.

"That's not an answer. How long?"

"Mom."

"I'm not going to repeat myself again."

Charlee knew what would happen if Mother did have to repeat herself. Sometimes she still felt the switch against her backside from spankings as a little girl.

For now she just returned Mother's look—Charlee had inherited her stare despite not being her actual biological daughter, had matched it over the years.

"You lied to me," Mother said. "You've been going behind my back, behind your father's back. Dishonoring your parents. And dishonoring your body." She paused. "Did you use protection?"

"Condoms." She didn't mention how they didn't always start out using condoms, how she loved to feel Noah completely without any barrier at least for a little while before the big moment, even if it added to the possibility that she could get pregnant.

Mother nodded slowly. "You are not to see that boy again."

Charlee just laughed.

Mother gave her a look, like, really? She said, "You're grounded indefinitely, Charlee."

Charlee said nothing.

Mother said, "I raised you to be Catholic, to be Christian, a God-fearing young woman. And yet you behave like a heathen, having sex before marriage under my roof like a little slut."

Charlee felt her face burning. She swallowed, took a breath, and said, "He's my husband."

Mother gave her a half-scathing, half-amused look. "Your husband?"

"Yes, Mom. We got married. Back in February. We had our own ceremony before God. We committed ourselves to each other before Him. We're not doing anything wrong."

Mother stared at her a long time before she laughed and rolled her eyes violently for effect. "Oh my gosh," she moaned. "The devil is a liar."

"I love Noah."

"You don't know what love is."

Charlee scoffed and looked away.

"You think you know what love is," Mother said, "but you only know lust and infatuation. You know young love, which isn't really love at all."

Charlee kept looking away. She shook her head.

"Look at me," Mother said.

Charlee did, reluctantly.

"For now I want you to go to your room. I don't want to see your face right now. I'm going to call Noah's parents and let them know what his son is up to—"

"Mom!"

"—and then—"

"No!"

"Then I'm going to talk to your father when he gets home and call your grandparents—"

"No, Mom, please!"

"—and then we'll talk to you some more. And don't you even think of trying to call that boy or sneak out to see him."

"And what if I am pregnant, Mom? Are you going to prevent me from seeing him then? He's the father of my baby!"

Mother visibly winced. "We'll talk about that later. Take the test the next time you have to go to the bathroom."

Charlee hated her mother now. She felt a swelling of pride knowing this woman truly wasn't her biological mother. How could she be related to such a heartless wench of a woman? How could she know what love is?

"You know," Charlee said, "you lied to me too. All my life."

"Charlee, not this again."

"Not Charlee, Mother. My name is Abigail. Abigail Phelan."

"Stop it."

"I learned how to keep secrets too. I learned it from you."

She felt the slap before she even saw her mother raise a hand. The backhand struck her cheek and almost took her head off.

She touched the sore burning skin, glaring at her mother and holding back tears. Mother didn't look the least bit sorry. She put her hand down, looked away, and said, "Go to your room."

Charlee nodded. She fought the urge to start crying and run upstairs like a little girl. Instead she got up and carried herself like a woman, a married woman. She walked calmly out of the kitchen and slowly took the steps up to her bedroom.

It was negative.

Five minutes after she went to the bathroom, only one bar came up on the little strip on the pregnancy test.

She sulked in her room for hours. Both anxious and bored, she tried her hand at a little writing and drawing, channeling her anger into that familiar and reliable outlet. Rage, sadness, depression—that was when she did her best work.

Later that night, Mother came into her room. Before she closed the door, Charlee caught a glimpse of her father standing out in the hall. He looked at Charlee and sighed. She was sure it was less out of disappointment and more out of pity for incurring Mother's wrath.

Mother shut the door and sat on Charlee's bed. Dad wasn't even going to be allowed in for the talk.

Charlee collected the sprawled out graphic novel notes and sketches on her bed. But as she was stuffing the loose papers back into her bulging notebook, Mother grabbed the handful of storyboards.

"I saw these too," Mother said. She snatched them away as Charlee faltered in her lunge to grasp them.

Mother flipped through them, turning the pages with vehemence. "Violence," she said.
"Profanity," she said. "Pornography," she said.

"Mom, that's my work, give it back!" She reached out to grab the papers but Mother sniped them back.

"It's filth! And my daughter won't be using her gifts to write filth!" With a simple turn of her hands, Mother tore storyboards in half.

"No!"

Mother kept tearing the sheets up as Charlee tried to jump in and stop her.

"Mom, please! Those are mine!" She couldn't stop the tears now, as she grabbed at the ripped apart sheets. "What did you do? What did you do!" She let loose with a violent sob and then glared at Mother, her face red and puffy and wet. "Why!"

"My God, Charlee!" Mother said. "None of this is edifying! You're so talented. Can you imagine if you glorified God with your work? But instead you please the devil, writing and drawing this smut!"

Charlee tried to breathe normally, collecting the torn up pieces of paper, putting them together like puzzle pieces. She could draw them again, would draw them again.

"And all of your stuff," Mother said, looking around at the cluttered shelves and wall space. The posters, videos, and superhero figurines. Countless comic books and graphic novels. Star Trek and Star Wars books. Mother shook her head. "All of your books and comics and your movies. They're idols. Nothing but Satan. You fill your head with all these fantasy worlds and it's nonsense. I've stood by too long turning a blind eye to it. That changes now."

Charlee seethed.

"Anyway," Mother said, "it's beside the point right now. Was the test negative?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Charlee didn't look at her. She said, "You told Noah's parents?"

"Yes."

"Have they banned me from him like he's banned from me?"

"We discussed that it would be better if the two of you did not see each other for a while."

"You discussed."

Mother stared at her a long time. "I know you hate me right now, Charlee. But this is for your own good. You're doing things you shouldn't be doing at your age."

"You don't want to know what kids my age are doing, Mom."

"I don't care about them. This is you. You're my child. You're God's child. And you're supposed to be the example, exercise purity and chastity, save yourself for marriage."

"I am married."

"Charlee, you're not married. You're not ready for marriage."

"I am ready."

"Right. You're ready for marriage. You're young and you know everything. Charlee, you're seventeen!"

"My real mom was."

"Charlee, that was different. And look how she wound up."

"Mom, that's not fair! That had nothing to do with it."

"Maybe not. Still. You're just kids! You may think you're wise enough to make certain decisions, but you're not. And neither is Noah. I don't care how smart he is. You're not emotionally equipped to be married, much less have a baby or even have sex."

"Noah says in Bible times they got married at like thirteen!"

"Of course he said that. He's a boy and he wants sex."

"That's not Noah." Charlee's voice broke again.

Mother laughed bitterly. "It's all men, Charlee. Trust me."

Charlee breathed slowly and when she spoke again she could only whisper. "Just please don't keep me from seeing him."

Mother shook her head a long time. "What did you think would happen if you were pregnant? Huh? Legally marry this boy and go out and find a place to live, raise a child, the three of you all happily ever after?"

"I know it would be hard, Mom. But we'd find a way. I love Noah. He's the one."

"I said the same thing about a few boys at your age too."

"This is different."

"No, it's not. He's just the first boy to show you some attention. That's what you love. You're not in love with him. You're in love with love. Noah could be anyone. He was just the one who happened to come along first and you projected all your desires onto him, making him fill that void even when you hardly know anything about him."

"I do know him. Noah's not just anyone, he's special."

"You think you know a lot about him, but you don't. You haven't lived with this boy. You don't know all the habits he has. You two aren't out in the real world yet. You haven't had finances to deal with, a house to look after, kids. The real world is the true test of love."

"Noah loves me more than anything. The way I love him."

"Love is responsibility. Marriage is responsibility. And it's hard work. Really hard work sometimes. It's not a fairy tale."

"I know that. But Noah is the one."

Mother laughed. "Charlee, you love the idea of Noah."

"No."

"That's what you're in love with. He represents escape and rebellion."

"Rebellion? Mom, have you met Noah? He's not some bad boy I'm hooking up with to spite you. He's Noah!"

"What I'm saying is, you two represent escape to each other. Your time together is an escape from the world. That's what's so exciting, that's what tricks you into thinking it's love. But it's not real love, and it's not marriage. Marriage is not an escape from the world. When you're married, that is your world. And suddenly you realize there's no place to escape anymore. And that's a hard pill to swallow, when one day the person who used to be your escape hatch has become the person you want to escape from. People talk all these dreamy romantic notions about, oh, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and that notion, it's so profound, it feels so good, makes the heart swell just thinking about it, but one day that might actually be your reality. And what was once so romantic has become your dreary day-to-day life with that person. Romance is by definition fleeting. The real thing is never as good as the notion.

"So you can sit here and make all the justifications you want, Charlee, but what you are doing is fornication. You're doing what's forbidden. And sure, it feels good and it feels right, but it's sin and it puts you in danger of the fires of hell."

Charlee sat silently, shaking her head, staring at her Claddagh wedding band, fingering it.

Mother took notice of it. "There's nothing real or official about that ring. When you actually get married, you're on your own. You and your husband support yourselves. You and Noah can't do that. I don't care how ready you think you are. You're not mature enough for marriage or what it really entails. If people could get married as easily as you two say you did, every idiot teenage couple who thought they were in love would get married just so they could have sex. That's all this is for you two. You're carnally minded. You're both in bondage to sex."

"No, Mother, you don't get it! You've never loved anyone like this! I never even see you and Dad kiss. You never even touch him. And you wonder why he drinks—"

"You shut your mouth about your father and I. We love each other—"

"Yeah, right."

"Don't you dare be disrespectful, Charlee. And say what you want about your father and I, but we're an example. The Bible doesn't say anything about staying in love. But we do love each other. That feeling, that in-love feeling? Trust me when I say it doesn't last. Especially when you're doing what you and Noah are doing. Putting each other up on these pedestals, making each other fit into your perfect little ideas of love. It's not realistic and it's not healthy. It leads to nothing but disappointment. Suddenly one day you're talking like, oh he changed, and did I ever really know him at all."

"Mom, the first time I met Noah, I knew him. He told me this too. It was like we were already connected. Like we were already in love. Do you understand that? Have you ever felt that?"

"It's an illusion, Charlee. A vagary of romanticism."

"Illusion? Mom, I'm talking about love! Mad love, passionate love! Love so strong you need it like air to breathe. Love that burns. Like starlight, like fire, like red—bright, bold, beautiful, blood red!"

Mother sighed again, She talked to her daughter like a little child: "It's in your head, Charlee. Chemicals in your brain that only get more muddied up from sex. Noah is hypnotized by what's in between your legs the same way you're hypnotized when he's giving it to you. It makes you think it's fate or destiny, but it's just feelings and sensuality. Emotions that fade over time. And when you're young, all that inexperience, all those hormones—it feels so good you want it to mean something. So you fool yourself. I was fooled when I was young too. But then the real world came along and I learned. And you'll learn too."

Charlee just shook her head.

"Noah is your first love," Mother said. "That's all. That's why you feel so strong. Once the curiosity and the honeymoon phase ends, what then? You'll go to college, you'll meet other guys, you won't want to be tied down with a high school sweetheart anymore. First love means first heartbreak. So then you have other relationships and date as it's appropriate and you see what it's really all about."

Charlee shook her head vigorously. "No, Mom, Noah is the only one."

"For how long? This is what I'm talking about. People out in the world? They fall in love, they're so happy, everything's so great, but then it fades. And people try to use sex as a crutch to stay together. That's why you're supposed to wait until marriage, to show that a relationship can survive without it. But people think they're smarter than God until they don't feel so in love anymore and they get divorced, do it all over again, and wonder why they're not happy. They don't stick it out because people like to run at the first sign of trouble. And the problem with most of the world is they don't have Christ in their lives. He is to be at the center of all relationships first and foremost if they are to last. And you know I raised you that divorce is not an option, because God hates divorce."

"I know. Noah and I are never going to get divorced."

"You say that now. But you're basing it on this feeling of being in love, which goes away. Right now you two are disobeying God with your ways, which is just a recipe for disaster. When the relationship gets hard, how will I know that you won't disobey God again?"

Charlee sighed. "I love Noah. I know he's the one for me. He knows I'm the one for him. God, Mother, I've never been this happy! This is what life is all about!"

"Oh Lord, Charlee, listen to reason! Spare me your 'I love him and he loves me.' Life is not some feel-good sap-happy romance novel. Life is life and it's real and it's hard. There are no happy ever after endings. It doesn't end until you're dead. And before that, life just goes on. But you persevere and you grow strong. Because people will hurt you, Charlee. Men will hurt you. Noah will hurt you.

"You know, I've never agreed with all of your liberal feminist leanings over the years, but you should listen to yourself now. You've lost all sense, and over a man. A man who could very well abandon you. That's what men do, Charlee. Say they love us because they know we'll believe it. So they get into our pants and knock us up and promise they'll be with us forever. Then some other girl comes along and she's not pregnant and a burden like you are and she starts looking pretty good to him. And when the baby comes, forget it. Guys can't do it. They're not wired like women are with children. Not that young at least. Noah's no different and don't think that he is. He'll disappoint you. He'll get tired of you. After I called his parents this afternoon, they probably sat down with him to have this same talk, asking him what about his college plans, his future? He's not going to want to be tied down because of some girl and an accident of a baby. This is the real world, Charlee. I've warned you all your life."

"I told you, you don't know Noah and you don't know our love."

Mother smirked. "Sure, I don't know Noah. God, Charlee, I raised you to be smarter than this! But oh no, you two with your doe-eyed puppy-dog love: 'Our love will conquer all. The whole world and my mean mother too. No one understands our love but us. We're like Romeo and Juliet.' Let me tell you something. Romeo and Juliet were stupid kids—and they wound up dead! God, you two make me sick! I don't see love, I see pathetic co-dependent kids! With your dear-diary nonsense and your miserable teenage angst. You're both just latching onto each other like leeches. And you'll suck each other dry and sure it feels good now while it lasts, but it'll run out and you'll resent each other. You'll hate him for knowing you so much and he'll hate you too because it's that vulnerability you once so tenderly shared together that now you'll use against each other, that you'll hurt each other with. So you build up walls to protect yourself and you grow cold and bitter and you realize there's nothing quite like the loneliness you feel when you're not alone at all. You wish for the loneliness you used to feel when it was just you. And you wish you had never believed in a love so strong that could take that loneliness away. Because it's a lie! Because it does not exist!"

Mother was breathing hard now, heaving.

And Charlee just stared at her. Her anger subsided enough to allow herself to feel truly sorry for her mother. Maybe before her husband the men in her life had used and abused her, and then when she found the right one, someone soft and pliable, she put on the man pants and took control over him so it wouldn't happen again. And when she found out that she could not bear children, maybe then her pain came full circle and she dealt with it by constantly emasculating her husband and pushing away the kids she adopted.

She looked in her mother's eyes and whispered, "What happened to you, Mom?"

Charlee's voice had changed so much, into one of pity and almost tenderness, that she could see it caught Mother off guard. And Charlee could tell Mother was regretting going off on as much of a rant as she had. Not because she didn't mean it but because it looked unbecoming, for Mother was the queen of utmost tact and decorum.

She saw the cracks in her mother's face for just a moment, the vulnerability. You had to know her as well as Charlee did to even notice it.

But in the next moment, like nothing ever happened, Mother collected herself. She smoothed out invisible wrinkles in her clothes and fingered locks of hair that were already tucked behind her ears.

The moment was gone.

"Please," Charlee said. "Just let me still see him."

"No, Charlee. I'm not going to allow it."

"I'll run away."

"See? You're just a child. An immature little child."

Charlee glared at her again. She tried to look beyond the rage of this moment, picture a time in the future when she and Noah were far away from here, away from parents, well-off and in a house of their own, married and in love after all these years. Charlee would be a successful comic book writer and Noah a college professor or religion teacher. She needed that to be now.

"I love him. Please don't keep him from me."

"I told you that you're grounded until your father and I deem otherwise. You'll still see Noah at church, where I suggest you both repent and go to confession. When you go back to school in September you can see him again and maybe we can talk about a proper courtship."

Charlee just shook her head and laughed bitterly. A lonely empty summer loomed ahead of her. She felt that void from her old pre-Noah life return, menacing, threatening to swallow her whole.

"I love you," Mother said. "I do. I want you to know that."

Charlee said nothing.

"Charlee."

She looked up into Mother's eyes, a numbness consuming her. "Love you too."

Mother got up and walked heavily to the doorway. She stood there awhile, then looked back at Charlee.

"You think you're better than us," she said. "You think it won't happen to you too one day." She opened her mouth as if to say more, but then just smiled softly and walked away, back down the stairs.

The separation was interminable.

Charlee did not see or talk to Noah again until that Sunday in church, when they ran to each other and he swept her into his arms like it was all just a bad dream. Still she tried to hold back tears that Noah kissed off her cheeks. The public display of affection could not last long, for both felt the burrowing eyes of all four parents on them. Charlee discreetly whispered in his ear a time and place and reluctantly pulled away.

They met at three in the morning in a wooded area behind Charlee's old elementary school, aptly chosen because it was right in between both of their houses. They were no strangers to sneaking out over the course of their relationship, but it was now to become a skill at which they would grow into experts.

When they returned to each other that first time in the dark heart of night, there were no words. They ran to each other, stripping as they did so, and when they collided they were naked and ready and received each other standing up. They wept and moaned and kissed in the heated joining of their deprived loins, moving so fast and clumsy in their desperate embrace and possessed so utterly by the need for each other that it was over for them both in about twenty seconds. They came violently, laughing and crying and shaking into each other.

It became routine, doing it every night if they could, taking days off when they felt any heat or suspicion from the parental end.

Charlee, when she could, went whole days without saying a single word to her parents. She stayed up in her room, getting some serious work done on her graphic novel. Eventually the wardens forced her to get a job and she humored them by picking up a few shifts a week ringing and bagging groceries at the Hy-Vee supermarket. Though she toiled through the shit-eating-grin misery of customer service, it proved to be a distraction from missing Noah for a few hours a day. He was working most days anyway for a landscaping business. Maybe they'd save up enough money to run away together. Maybe it was wishful thinking.

Their midnight rendezvous added a surrealistic charm to their already unique marriage, suddenly deemed illegitimate and forced into the place where secrets go. Confined now to the night world, to the place of all things forbidden, their hyper-intense love became ever more emboldened. Daytime was for going through the motions and counting down the hours—but the night was when they truly lived.

Under cover of dark, the land took on an otherworldly quality which seemed to come alive just for them. It was ethereal, magical, enchanted.

Late one night into the early morning as they lay naked on a blanket in the fields behind the elementary school, Charlee, talking to Noah as she gazed as the stars, said, "You and me, baby. The world can't do shit. The days suck, but this, this is our time. Proves nothing can keep us apart. One day, the stories we'll have…you and me and the night." She laughed. "This bit my parents right in the ass. I think it made us stronger, made me even more in love with you, if that was possible. And it's not the thrill of it, it's…it's something else, like…"

"I know what you mean," Noah said. "I can't describe it." He echoed her sentiment: "This is our time." He looked from the stars to her. "In an odd way I love this."

"Me too." She looked at him and smiled, a glow emanating around her like blessings from the night, an extension of its enchantment. "I don't care about the world or what anyone says. We could get caught and everything would still be all right. We'd be all right. It's like God smiles at us, like he knows our hearts and gives us this time as a gift. Makes it just…perfect."

"Yeah."

"I believe," Charlee said, "that what God intended marriage to be is what we are. My mother says it's an illusion? That it's not real love? Bullshit. That sideshow display of a marriage she and my father have is not love at all. It's, it's…world-weary self-righteousness masquerading as gospel."

"That's a good one. Make sure you write that one down."

Charlee smiled. "You like that? I will. But seriously. It's just not what God had in mind for marriage. We are. We may not be realistic in the worldly sense, but our love is more real than anything the world has to offer."

"I think that scares them," Noah said. "It's easier to believe it's illusion than risk the tenuous high ground they stand on crumbling beneath their feet. It's easier to write us off as youthful naiveté. Makes them look like the smartest people in the room, so worldly wise and mature. Even if it comes at the price of being so…dead inside."

"So sad," Charlee said, "so sad."

"It really is."

"But yeah," Charlee said, looking into Noah's eyes, "you and me and the night. We sleep until dark. And we dream forever."

Noah smiled.

Charlee looked past the outdoor gym fields and playground to the back of the school building, pitch dark in its afterhours, a very real place of misery from her past now so distant, so insignificant. "I used to go here," she said. "In third grade I beat the shit out of Ricky Holbrook under the monkey bars over there. The class bully. God, it feels so long ago, like a different life. Like someone else lived it. You ever feel like that? Like so much has changed. It's like anything before I met you was…nothing. Like I had just been waiting for you. Waiting to live. Really live."

They talked as long as they could, pushing their luck some nights with the threat of daybreak. They talked about the distant and not-so-distant future: the house they would one day buy and the warmer climate they would move to, their upcoming senior year and the list of possible colleges they could both attend together. They talked about dreams.

"Where do you see us as adults?" Noah asked.

"I don't know if it's small town cabin fever or what, but I've always felt like a city girl at heart. You know, maybe New York or L.A. Where the action is."

Noah said, "I've always liked the idea of living in a nice working-class neighborhood in the city. Have our own parish, our own church, you know? Make a nice life for ourselves."

"Sounds good to me, baby." Charlee's smile was forever.

Noah touched her face. "You make me feel powerful. Like I can do anything. I can't get enough of you. I want more." He loved the way his palm felt on the crook of her jawbone as he rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "You make me want to really live my life." Suddenly he got up and grabbed her hands and said, "Come on."

And they ran across the star-kissed fields with their arms wide open, smiling and laughing and swinging in circles with locked hands until they rolled and tumbled and kissed—all of this in brazen challenge to the day-world that was just hours away, ready to break them apart again.

But the night—

The night was theirs.

Until it wasn't.

They met early one August morning in the woods behind the school. Billowy clouds shrouded the crescent moon like a veil across the murky night sky. There were no stars out and they were losing moonlight with each passing night, so they had begun to bring flashlights.

And that night, as they were getting dressed afterward, a sharp crack came from somewhere in the darkness of the woods. It frightened crows on tree branches that ruffled their feathers and flew away squawking into the night.

Charlee said, "Shit, what was that?" She finished slipping on her pajama shirt.

Noah did the same. "I don't know."

The thick darkness of the surrounding woods gave away nothing. Charlee listened close, trying to focus beyond the crickets and cicadas, the tree frogs and trickling streams, see anything besides the streetlights of the school parking lot in one direction and the lights of fireflies and distant lanterns in the other.

Then she heard the sound she was listening for, that ever so subtle crunch of footsteps, scuffling lightly over dirt, grass, and sticks.

"Come on!" she said.

"I'll just fold the blanket," Noah said.

"No, just grab it, come on, run!" It was half-whisper, half-yell.

She ran and Noah hurried behind her, filled with a mounting dread at the source of Charlee's panic, and it was not that one of their parents or even a suspicious neighbor had stumbled upon their spot. No—Noah knew exactly who Charlee thought it was in the woods.

So the two of them ran, brushed and scraped and stabbed by tree branches invisible in the darkness.

Noah tripped on a large tree root. His knee hit a rock as he stumbled and the flashlight fell out of his hands, turning off when it hit hard ground and rolled away. Noah sprung back up and limped for awhile before he could get back into a full run.

"Charlee!" he called, a high whisper. He was losing her, could hardly see where she was going, especially now without any light. "I dropped the flashlight!" he said.

Finally he could make out her form in the near distance. She was still running wildly, trying to make it out to the school fields and the lit-up empty parking lot. She called back, "It's fine, we can get it later, come on!"

Eventually they made it out of the pocket of woods, across the school lawn, and behind a hedge that bordered the parking lot. They stopped, breathing heavy. Noah clutched his knee and Charlee kneeled down and touched it gently.

"You okay, baby?" she asked.

"Yeah," he breathed.

"You see anything?" she said.

"No," he said, still looking around, "nothing."

"Sorry to freak you out."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"I should go back for my flashlight."

"No! I mean, it's fine, we can get it tomorrow or something. Is it something your parents would know is missing?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Good then."

Noah looked at Charlee a long time. She ran fingers through her hair and exhaled. She looked at him watching her. "What?"

"I'll walk you home."

"I thought we said that was too dangerous. Parents and all. The longer we're gone, that sort of thing. It'll be a longer walk home for you."

"I don't care. Tonight I…" He looked back to the woods they had emerged from, once so magical and fantastical, now shrouded in shadows and dark mystery.

He turned back, took Charlee's hand, and said no more about it.

The next day on his way to work with a few other guys in the back of a pick-up truck full of gardening and landscaping equipment, Noah called for the driver to stop for a second as they passed the elementary school. He ran into the woods in search of his missing flashlight. He looked all around where he thought he had dropped it, even tracing his steps back to where he and Charlee had set down their blanket. But there was nothing.

All he found on his way back out was a piece of glass on top of a leaf, glass that may or may not have come from a broken flashlight. He dropped it, looked back into the woods with a silly rush of fear, and hurried back out to the safety of the road.

In addition to being grounded, Charlee had lost car privileges for the summer. On days she had to work, she rode her bike. She knew Noah's work schedule and sometimes she could pass his work truck and wave to him as he rode by in the back. Other days she told little white lies, stretching her work hours (which the wardens asked her to put up on the fridge every week) an hour in the front or an hour in the back just to have some more time outside. Cabin fever was good for writing but bad for her mental health.

Some days she just rode around to feel the sun on her skin and the wind in her hair and the cool breeze coming off the Lost River as she coasted down hilly roads on the outskirts of town, imagining what it would be like to fly, to be truly free, to be able to grab hold of Noah and the both of them fly free together.

Other days she did research on her real parents, hopping over to the library to brood over microfilm and computer search engines. Still other days she continued to follow David Collins. One afternoon she watched his stately home from afar as he and his pretty teenage daughter threw a Frisbee around the yard. It was the only time Charlee thought he looked genuinely happy.

On yet another afternoon she decided to pay a visit to the old Phelan house.

Dressed in the blue button-up shirt and black slacks that was required for Hy-Vee employees, she rode her bike down into the Valley and onto Sleepy Hollow Drive, cutting off the main road to the hidden one, bike tires bumping over the uneven cracks in the neglected pavement.

The little house loomed forebodingly in the distance, just as it did in her dreams and just as it did the day she and Alison walked by it almost two years ago. She drew the kickstand down on her bike and parked it next to a large oak tree. She approached the house slowly, looking around.

The old wood creaked as she stepped onto the porch. The door with the No Trespassing sign was locked tightly shut but she found a crevice in a nearby window and sneaked in under a busted two by four, squeezing her slim body through.

She coughed and cleared her throat against the musty smell of wood plagued by years of rot and water damage. She walked through the empty house, most of the floor creaking under her steps. She wondered why she was here, what exactly it was she was looking for.

A big ugly rat squeaked and scurried across the living room, startling Charlee before it disappeared into a hole in the corner of the wall.

Walking through the old kitchen, she found the basement door lying on the floor and the steps from the doorway leading down into a musty thick darkness. She decided she would pass.

Then she heard a creak that didn't come from her but from somewhere across the house, a deep moan, the cry of a house with secrets, a haunted house with walls that could talk.

She left the kitchen and went down the hallway with the connecting bedrooms. She walked slowly. It felt like several miles. She listened for any more sounds but there were none. She was glad it was at least a bright summer day, healthy rays of sunshine giving the house much welcome illumination.

Every door in the hallway was open. All except the door at the end, which if Charlee had to guess led to the master bedroom. Underneath the door she could only see a sliver of sunlight.

I spent a year in this house, she realized, the thought suddenly very real and profound. I slept in this house, in a crib next to my real parents, in this room I'm about to enter, in the room my parents used to make love, where they used to hold me and kiss me goodnight.

She reached the bedroom door and slowly pushed it open.

Sunlight washed the empty room through the wide slits in the boarded-up windows. She exhaled and stepped in. She went over to the dark closet, the attic stairs hanging down from above, leading up into darkness. She'd pass on that as well.

She went back to the center of the room and closed her eyes, trying to feel a past she couldn't remember, trying to channel something that would connect her to her parents, something that would tell her what to do now, with their killer still out there.

She opened her eyes and sighed. She kicked around some old beer cans on the floor, some junk food wrappers and cigar butts and—

A flashlight.

Noah's flashlight.

Lips quivering, pulse racing, she bent down and picked it up, glass falling away from the shattered beam.

Definitely Noah's.

She tried to turn it on. Nothing.

Another creak.

She gasped. Spun around. Dropped the flashlight.

The moan came from the other side of the house this time. She hurried back to the bedroom door and looked out and down the hall.

There was no one and again it was dead silent. Dirt particles floated in the strong shafts of sunlight.

It was time to leave. Time to go to work.

She walked back down the hall to the window she had climbed in, peering around every corner before traveling further.

She fit herself out through the small opening and crawled back out onto the porch. She got up and looked toward the oak tree and her bike and—

Her bike was gone.

Her eyes grew large as she whipped her head around every which way, her field of vision a dizzy stream of trees and no bike.

Her first thought, kids. Her second thought…

She breathed heavy and tried not to panic. She turned around, reached down, and ripped a two by four off of the small window she had exited. She held it like a fully-loaded shotgun and stormed off the porch, scanning her surroundings.

"Where are you!"

She made her way out of the yard and into the woods.

"What do you want!"

She broke into a run, jumping and ducking this way and that between trees and under branches and over large jutting roots.

"Come out and face me, motherfucker!"

She stopped and rested when her shoes caught the muddy shore of a stream right before the hill that led up to the floodwall. She continued to look around.

"I'm right here!"

She raced to the top of the wall, Riggsboro sprawled out in front of her, a pastoral summer scene, picturesque.

She fell to her knees and dropped the piece of wood and tried to catch her breath. Her work uniform was soaked in sweat. It was as she was fanning her shirt for a little relief that she turned her head and saw her bike.

It rested on its kickstand atop the floodwall as if she had left it there in the first place.

One last look around her immediate surroundings and she slowly made her way over to it. She rocked it a bit, kicked the stand up, checked the tires, the handlebars, the brakes, the gears. All fine.

She heard the rushing of the distant river and the rustling of the trees in the passing breeze. Without another look back she hopped the bike and raced back down and then up to the main road.

She locked up her bike on the rack in front of the grocery store and sighed as she walked through the air-conditioned cool of the aisles to the bathroom. She splashed some cold water on her face, ran some more through her sweaty hair, and made herself look presentable. She took a minute before she went out to just stare at herself in the mirror and breathe easy.

That night she couldn't sleep at all, not one wink before meeting Noah at their spot, nor a wink after, when typically she drifted off into the sweetest slumber there was, her body at once both exhausted and immensely satisfied.

She told Noah about his flashlight and about her bike. They agreed to find a new spot, a few new spots, change it up.

"I'm gonna be honest," Charlee said, "I'm scared as hell. But fuck if I'm gonna let him try to split us apart too."

She began placing a doorstop against her door each night before bed. She recalled her alarm clock going off at odd times and the Beltane note in the basement and the broken picture frame and the night her bed randomly collapsed. Suddenly these seemingly obscure incidents seemed not quite so obscure. What if he really had been in her bedroom? The same way he was in Alison's bedroom the night he butchered her. How long did he wait that night, how long did he watch her…

And how long had he been watching Noah? He had been in his room too, his alarm clock had also been messed with—

A week before school started she returned in the middle of the night from meeting with Noah to discover that her doorstop had been moved completely off of the floor. It had been placed on her dresser next to an old framed picture: her as a little girl dressed up for her first communion.

She had left out the window that night. No one could have moved the doorstop.

But strangers can come in through windows too…

Despite the heat, she closed and locked the window. She threw on the lights, searched her closet, even peeked beneath the bed. All clear. She jammed the doorstop firmly back against the door, turned the lights off, and crawled into bed.

And once more a sleepless night…

SIXTEEN

In her dream, she was floating down an endless hospital corridor.

The doors to all the rooms were open. Light poured in through large grid-iron windows and flooded the hallway, like the entire place was built of light.

One door: closed.

The number on the door: 616.

Underneath the door: black, no light.

She lifted her hand to touch the doorknob but had the sudden feeling—no, the knowledge—that it would be hot to the touch. The blackness underneath the door rippled, dark shadows shifting and writhing and taking on beastly shape.

She stepped back and knew she wanted to be nowhere near that door.

She looked back down the hallway of light. Alison stood down there in her angelic lady-in-white get-up. Noah stood next to her, also in all white, suited up and looking like a televangelist. She didn't want them to tell her like they always did that they were dead.

So she looked the other way down the hall but saw the light at the end begin to dim and then suddenly fade to black. She looked back at door 616 and knew that the shadows behind it were sucking the light away.

The hallway lights began to shut off in droves, the darkness coming Charlee's way and gaining speed—boom, boom, boom—as she stumbled back and saw the shadows slither out from underneath the door like heavy plumes of black smoke. They grew and swelled and tangled into one another, into one large shape, a beast bearing down on her.

She turned and began to run and of course was going nowhere. Alison and Noah stood there staring at her sadly, looking like if only she had listened. In fact they seemed to get even further away as the darkness swept past her, extinguishing the lights as if they were errant candles and submerging the corridor into pitch blackness, the beast falling upon her and swallowing her whole with a growl of gnashing teeth—

She shot up in bed, sweating and gasping and trying to breathe. She tried a few long sighs to get her senses back and slow her heart down. The faint gray light of early morning began to peek around her window shade. She checked the clock on her nightstand—

6:16.

Double-take.

Still the same time. She slowly lay back down and didn't get back to sleep. Her alarm would go off soon anyway for the first day of school.

And Noah would be there. They could start to get their old lives back.

It was enough to make her forget the dream—up until her alarm went off three minutes before she set it.

School indeed was better.

No one could keep them apart there.

The vampire lovers risked the sun and became day-walkers once again. They were back holding hands in the school halls and kissing in the empty and sometimes not-so-empty corridors and more than a few times sneaking out during lunch or study hall or a free period to find a place to have sex.

With their love they christened bathrooms, broom closets, prop storage rooms for the drama club, different rows in the auditorium as well as stage front and back, underneath the bleachers by the football field, and in one particularly impressive feat, the faculty lounge.

Their midnight trysts continued but were less frequent considering the early hour to rise for school. But they were always resourceful.

Their parents, realizing that communication was inevitable in school, loosened the reins a bit to allow for the occasional get-together—heavily chaperoned, of course. They could meet for church functions or when either family went out to the movies or to dinner. It was hardly an allowance, but it was something, even if they had to suppress much of their usual conversation and leave the talking to their eyes or a naughty game of footsy under the table.

Then they were allowed to talk on the phone again, even if there was a limit to both the number of calls and the length of the calls. The very first time they were allowed to call again, Charlee's mother set the tone right quick by usurping the phone for a little talk with Noah. He had not had a real conversation with her since before the pregnancy test incident months back. But she took this opportunity to tell him how very little respect she had left for him and to not even think about trying to have sex with her daughter again, that if he was serious and truly loved her he would have wanted to wait for marriage.

"We are married, Mrs. McCool," Noah told her. "She's my wife."

"Oh gosh, there's that foolishness again. This is so stupid. You're children. Not only are you two not married, but marriage shouldn't be on either of your minds. If it comes to that, you will ask her father for her hand, but at the appropriate time, years from now, when you both have graduated from college and have secure jobs. That way you two have time to really get to know each other. Because Noah, how much do you think you know about my daughter?"

"Enough to know she's the one."

"Do you know her enough to know she'll get bored of you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're a passing fancy to her, Noah. She doesn't take anything seriously. You're a smart boy, more level-headed than she is. And I'm just saying that you're setting yourself up for disappointment."

"With all due respect, Mrs. McCool, you're mistaken."

"You think it's all cute, don't you? Her grungy gothic thing, her whiny teenage cry for help disguised as some sort of intellectual rebellion. Do you like that? Sure you do. There's nothing that turns a man on so much as a vulnerable woman. The ones waiting to be saved, to be rescued. And that's where you come in, right? You're the one."

"Uh…Mrs. McCool, I…"

"Charlee is an actress, Noah. Her peculiar tastes and her interests? She tries too hard to be different. She's not an original. These days people like her are a dime a dozen."

"Isn't that a bit harsh?"

"Have you read anything my daughter's written, Noah?"

"Excerpts of things here and there."

"She has talent. It's much too graphic and provocative for my taste, but she's good nonetheless."

"She is."

"My point, Noah, is that Charlee is a writer, a creative thinker, an artist. She lives in her own little dream world thinking she's going to go off to art school or a writer's workshop and fall right into success. And like all artists, she's selfish and self-absorbed, prone to irrational romantic delusions." She paused. "She's just a child, Noah. An insecure teenager. And she pours out that insecurity into her writing and her eccentric fashion sense and, yes, into you."

"I know how she feels about me."

"You know how she feels now. The same with you. My God, you two are both living in a fantasy world. You have these unrealistic romantic notions you project onto each other. You can fool each other for only so long before the real person underneath all the fantasy comes out. That's the person you have to love. Not your projections."

"I know that, Mrs. McCool."

"Do you? You think you do, but you're deluded. Both of you want to run around making everyone accept you two and your so-called marriage."

"We've done no such thing. We just love each other."

"No. You're both so infatuated, you think the world should bow down before you, make itself your footstool. Let me tell you, it doesn't work like that. You're not the first two people in the world to feel like this. You just think you are because it's new to you, so you shove it down our throats. You think the world doesn't understand. We understand perfectly. We understand more than you do, because we know what happens after. We know that those feelings eventually go away. You and Charlee are both addicted to each other and you think that's love. It's not."

"I know that as well, Mrs. McCool. Charlee and I both know that."

"Let me ask you, Noah, how long have you been working? Since what age?"

"Fourteen."

"Working at Hy-Vee is Charlee's first job. Her father and I have tried to make her apply to jobs in past summers but she always puts it off. She told me it would get in the way of her writing. Is that the kind of girl you want, Noah? A girl, not a woman? She has life lessons to learn. Responsibility. And she most certainly does not have the level of responsibility to be a wife."

"In that respect again, Mrs. McCool, I can say that you're wrong."

She sighed. "You're both dreamers. That's all you are. One day you'll both grow up. Things change, you'll both change. Love is never like it was."

There was silence and Noah could tell she was gone. As the phone was handed off, he heard Charlee's mother say, "It's that boy. Don't be long."

When Charlee was alone, she said, "Believe this shit? She used to see you as the fucking patron saint of my daughter's heterosexuality. Now you're just that boy. I swear. But I'll keep my mouth shut before she makes me write the entire book of Proverbs by hand again just to teach me something about respect and honoring thy father and mother. Or give me even more chores that I'm convinced are nothing more than a diversion to keep me from having time to call you between that and homework. It's all busywork and she's basically admitted to it. Gave me the old bit about idle hands. She's even taken to proverbial book-burning, says she wants me reading only things that are edifying to the mind, which of course means not my comics or any of the books I like. I have to hide them from her now. Meanwhile she's getting me these horrendous Christian novels from the library for me to read instead. You know the ones, got some Amish chick in a bonnet on the cover. Says she better see me reading only those, the Bible, or school books. And you know what else she fucking did?"

"What's that?"

"She called my grandparents about…"

"What?"

She sighed. "Nightmares."

"Nightmares?"

"Yeah. They've…started happening again. The ones with you and Alison and…him, and—hey baby, first, does the number six-one-six mean anything to you?"

"Six-hundred-and-sixteen?"

"Yeah. Six-one-six."

"Uh…I don't think so. Why?"

"In some of the dreams, it's a number I keep seeing. Probably means nothing. Although Earth-616 is the name for the main universe in Marvel comics."

"Then it probably means nothing more than you like reading comic books."

"But six-one-six adds up to thirteen. That's unlucky."

"That's superstition. That's the devil. There's nothing bad about thirteen."

"Yeah, well, anyway, I woke up screaming a couple different nights, I guess, and in a moment of weakness I told Mother about…told her that I've felt like someone's been watching me."

"What did she say?"

"That I was crazy. Essentially. She said they were just nightmares. And that with the anniversary of Alison's death coming up, the memories were just getting to me. But get this, fucking cherry on top—she tells my grandparents about them when they were up last weekend. You haven't met my grandparents, but picture my mother times ten. They're real strict old world Catholics. You know, God is all wrath and hellfire to them. Nothing about love, just judgment. So at the dinner table with everyone all around, my grandmother tells me that I had let countless demons inside of me with all the premarital sex I was having. She said that's why I was having nightmares and why I think someone's been watching me."

"She didn't say that."

"Oh, she did. This is the same woman who when I was eleven tried to traumatize my sex life early on by saying that when you had sex in your dreams it meant demons were raping you. God, Noah, take me away from these people. Honor thy father and mother, I know. But the Bible says nothing about liking them. And nothing at all about grandparents. Well, elders sure, I know. And I do respect them, but they're fucking insane. It just pisses me off because your family is like the super Catholic family and they didn't give you nearly as much shit as mine. Other than forcing us apart, how did they punish you?"

"That was punishment enough. I mean, I told you how they gave me lectures. Especially my father. But he just told me to pray for forgiveness, go to Confession. They still don't approve of our marriage, but they've been more understanding than your family. My mother even pulled me aside one night—this is funny—she said, look, escucha a tu padre, listen to your father, but let me tell you, when he and I first met in Mexico, he wasn't exactly all that innocent with me if you get my drift. She said, oh he'll deny it of course, say I corrupted him and took his virginity, which is half-true, but it's a two-way street, m'ijo." He laughed. "Then she says how they got married young and seven months later there I was. You do the math."

Charlee laughed and it sounded real nice. "See? Where's a little forgiveness with my family? And strict is one thing, but this dream demon shit?"

"Have you…seen anything lately? I mean…anyone following you?"

"I don't know. I thought this was over. Remember last fall? It's the same feeling I got back then. But then winter came and I stopped feeling it. Now he's back. I never actually see him, but it's like…like someone breathing down your neck. Only when you turn around he's gone. I know he's there. It's like he's a ghost."

"He's not a ghost. There are no ghosts but the Holy Ghost."

"Okay, fine, not a ghost. But demons exist."

"This is true. Whatever he is, whatever he's doing, I believe you. Even if no one else does."

"You have to believe me. You're my husband."

"No, I believe you because you're hot."

Charlee chuckled.

Noah said, "That's what I like to hear."

"I don't know," Charlee said. "I have the strangest feeling that…that somehow this is his plan. Like he knew all of this would happen, like…"

Noah waited.

Charlee said, "He knew that you would be the only one who believed me. And you're the one he plans to take away from me."

"You don't know that."

"No. I know it. I know it in my bones. That's what he's telling me. By watching me. By coming into my nightmares. He plans to take you away from me so I'll have no one left. And then one day he'll come after me too. Shit, I'd let him get me if he took you. I'd have no reason left. I can't lose you. And he knows that. And I know what you'll say, if the Lord is with you, who can be against you, I know, that we never know when our ticket's gonna be punched but if we trust in the Lord we know where we're going, that anything in this life is ultimately just a passing vapor compared to eternity, I know…"

"Where, O Death, is your sting?" Noah said. "Christ has conquered it all for us."

"I know, I know. The devil can take our life but not our salvation. Not unless we let him."

"Well, it's good to know you do listen to my spiels."

"Half of the time if you're lucky. Long as you're not distracting me as you talk with your manipulative attempts to get me in the sack."

"Who, me?"

"I know your game, baby. I'm a clear nympho, we both know this. And you're a nympho too, but you're the worst kind of nympho—you try to play if off like it's all me. Come onto me with your subtle seductions, make it seem like the sex was my idea the entire time."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He smiled, glad to be on a different topic.

"Yeah. Smooth operator. I'm onto you, baby. Start taking my socks off, do that little teasing thing with your fingers on my feet. You know how that gets me zero to sixty wet in like two seconds. I swear there's nerves on my feet that are connected right to my vagina. But then you play all innocent like it was a simple foot massage."

"Of course it was."

"Mm-hmm." He heard the smile in her voice but he heard it just as easily turn into a frown with a long sigh. "Yeah, anyway, I'm…just fucked up lately…"

Noah thought a moment. Then he said, "Baby…who are you?"

"Huh?"

"Who are you? You're Charlee…"

"Yeah…"

"Come on. You know I won't say it. I don't even approve of you saying it, but say it just this once to remind yourself."

Noah could hear her smile through the phone as she said, "I'm Charlee fucking McCool."

"There it is."

"I love you, you know that? But that's the thing…"

"What?"

"I think actually…if he did take you, he wouldn't come for me. Think about it. He'd disappear. That would be worse than death. He wouldn't take my life but he would take my soul. Because he knows the only thing worse than me losing you is to go on living without you."

Before she turned off the lamp on her nightstand that night, she happened to see the business card sticking out from underneath a box of tissues.

Lehman-Daly Investigations.

Call us, they had said, should anything come up.

Would they believe her?

"No," Charlee said this out loud to herself. And maybe he was there too. Listening.

"You're too smart for them, aren't you?"

She placed the card back, turned off the light, and lay down with eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.

"I won't let you get him," she said. "I'm going to kill you first."

Kill you dead.

That night she was back in the blindingly bright hospital corridor. Floating past the barrage of open rooms.

All except room 616.

Like before, it was closed, darkness in the slit beneath the door. This time she put her hand on the doorknob in brazen defiance.

"Charlee fucking McCool," she said, like a password. She twisted the knob.

The door flew open and the darkness was gone and light flooded the room from a wide barred window. A pretty teenage girl with shoulder-length blonde hair sat atop an old-fashioned hospital bed, her palms cupping her knees and her fingers interlaced. She stared out the window pensively.

She turned to face Charlee and smiled sweetly. Despite her age and absence of make-up, she had an aura of old Hollywood beauty, with a smile that was at once both youthfully cute and deeply mysterious.

Suddenly aware of voices, Charlee turned and saw that the hall had lost its dreamy radiance to become a drearily sterile and normal hospital corridor. And everything was old-fashioned. She had stepped into a time warp that placed her somewhere in the fifties.

Nurses and candy stripers walked the halls in actual red cross nurse caps and short white uniforms so tight and starched they looked like the naughty costumes of today. Doctors with coke-bottle glasses in buttoned-up lab coats or tweed business suits—all of them men—made their way around corners holding charts and files. Orderlies pushed carts full of medication in little white cups.

No one seemed to notice Charlee standing there. In fact one young male orderly literally walked through her on his way into room 616. She had less the feeling of being in a dream than of being a ghost, witness to very real events going on around her but all the while unseen.

Except that this female patient saw her. She waved at Charlee and motioned for her to come in the room. She did.

The young orderly watched the patient as she popped a series of pills and downed them with a cup of water. He turned to the doorway, looking at Charlee but not seeing her. He asked the girl who she was waving at.

"Her, silly." She pointed at Charlee. Charlee gave him a small wave when he looked.

"There's no one there," the orderly said.

The patient rolled her eyes and looked at Charlee with a shrug. She finished up with the pills and whispered something in the orderly's ear. Charlee couldn't hear what she said but got an idea when she palmed the orderly's crotch. He leaned in with a silly grin and began to nuzzle her neck.

The girl met Charlee's gaze. Charlee jerked a thumb to the door, made a face like, I'll just be on my way.

The girl smiled at Charlee, gave her a small wave, and started taking her clothes off as the orderly climbed onto the bed.

As soon as Charlee turned her back she heard screaming. As she spun back around the scene had changed. The girl was throwing a fit as hospital staff strapped her to a gurney. The docs argued about what sedative to give her and Charlee felt the urge to intervene, tell them to stop, but someone else walked through her again, this time from behind, a doctor emerging with a hypodermic syringe at the ready.

"It'll sedate her," he said, "relax her muscles, prep her for electroshock therapy."

The patient, crying and shrieking and writhing against her restraints, slowly lost the fight after the needle went in her arm.

"It's not the first time," a different doc said. "I stand by my recommendation. She needs a lobotomy to end these episodes."

The other doc just stared at him gravely as everyone rolled her out into the hallway and there was nothing Charlee could do. When she followed them out they were all gone and she was alone again.

She looked around the empty hallway and back at the empty room. But the room was no longer the same.

Door 616 was still open but was now the entrance to the old Phelan house. She saw the familiar vestibule and the dark abandoned interior. Something on the floor…

She edged closer, tentative.

It was white, with straps and metal links.

A straitjacket.

She backed up as in the newfound silence she heard a rush like a thousand birds descending, and suddenly shadows engulfed her and sent her to the ground, sucking her into the room, into the Phelan house, the jacket somehow being affixed to her body as she screamed and struggled and writhed in panic—swept into the restraints by the swirl of menacing furies that danced around her in a relentless swarm—

She woke up wrestling with her sheets, not satisfied until every last one had been pushed off her bed and she was up and breathing heavy and unrestricted.

She had finally gotten herself together when her radio alarm went off. She gasped with a start, an oldies tune breaking the silence. The Chordettes.

My darling, my dearest

To love you is right

Kiss me now to prove

That I'm not dreaming

This wonderful teenage goodnight

As she got her breath back to normal she turned and noticed the time on her alarm clock: 6:16.

Wide open spaces were what she needed.

It was a beautiful unseasonably warm one the next day when she went apple-picking with the family at the orchards on the far side of town. The parents agreed to Noah being part of it and he came along with his parents that afternoon too.

Many a day in Charlee's childhood were spent on excruciating family excursions like this one, nature hikes and day trips and church get-togethers, always on a weekend when she had much better things to be doing. And even when she tried to bring along a book or a sketchpad or a Walkman, Mother usually snatched it away with a scathing speech about how this was family time and family time was a time of love and togetherness.

But with Noah in her life these days anything was tolerable.

She met up with him and to her surprise neither set of parents said a word when they linked hands and headed down a line of trees with their own bag. They talked as they wandered the rows and filled their bag with Rome, Braeburn, Blushing Golden, Cameo, and Granny Smith apples.

Charlee said, "You ever remember something, like, something when you were a kid, that, now that you're older, you can sort of understand it better?"

"Sure."

"When I was young," Charlee said, "my father used to take me to Collins Park. The playground looked different back then. It was a lot smaller, all made of wood, couldn't play on the thing without getting a splinter. But he'd take me there to play with these two boys, these sons of this woman that he worked with. And I didn't pay much attention then, you know, I'd just run off and play, but I'd remember my father and that woman, his co-worker, sitting on a bench by the tennis courts, talking, watching us from afar. And looking back now, I think those were the only times I ever saw him truly happy, you know? I don't think he ever actually cheated with her, he's not the type to, but I guess you never know. Still, I remember the way they used to look at each other, like they did love each other, but in secret. She looked at him in a way my mother never did. Of course, this is all what I came to realize as I got older." She shrugged. "Eventually we stopped going to the park, and I never saw that woman or those kids again. Maybe Mother suspected something, or maybe that woman's husband did, I don't know. But I feel really bad for my father sometimes, like if only he had been with her, maybe he could have had what you and I have. And it makes me sad, you know, just thinking that some people, probably most people, will never have this."

Charlee pointed down a row as they neared its end, strolling the curvature of a slope that began a series of country knolls across acres of sprawling farmland. "A few hills beyond this," she said, "is the river. I remember lazy summer days down there on the banks. My dad would take me there sometimes, looking for Indian arrowheads. We'd play cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, go swimming. I really did used to be close with him. He used to smile more back then. Anyway. I used to run. I mean run everywhere. I loved to imagine that I could reach the top of a hill, jump off it, and take flight, just soar up, up, up into the sky, get lost in the clouds and the sun and shoot beyond that to the stars. Well, one day I remember running along the banks and Dad picked me up in his arms and spun me around and said, 'Charlee, I want you to promise me one thing.' I said, 'What's that, Daddy?' And he told me, 'Don't you ever stop dreaming.' Of course I didn't know what he meant. I asked him how can you stop the dreams that come to you when you sleep. And he told me not those dreams, but things you believe in. Things you hope for. I'll never forget the look in his eyes. He told me he used to have a lot of dreams. But not anymore. He told me there would always be people out there who would try to take your dreams away…" She squeezed Noah's hand as if he was about to go away.

He returned the squeeze, looked at her, and smiled softly. They stood perched atop the edge of a grassy knoll overlooking the gently rolling mounds of a landscape separated by fences and sparse groupings of trees, distant farmhouses and power lines, a soft blue sky that merged with a tinge of orange on the horizon.

"I don't know why I'm suddenly thinking about all that," Charlee said, closing her eyes for a moment, imagining the younger version of herself rolling around the tall grass of riverside prairies sun swept and golden. "Just came to mind." She looked at Noah. "Promise me that we'll never stop dreaming."

"Promise," he said. "Sleep until dark…"

Charlee smiled. "And dream forever." The smile waned for a moment, a lost look in her eyes. "I wish there were only dreams. Good dreams and no nightmares."

"Baby?"

But she smiled again like she had never frowned. She kissed him and her smile turned into that mischievous and maniacal grin of hers.

"Run with me to the river," she said. "Run with me to that River of the Lost." She dropped the bag of apples.

Noah nodded, smiled wide, and together they broke into a wild sprint down the hillside, into the wind, flying over the land, free if for just a moment.

They ran until the stitches hit their sides and then they slowed up and started walking.

They walked far.

Charlee said, "We got a little while before they get suspicious, think we snuck off some place to have sex."

"Does sound like us."

"Yes it does."

They crossed the railroad tracks over the Lost River where Charlee told him about a six-year-old boy who fell to his death mysteriously back in the seventies. Some said he was a sleepwalker. Others said the boy claimed the river could talk to him. And maybe it called to him that night.

They walked into the hills, to the site of some old coal mines. They came upon several decrepit abandoned homes within the hills that looked like tiny shacks.

"I've heard about these," Charlee said, "but I've never actually come out here. These are the old coal camps for the families of the coal miners."

"Yeah," Noah said, "that's right. Riggsboro's always been a farming community, but coal brought in the real money for this town. From the time they first brought the railroad through here from the Mississippi to the Missouri River and Harold Riggs arrived to settle the land. Make money from its coal and its soil. And it was a good trading spot being right next to the river."

Charlee shook her head at him. "Seriously?"

He smiled. "The Riggs family spawned the two families that would own Riggsboro, the Fischers and the Collins'."

"The Fischers," Charlee said. "Like my real grandmother. Diane. David Collins's first wife. So when the two of them married…"

Noah nodded. "It worked out very well for both the families financially. The Fischers came from old railroad and coal money that was drying up by the mid-1900s. And in the fifties and sixties, Collins Development wasn't doing so well. But together they were a force. A dynasty."

He stopped at a historical marker posted before the homes, and as he read it Charlee wandered off. She stepped through the open doorway into one of the homes. Inside it was small and open and barren. The floor creaked with each step. Shafts of waning sunlight poked through the thin slits in the rickety walls.

A creak came from behind her.

At the doorway.

She turned.

No one there.

"Baby?"

Nothing.

She turned back, walked on. The only creaks were the steps her own feet made.

Until there was the sharp snapping of wood and something from the floor grabbed her and pulled her down.

She stifled a scream that turned into a painful grunt as her ankle twisted the wrong way. She realized nothing had grabbed her. Her foot had caught a weak piece of wood and broke through the floor.

She righted herself and carefully pulled her foot out. She leaned down and rubbed her ankle. As she breathed normally, her eye caught something in the darkness of the hole. A glimmer of metal catching in the refracting rays of the sun.

She kneeled on the floor and reached into the hole, searching. Her fingertips brushed dirt before resting on cool steel. A small tin box.

She was able to pull it from the hole. It was weathered and rusted shut. It took a few good pries before she could get some slack on the lid. And after that it took several strong yanks before it came off.

Inside, there were several folded sheaves of yellowed paper and faded photographs. There were letters, the writing on it so faded she could not make out most of the words. There were some newspaper clippings dated from before the turn of the century, stocks mostly, the numbers for the Consolidation Coal Company circled.

In the photographs, stained and faded and black and white as they were, coal mining families stood unsmiling outside of the small homes. But one picture was different. It looked to be of a young Indian girl, teenage, beautiful.

On the back, faded writing: I loved you.

Charlee ruffled through more papers until she stopped cold at one:

NOAH IS MINE

Her hands shook as she turned it over.

HE WILL BE LOST

It was on yellowed paper like the others. A century old or even older. The handwriting matched that of many of the other notes inside the box. A box that hadn't been opened since last century.

So of course what she was thinking was absolutely impossible.

Except that some forces out there—demonic, evil—did not die as a man died. Forces that had wandered the earth for millennia and came in different forms, could even possess a man to do things, write things that were not meant to be seen for another hundred years…

She pocketed the paper and placed the tin box back in the hole and left.

SEVENTEEN

October 30.

Mischief Night.

Sometime long ago, Riggsboro missed the memo. For when Detroit burns on Devil's Night, when New Jersey on Cabbage Night or Canada and the Dakotas on Gate Night are plagued with the destructive tomfoolery of children, Midwestern USA in all its small town charm generally emerges unscathed.

But Riggsboro is one small town where on the eve of Halloween it remains all tricks and no treats.

Here, kids own the night.

Eggs and cabbage are pelted at houses and cars, trees are adorned with toilet paper, soap bars are smeared across living room windows, and spray paint vulgarities litter downtown storefronts. The loud pops of firecrackers and squishy thwacks of baseball bats smashing pumpkins can be heard, followed always by the maniacal laughter and running footfalls of hooligan children. Somewhere a dumpster is set on fire and somewhere else a police siren bleats in the apparent futility.

Some of the adults still ask each year: why Riggsboro?

The old folks will tell stories about town curses, about the massacre of Indians at Hollow Hills back when the town was founded, how each year vengeful spirits possess the youth into committing acts of mischief. Others claim the tradition was brought into town from this family or that family long ago and caught on—always a family with New England roots, where Mischief Night is popular. Still others, like the Lutheran church, blame the devil. Go to any service this time of year in Riggsboro and you'll hear a sermon about how Satan preys on the idleness of youths, how young minds are being warped by the violence in video games and on television.

Both Charlee McCool and her brother Kevin had never been allowed out on Mischief Night. So when Kevin left a vague message on the answering machine that he was over at a friend's house, the wardens, as Charlee expected, flipped shit.

Before any of this, Charlee had gone with Noah downtown after school for a bite and noticed several police cruisers stationed at various intersections. Already corner stores and convenience shops were banning the sale of eggs to anyone under the age of twenty.

A store alarm began to get louder as they approached Walther's Hardware on the corner of Main and Everett. Two cruisers were parked with their reds and blues spinning silently. Charlee and Noah, hand-in-hand, mingled among those watching the scene.

An old man stumbled out of a Buick that was pulled up over the curb onto the sidewalk. "This is my store! What in blazes—"

"Sir, you have to move your car and step back," a young cop ordered.

"I said this is my store! I'm Frank Walther, this is my shop."

The policeman conversed with a couple of other cops and the old man was let in under the tape.

"What happened to my store!"

Charlee tried to assess any damage. Everything looked fine from the outside.

"Someone broke in through the back," an older cop explained. "Probably kids."

"Goddamn teenagers!" Walther said. "They'll do anything for Mischief Night! Those rotten little bastards get worse every year! It's only three-thirty in the afternoon!"

"Well," the older cop said, "now all they broke was the lock and the door frame in the back—that's how they got in. We spoke to the employee you have working today and he said all they took was some barbed wire and a couple of knives. No real serious loss."

"What about my back door! You think my insurance will cover that? Deductible alone will cost an arm and a leg. I already got to deal with corporate bastards moving in here trying to run my business out of town—and now these damn kids! Last year they egged my door and windows, I called you boys, and nothing was done. Now I want results!"

"If you'll just calm down, sir," the young cop said. "If you could move your car, we'd like to talk to you some more. We'll have some questions and hopefully some more answers."

"Hmm," Noah muttered to Charlee. "Crazy."

"Yeah," Charlee said.

The cops and Mr. Walther continued to talk more but Charlee and Noah could no longer hear their voices over the rest of the crowd.

When Charlee got home, Mother was going frantic about Kevin's message on the answering machine.

"He knows what day it is and knows he's not supposed to be out," Mother said. "He didn't mention which friend, so of course I can't reach him. He did this on purpose. He called when he knew I wouldn't be home."

"I'm sure he's fine, Mom."

"It's not that. It's the flagrant disobedience that goes on in this house. The lack of respect for authority, and for rules."

Charlee rolled her eyes while her back was to Mother. She walked away and did some of her chores, then went to her room to work on homework. When her father came home she heard Mother ranting about Kevin to him.

When Charlee came down for dinner later, Mother said, "I guess your brother must be eating over there too. After we eat, Charlee, please go out to look for him. I know he's planning to be fooling around on those streets."

Charlee knew she didn't have a choice and knew better than to argue.

Mother said, "It's getting dark and Kevin needs to be home. A night like this? He's bound to get killed out there."

Charlee called up Noah before she left so she'd at least have some company during the search.

On her way to his house she watched a group of hooded pre-teen boys giggle like fiends as they ran down a street shooting off silly string. A block later another group of kids cheered as they fired a paintball gun at a stop sign. No sign of Kevin in either group.

The hooliganism was a welcome distraction from walking the streets alone, the same streets where somewhere, just maybe, a killer lurked.

Noah was waiting for her on his driveway. She took his hand with a smile. "Come, darling," she said. "Let us make trouble for the establishment."

They strolled through the streets and gazed upon the mischief. Trees draped in toilet paper. Graffiti and silly string on the sidewalks. Houses and cars a mess of soap suds and runny egg yolk. There was also the occasional broken glass, bundles of cabbage lying nearby the likely culprits. They saw two separate police cruisers roaming slowly through the neighborhood with a spotlight out to catch any of the vandals.

They headed toward Collins Park and Charlee had them make a couple of detours to houses her brother may have gone. Each pair of parents told Charlee they hadn't seen Kevin.

At the park, a couple of rollerblading teenage girls skated around a group of guys making moves with their skateboards off steps and guardrails and benches. A cop on a bicycle rode up and told them all to get home. Charlee showed the cop a picture of Kevin and he said he would keep his eyes peeled.

They walked next to Tracy Francis's house. Tracy Francis was a little punk kid Mother didn't like Kevin to hang out with—the whole bad influence bit.

On their way up the driveway, Charlee noticed a group of boys on the porch. There was hushed laughter before one of them rang the doorbell. The whole group bolted off into the night.

"Ding dong ditch, bitches!" one yelled.

"Dude, shut up, come on!" another yelled.

They all looked older than Kevin.

They disappeared into the trees of a side yard. An overweight man in a beater and a Louisville Slugger came lumbering out of the house onto the porch. Charlee noticed a small fire on the doormat.

"Goddamn it, fuckin' kids!" The man stomped the fire out with his boot. "What the—" He looked at the bottom of his boot. It was covered in shit, a smoldering pile wrapped in a charred paper bag smoking away on the porch. "Shit!" He raised the bat high at where the kids had fled. "I'll fuckin' kill all you little shits! You hear me! You sons of bitches!"

Charlee could see where little Tracy Francis got his charm.

"Mr. Francis, I'm Charlee McCool, Kevin's little brother. He's friends with your son and we were wondering if you had seen him."

"Yeah, I seen him around earlier. He and Tracy both went out awhile back, but I don't know where and I don't know when. Now I'm a get my shotgun and sit on this porch the rest of the night, see how these bastards fare running from double-ought buckshot."

"Well, if you see my little brother, feel free to shoot."

And Charlee and Noah were back out wandering the neighborhoods, waves of little miscreants stalking the streets.

On a dark street with no activity, most of the houses with their lights off, Charlee felt that fear returning. She tightened her already tight grip on Noah's hand and moved closer to him.

"You okay?" Noah said.

"Yeah."

The sudden sound of someone shooting off firecrackers gave her a jump. An inflamed adult somewhere yelled out, "Hey, you kids!" The same kids could be heard giggling and running off into the night.

Charlee and Noah continued down the dark street until they went around a long bend to a block that was bustling in mischievous activity. They walked more streets to no avail in finding Kevin. Noah checked his watch. They had been out almost two hours.

"Kevin!" Charlee yelled. "Kevin!" This was her last hopeless attempt.

Noah joined in.

A police cruiser pulled alongside them, rolled down the window. Two middle-aged officers looked out at them.

"We got a curfew, guys. Everything all right?"

"We're just looking for my little brother. Worried about him." She showed them the picture. "His name's Kevin McCool. He's seven. Probably hanging out with a kid named Tracy Francis."

"Well, all right," the other officer said. "Stay safe."

The cruiser moved on.

Charlee said, "Ugh, my feet are killing me. When I find that boy, I'm gonna fucking kill him."

The activity was already beginning to die down as the night wore on. They pressed on into the darkness, into the newfound silence and the suddenly still night.

Kevin McCool knew he was probably going to get in a lot of trouble for this, being out on this night of all nights. But his friends had been telling him about all the fun they had in past years and he wanted in. Any punishment would be worth it.

He followed close behind his two friends Tracy and Keenan as they roamed the dark streets. For a while he watched as they smashed pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns with baseball bats. Then he would rub bars of soap all over cars left out in driveways or parked against the curb. He had stolen a ten-pack of soap on a dare from a corner shop downtown.

They were slowly working their way to Timmy Allen's house. He was a little nerd one grade younger than them and word had gotten to Kevin and his friends that Timmy had been heard calling Tracy a girl because of his name and calling Kevin "McDrool." The boy had to pay.

"We totally got to steal some eggs!" Keenan yelled as they cut through a backyard. "I know where Mr. Howard lives! We could totally egg all his windows, guys!"

"Shut up, Keenan," Tracy said. "Let's remember we're looking for that Timmy Allen first. Make him eat a bar of soap for all the shit he talks."

"Yeah, he's gay," Kevin remarked.

"Good one, McCool," Tracy said. "Hey, let's paper that big tree in the cul-de-sac on Camden Court. It's on our way."

The three hooded hoodlums made their way to the street in question, a big tree in the center of the circle bustling in autumn foliage. They dressed it with toilet paper, giggling and whispering excitedly.

Then they heard the squawk of a police siren behind them, red and blue lights flashing. It turned onto their street and shined a light on them.

"Oh shit, the cops! Guys, run!" Tracy yelled.

"Through the backyard, go!" Kevin said.

The three friends dropped their rolls of toilet paper and darted out of the path of the beam, bolting into the backyards along the street. They didn't look back, swiping through trees and charging through swing sets, jumping over fences and hedges.

They hid behind a large bush on the next street and kept a lookout for the cop car if it was going to try and swing back around for them. It didn't.

"Oh man," Keenan said. "That was scary, guys. Maybe we should go home."

"Chicken shit!" Tracy said. "Come on guys, that was awesome!"

"Awesome!" Kevin said.

"Come on," Tracy said, "that little snot-head Timmy is the next street over."

The boys crept under the cover of darkness to Juniper Lane. The Allen house was shrouded in darkness, all except for a bedroom light upstairs.

"That's his room," Keenan said.

"How do you know?" Tracy asked.

"I played at his house when I was younger."

"A traitor!" Tracy said.

"No! We used to be friends before he got to be a stupid nerd."

"Oh really? Well, you be the one to get him."

So Keenan pelted Timmy's window with stones until he came to the window and opened it. "Hey guys!" a squirrelly little Timmy called. "What's up?"

"Timmy, hey, come down, we want you to play with us!"

"Okay, hold on a minute!"

The fool fell for it. Timmy loved to play with the big kids. He came outside after a minute with his jacket. He was a short little kid, looked four instead of six. "I had to get by my parents. I told them I wouldn't be out here long."

"Take a walk with us," Tracy said. "Have you ever done Mischief Night before, Timmy?"

"No, my parents are really strict about that. That's why they don't want me out here."

"Mine too," Kevin said. "But I snuck out anyway."

"You won't get into trouble?"

"Probably."

"Kevin's a tough guy," Tracy said, leading the pack down the street, then through a trail in between houses and into some backyard woods. "How about you, Timmy? Are you a tough guy?"

"Not really."

"Because I heard that you were calling Kevin and I some names behind our backs."

"What? No! I wasn't!"

"You were making fun of my name being a girl's name. And what did he call you, Kevin?"

"Kevin McDrool."

"That was a mean thing to do, Timmy."

"I didn't! I swear it!"

"Hold him, Keenan."

Timmy struggled, but Keenan was bigger and held him from behind, pinning his arms.

"Have you heard of the bogeyman, Timmy?" Tracy said.

"What?" The sissy was already starting to cry. "Leave me alone!"

"The bogeyman. He comes out on Halloween and likes to eat kids like you. Kids who lie. Kids who call other kids names."

"Let me go!" He squirmed.

"Kevin."

Kevin took his cue and punched Timmy in the gut. Timmy coughed and hunched over, sobbing. Kevin pushed him to the ground and Tracy kicked him a couple of times. Keenan added in a flimsy kick for good measure. "Yeah," he said, "bitch."

"Next time we'll kill you, Timmy," Tracy said. "Come on, guys. Let's go."

"Mommy!" Timmy cried. "I want my mommy!"

"Watch out for the bogeyman!" Tracy yelled as he hurried away.

"Bogeyman! Bogeyman!" Kevin and Keenan chanted.

The three ran away through some trees on the side of another house to get to the nearest street.

A tall dark shape, black as night, stepped out from behind a tree and got in Kevin's way. Kevin crashed into him and fell to the ground.

Kevin saw stars. Tracy said, "Oh shit—Keenan run!"

Kevin heard their footfalls as they ran away. Real pals.

Strong hands grabbed the tops of Kevin's arms, hoisted him off his feet like a rag doll. He hung in mid-air, looked up into the face of the shape holding him, and went pale.

He thought, I'm sorry for what I did, please don't hurt me, I'm so sorry, please, please.

Kevin closed his eyes tight. In the suddenly quiet night he heard only heavy breathing.

And then he was lowered back to the ground. Slowly. The rough hands loosened their grip and let go. Kevin turned so he didn't have to look at the shape, opened his eyes, and ran like hell back out into the safety of a lit street.

He slowed down after a couple of blocks and caught his breath, looking behind every corner and peering past every alley and down every sidewalk before he advanced.

He had lost Tracy and Keenan. They'd be hearing about this in school, how they were both little chickens and left him behind to be killed or eaten or whatever, left him at the mercy of the tall man—definitely the tallest man he had ever seen. They must have seen even just a glimpse of his face. That was what made them run, that face of something make believe—a monster, a ghost, a nightmare, the bogeyman.

"Kevin! Kevin!" He heard the distant calls. His sister's voice. He had never been so happy to hear her.

"Kevin!" Noah's voice too.

"Charlee!" he called. "Noah! I'm here!"

"You hear that?" Charlee asked.

"Charlee!" the little boy's voice called again across the night.

"Yeah, I can't tell where it's coming from," Noah said.

"Charlee!" Kevin called again.

"I still can't tell," Noah said. "Check around the corner of Filene Ave up there, the front of the houses. I'll check around behind the block."

They separated.

Noah journeyed into the thick woods of backyards separating two blocks. He had gone no more than a few houses down when he realized he had gone in the wrong direction. Kevin's voice, still calling, started to fade. Eventually Charlee's voice faded as well. He figured he'd keep going, loop around at the end and meet back up with them on the other side.

He tip-toed over some rocks and roots on a muddy patch of land near a stream. He came out behind a tree and saw him.

A tall shape stood in the darkness some distance away, watching him.

He couldn't make out his face but he could feel the dark stare, burrowing into him.

Noah had been scared before in his life. But nothing like this. He was paralyzed. The shape emanated a visceral supernatural presence, the deepest cold. He felt it in the shudder that hit his bones, that shook him with a sudden inexplicable hopelessness, like his spirit was being sucked away—his soul—doomed to an eternal dark where he would never again know joy, know love—

This was not a man in the dark, this was the dark. This was the night incarnate.

And all the shape had to do was lift his arms and command the night to wrap itself around Noah and swallow him whole. Forever.

The shape took a step forward.

Noah turned and ran.

He ran through the backyard of a stranger's house, hopping a fence and almost falling into a pool that had been covered with a tarp, leaves collecting on top. A floodlight caught his movement but he kept on running, sweeping around to the front of the house and back to the safety of Filene Avenue.

Catching his breath, he heard Charlee call his name. He turned and saw her hurrying up the street with Kevin on her arm, the boy's hair a mess and his face horrifically pale, eyes bugged out.

"I found the twerp," Charlee said. "He's in deep trouble with the wardens. But deeper with me for having to go out and find his ass!"

Noah waited for Kevin's retort, something like 'I'm gonna tell them you said the a-word!' But he stayed conspicuously silent, out of character.

Noah wondered…could he also have…

Noah must have appeared the same way because Charlee looked at him and said, "What's wrong with you? It's like you both saw the same ghost."

Charlee walked Noah home with Kevin on her arm. Then she dragged the little bastard the rest of the way back to their house. The wardens ripped him a new one, which gave Charlee a certain joy. In addition to being out he had apparently been involved in harassing some kid named Timmy, as the boy's mother called and snitched Kevin out.

Mother grabbed his wrist and Charlee could imagine the pain in her tight grip. "Your father and I didn't raise a delinquent son, or a bully. There is no trick or treating in your future. And you're grounded for the rest of the year. You also won't be getting any Christmas presents."

Kevin, who had been oddly catatonic up to this point, suddenly broke down in tears. "I'm sorry," he cried, wails growing even louder as Mother brought out the wooden spoon. "No, no—Mom, please!" He squirmed as she held him and yanked down his pants, exposing his bare bottom. She beat his behind with the spoon and kept at it long after the skin was bright red and he was sobbing.

"Please stop!" he wailed, drooling. "Please!"

"You will learn, Kevin," Mother said. "You think I want to do this? Huh? You think I like this? Answer me!"

Charlee moved to her lair in the basement where she could get some quiet and called Noah. He told her what he had seen when he was alone.

"Oh no," Charlee said.

"I know."

"It has to be him. I know it is."

"I believe you."

When she went to bed, she heard her father tucking in Kevin. In between lingering sobs, Kevin said, "Dad, do you believe in the bogeyman?"

"Of course not. There's no such thing as the bogeyman."

"But I saw him tonight."

Charlee believed him.

On Halloween morning, a missing scarecrow from a cornfield on the outskirts of town was reported to the Riggsboro police.

"Right out there," the farmer said, an old timer. He wore thermal underwear, overalls, and a Carhartt jacket, pointing away from the side of his farmhouse to the endless rows of corn, to the absence of a scarecrow.

"And you went out there and checked?" one officer asked.

"It didn't just fall or get blown by the wind?" the other said.

"Do I look like a schmuck? I put the scarecrow up myself and it ain't movin'. But I even went so far as to entertain the notion and went out there to check. He's gone and his cross is gone. I tell you, unless the thing suddenly came to life—"

"We understand, sir. We're doing a lot of cleaning up around town from Mischief Night last night. We're sure it was just pranksters."

"Some pranksters. Do you know how heavy that sucker is? This ain't just kids. Or if it was, it was a lot of them. And kids aren't quiet and this old man's still got good ears."

"Sir, you said there was something else?" the other officer piped in.

"There sure is," the farmer said. He led the way over to the side of his barn, to a long metal gate that closed off a fenced-in area. He put his hand on it. "This gate was open. See boys, when I was younger they didn't call it Mischief Night. They called it Gate Night. Them fools would run to farms all over town and open the gates, let all the livestock roam free. Last night they did the same to me and let all my sheep out! Someone again who was very quiet. Now I got my two oldest grandsons out there in the fields helping to round 'em up and let me tell you, it ain't no picnic."

The policemen had asked their questions, taken their notes, and left the scene, but it was a matter of hours before they were called right back.

"My grandsons found all my sheep, sure enough they did," the farmer told them. "They brought 'em all back—all 'cept one." He held up just one finger, pursed his lips, and started yelling. "A baby sheep! A lamb! And you know why they couldn't round her up? Jesus, there's no shame anymore! It's sick is what it is! Sick!"

The lamb was found gutted in the heart of the cornfield, its intestines strewn about in a pool of blood.

The scarecrow sat next to it, holding a bloody scythe in the stumps of hay it had for hands.

The perpetrator was not found.

And neither was the scarecrow's cross.

Halloween night.

Charlee waited. But nothing happened.

No one had come into her room the night before. No one had followed her to school or watched her through the classroom windows. No one walked behind her as she and Noah walked home. No one stared at her from the street outside her house.

She staked out a lovely candle-lighting memorial service for Alison in Collins Park. No killer lurked among the trees or in the shadows—she checked.

Then it was off to the fairgrounds, to the annual harvest fair. She checked with security, asked them if they had noticed anything odd or off tonight and was reassured that everything was normal. She walked the perimeter and felt, unlike last year when she was there with Alison, completely unwatched. She felt perfectly safe—safer, in fact, than she had in months. The looming presence of this formidable man in the shadows that she had felt for so long—suddenly it was gone. And on this day of all days.

Around town, swarms of kids went trick or treating, ghosts and witches and monsters and pirates and superheroes and fairies, good and evil alike begging for candy from door to door. Were they lined up for a slaughterhouse? No. It was innocent, everywhere innocent. She heard the scurrying of little feet, the giggling of sugar-high children, the sighs of chaperoning parents.

Innocence.

All of this she forced herself to do alone, without Noah, feeling the fear and going for it anyway.

And if tonight showed her anything, it showed her ample reasons not to be afraid. She slowly allowed herself to embrace the feeling, the security. Just maybe—

But no.

Even Noah had said he saw him. Last night. He did.

Or maybe—maybe what he had seen was just one of the Mischief Night pranksters. Maybe that was all it was.

No.

It was a trick, a ruse to have her put her guard down and then when she's not looking, take Noah and kill him, just like he killed Alison a year ago tonight.

She wouldn't let that happen.

She knew what she had to do. She had known for awhile.

And tonight was the night.

She called up Noah. This would be the first part of the plan.

She said, "Baby, if I told you that you were in danger, if I told you that you needed to run away with me to somewhere safe, just for a little bit, and you couldn't tell anyone, would you believe me? Would you run away with me?"

There wasn't even a pause on the other end of the line.

"Yes."

After they had dinner at their separate houses, Charlee and Noah each packed a shoulder bag with the essentials and fled.

Charlee climbed out her bedroom window with the grace and familiarity of her many nights sneaking out to see Noah. She knew how not to make noise, leaping quietly down to the garage roof, to the back deck, and then onto the soft grass. Her parents and brother were still up, so this was the only way to get out clean. She left a note in her bedroom just to let them know she hadn't been kidnapped. They probably wouldn't go into her room for awhile anyway, which gave her and Noah a good head start.

Noah did much the same, sneaking out his bedroom window after telling his parents that he wanted to get to bed early. They wouldn't notice he was gone until the morning. He left a note as well, explaining that he would be back and not to worry. Still, the head start was nice, especially if—and Charlee knew this was most likely with her parents—somebody called the police.

They met up at the usual rendezvous point between their houses, the woods behind the elementary school. Charlee wore all black—shirt, pants, boots, leather trench coat. Noah wore his usual cardigan sweater over a button-up, sans tie this time, topping it all off with his tan trench.

They greeted by way of heavy kissing.

"Where to?" Noah asked between kisses.

Charlee smiled.

Noah did the same. "I had a feeling."

On their way to the Collins Mall, they took several detours behind homes and through side alleys and wooded areas to lessen their chances of being seen by any witnesses should the cops get involved.

Charlee also kept a close eye to see if a certain someone followed them, but whenever she looked, he was never there, not once. They were alone.

Upon arriving at the shopping center, the couple snuggled together against the cold next to a loading dock behind the Kmart. The mall was just closing up for the night, employees and the last few shoppers driving out of the parking lot.

Eventually they headed inside, dark as always after hours, smooth jazz playing from the speakers. They crept easily by a janitor in one hallway who was listening to a Walkman and glossing the tiles with a loud floor buffer.

They found their old bench and as they sat, Noah said, "It's been a long time."

"Too long."

"Are we planning to bunk here? I think we'd get caught."

"Somewhere better," Charlee said, showing him that sneaky smile again. "You remember that one time, last spring, there was that loose door that led to the roof?"

He smiled sneakily right back. "Up there?"

"Up there we'd be all alone for sure—and safe."

They made out under the smooth jazzy soul like old times for a few minutes and then went to find the roof access door as the janitor slowly crept into their hallway with his buffer.

"I hope there's no cameras in here," Noah said as they walked past stores the next corridor over.

"I don't think so," Charlee said. "Besides, sneaking up to the roof would be the least of our worries if we found out they had cameras in here."

"We'd be arrested for public lewdness," Noah said.

They took a narrow corridor next to a bookstore that led them to the bathrooms and a large maintenance closet. The closet was unlocked since someone was still working.

It was through a back door in the closet that they reached a long brightly-lit utility hallway. They walked some ways down it, the only sounds those of hissing pipes and their own echoing footsteps. The roof access door still had a faulty lock like the last time. They climbed in and took a spiral staircase up.

The cold night greeted them once they were atop the roof's expanse of white brick and sandstone.

"If we shut the door," Charlee said, "do you think that will lock us up here?"

"No, roof doors like these can't lock from the inside. Fire hazard." Noah checked the door anyway, opening and closing it before finally throwing the lock and the deadbolt. Charlee brought him a large lead pipe that had been lying among others on the roof. Noah propped it firmly beneath the doorknob.

They set their bags down and added more pipes, some rocks, and some loose crates against the door. After that they separated to scope the perimeter for any other means of entry onto the roof.

When they came back together, Noah said, "No fire escapes, so we're good there. There are access ladders to lower levels of the roof but no way up onto the roof itself. Not unless you can fly."

Charlee nodded. "There's a hatch on the other side of the roof, looks like it goes down into Kmart. I blocked it off like we blocked our door here. Those are the only two ways he could come up here if he tries."

Noah nodded. "The blockades won't hold him forever but we'll hear it for sure if he tries."

Charlee exhaled and hugged Noah. He returned the embrace and they kissed.

They set up camp close to a ledge that overlooked the town. Aside from a stray gust of wind it was a calm night. Streetlights and lanterns and houselights sprinkled the darkening countryside as true night set in.

Entire neighborhoods, unaware that an evil could be lurking the streets, went to sleep.

Charlee and Noah stood holding hands before the ledge. They looked up. The night sky was bright and full with shimmering stars, a mural of the heavens.

"I love this," Charlee said.

Noah looked at her.

"I just love this," she said, releasing her hand and stepping out closer to the ledge, pacing a bit back and forth before it. She looked at Noah with a smile. "I mean I know I should be terrified. I mean, we're scared, we're on the run, but God, I feel alive. I have you and, and, and—God, it's exciting!

"Before you, baby, I was so bored and unhappy. I went through the motions of life, just waiting, waiting for everything. Waiting for my life to really start. I watched all these movies and read all these books, and I thought, God, why couldn't that be me? Riding a horse through Middle Earth into battle or piloting the Millennium Falcon towards the Death Star or swinging a grappling hook through a city at night fighting crime or, or falling in love! I was watching and reading about these worlds and…they felt like home to me, you know? Like I belonged there, in those worlds. But somehow I was trapped here in this one. But then…then I met you and this, this loathsome suburban life was suddenly—it was like seeing, like breathing for the first time."

Noah stared at her and smiled, just smiled. He loved this, loved his girl, his wife, so, so much. He told her as much right there.

She smiled and laughed like a mad woman. She looked at him almost imploringly, pleadingly, and as she continued to talk her words came out fast: "I love you too. God, this is us right here. You can see it, can't you? Crazy, you and me. Outcasts. And we can run. Run away from all this. God, we were meant to do this. Meant to be beyond all this. We were never meant to be a part of the day, of that life out there. Our whole life we were the ones who never fit in, who wanted to be a part of something better and bigger than ourselves. And then we found each other. Found where we belong. And that's this right here, you and me, escaping, running, from everything and everyone, dancing into the night forever and ever to smooth jazz that never fades. God, baby, it's—the world is ours!" She threw up her arms and jumped, laughing with such carefree exuberance that Noah could feel it in his heart.

She went on: "And I know, I know, don't say it. We're young and stupid and na?ve. And we'll grow old and we'll get busy and life will beat us down and we'll struggle and have a boring home life like any other married couple. I know all that, I know, I just…"

Noah waited, smiling.

She said, "One day we'll be tied down, but for now, you and me and this moment—I want us to remember this, us here now, and how, how free we are! What it's like to run and be so in love and this happy—"

She stepped back toward Noah and cupped his face in her hands, stared deep into those almond eyes. "You and me. This is us. We live for the night. For our rules, our truth, our love." Her voice lowered to a whisper, chilling, mesmerizing: "We sleep until dark—"

He finished with her: "And we dream forever."

Charlee leaned in for a kiss and Noah, drunk on his wife and this night, melted into her. They kissed long and slow.

As they took a breather, Charlee kept her eyes closed and smiled, bit her bottom lip. She gave Noah a ferocious hug that he returned with all passion imaginable. Then she turned around and leapt up onto the ledge that bordered the rooftop.

Noah jumped forward to keep her from getting too far.

But she stood there, fixed, smiling, her arms outstretched to the night and the stars, to the lights of the small town that blanketed the landscape across the hills and the valley.

As if on cue a gust of wind came barreling in her direction. It wrapped itself around her like an embrace, the cool squall against her skin like tender kisses.

What hair she had was blown back. Her coat billowed and fluttered open. She stood there facing it, arms stretched out to receive it.

She closed her eyes, smiling, laughing, crying even. A sob let loose and a tear was swept back against her temple, horizontal in the wind that kept blowing and blowing and blowing.

Noah watched her and knew not to disturb her, knew like with so many moments with his wife, this was one where he wished he had a camera, wished he could do more than stare and try to etch this image, every detail, forever into his brain.

And he wondered, like in all the other moments, if he had ever seen something, someone, anything so beautiful in all his life.

Later they took out some pillows and sleeping bags, snuggling into a bed they made up for themselves. They held hands under the stars.

Noah said, "Let's just sleep the night away. The bogeyman always goes away in the morning, right?"

"I don't know."

They continued to cuddle, fighting the cold together as they tried to doze off.

The stars faded as their eyelids became heavy, sleep eventually claiming them both.

Noah didn't know how long it had been, but he awoke to Charlee jerking him awake. She was saying, "Baby, baby, Noah…" For a second he forgot where he was.

He said, "Baby, hey, what's wrong? Are you okay?" He tried to focus his eyes against both sleep and the darkness in a frantic look around the roof, trying to see if anything had happened.

"It's fine, it's fine," she said. She climbed on top of him and started kissing him, unbuttoning his jacket and the shirt underneath.

"Baby, what…"

She ignored him. She unzipped his pants and grabbed all of him. Her hand was cold, but it warmed up as she started rubbing him.

Still hazy with sleep, Noah said, "What are you…"

Charlee said, "Take off your clothes. I need you. I want to make love under the stars."

He followed directions. He shook the sleep off and got focused, becoming fully awake and turned on, skin meeting skin and creating body heat in the cold. He kissed her and felt her longing, matched it with his own. They moaned in the weakness of love and desire.

"Wait," Noah whispered, "wait," trying not to let passion overtake sense, "we don't have anything." After their last pregnancy scare, they had been careful every time to use protection.

"I don't care," Charlee said. "I need every part of you. I want to feel you come inside of me."

Perhaps it was the most foolish thing they could have done, but there was something in the moment, in the night, in all that had led up to them being here, and they couldn't resist.

"Okay," Noah said. "Yes, oh God, yes."

They were soon sitting in a large pile of clothes, naked and cold but growing warmer from passionate touching and kissing. Charlee shifted, sitting completely in Noah's lap.

His erection moved to meet her. He slipped slowly deep inside and into the fullness of her. They moved in sync for several minutes, rubbing their naked flesh together, kissing each other's hot skin, breathing and heaving in boundless pleasure.

"I love you, Charlee," Noah said, kissing her as they both got close to orgasm.

"Call me Abigail." She shifted a bit, eyes widening. "Oh God, yes, say it now, I'm gonna come…"

"I love you, Abigail," he breathed in her ear.

"Yes, yes! I love you! Oh Noah, yes!" Charlee shook on top of his body in a wild gasping frenzy that caused Noah to get off too, the both of them in powerful ecstasy beyond measure.

As they sat there whimpering and moaning, they held tight to one another, clutching bare skin and flesh, not letting go for anything, staying as one.

A tear ran down Charlee's face. Then another one. She wept and said, "I love you, Noah. I love you so much."

"I love you too. I love you. God, I love you…"

More tears fell down Charlee's cheeks and she cried into his shoulder. Noah held the back of her neck and kissed the salty tears away, shedding a few of his own, not knowing where they came from, a deep unknown place, the place where love came from, where no human soul could ever venture, for to know so much love would be to die.

Here they were, on their own, on the run, more in love than two people could ever be. Sharing it all, bearing it all, underneath the stars.

Finally they both fell back, burying themselves in their clothes and sleeping bags, tangled in each other's arms. They drifted into sweet slumber.

An hour later Charlee woke up as she knew she would have to. She was careful not to disturb Noah. He was out anyway, snoring softly as he did when in a deep sleep.

It was time for the second part of her plan.

She quietly got dressed again in her black get-up. She stood up to don the trench coat. Then she knelt by the sleeping bags and touched the face of her husband. She ran a few fingers through his hair, meditated on those lips she had kissed a million times.

She whispered, "He'll be coming for you soon, but I won't let him. I know where he is. And I'm going to get him before he can get you."

She kissed those sweet lips, lingering on them for awhile.

"I love you so much," she whispered, brushing a hand on his face, palm cupping his cheek.

And with that she grabbed a flashlight she had packed in her bag along with a large bowie knife. She slid the knife out of its protective sleeve, the cold steel of the blade glinting in the starlight. She slipped it back, pocketed it along with the flashlight, and proceeded to a ladder that went down to another level of the mall. She had mapped out this route earlier during the perimeter search.

From the lower level, she was able to climb down the side of the building on a rain gutter. It was a hard enough thing to climb going down, and it came to an end halfway up the building anyway—Charlee was comforted knowing it would be impossible for anyone to go the same way back up.

Jumping far to the asphalt of the parking lot below, she landed on her feet with the grace of a cat. She ventured out into the cold night, into the darkness, to the place where it all began and where it would all end.

EIGHTEEN

Charlee walked as if pulled by a supernatural force, trance-like, driven. She kept one hand concealed in her pocket, gripping the knife handle. Another pocket stored her flashlight.

She went to Noah's house first.

Maybe the killer was there, waiting to strike in the middle of the night, murder Noah in his bed just as he had Alison.

She checked the exterior. Clear.

No lights were on in the house. His parents must have never checked his bedroom and were sleeping soundly. She slipped through the back patio doors, always unlocked, and crept upstairs, not a squeak.

She kept the flashlight off. She knew all the turns and the corners and soon her eyes were accustomed to the darkness. She checked the master bedroom—lumps in the bed, the sound of steady breathing.

She checked the bathroom, hallway closet, guest bedroom—all clear.

Noah's bedroom—the door closed.

Knife out. Gripped tight.

She opened the door slowly, fully. Walked inside. Took a look back and closed the door again. She went for the light switch, thought better, made use of the flashlight, did a sweep of the room.

The bed was made, undisturbed, folds neat and crisp, note resting atop a pillow. The closet—

Slow. She inched over, knife raised in one hand, flashlight in the other. She breathed steady, swung open the door.

Clothes.

Button-ups, cardigans, khakis and slacks, ties.

She pushed the hangers aside, checked behind the clothes—clear.

Exhale.

Creaks, footsteps, outside in the hall—

She moved slowly, opened the door just a crack—

A dim light on in the master bedroom. The sound of a flushing toilet.

Exhale part two.

She waited until all lights were off until she made the trek back downstairs. She did an obligatory search of the first floor and basement before sneaking out silently through the patio doors.

Back into the night. Flashlight pocketed. Knife in the other pocket with her hand firm on the handle.

She made her way through the neighborhoods and descended into the Valley. She wasn't sure how much time had passed since she had left the mall before her flashlight beam fell upon the street sign for Sleepy Hollow Drive. Maybe an hour, hour and a half.

She turned the corner onto the winding road, flush with overgrown oaks that towered like ghosts under the starry sky, full canopies like outstretched arms, searching, grasping—

She stopped in front of Alison's house. Closed her eyes against memories that seemed so long ago.

She nodded and pressed on. A sudden dread mounting, she unsheathed the knife from her pocket and kept it out.

The beam of her flashlight helped to guide her down the abandoned section of the street and deep into the woods, to the run-down ranch home that sat submerged in total darkness and silence. Even the night sounds seemed hushed around it. The house was a force itself, a presence all on its own.

That silence scared Charlee even more than the dark.

And suddenly the fear overtook all drive and determination.

She thought about turning around, going back to Noah and really running, going somewhere far—

He'll always find you.

She wasn't sure how those words came to her but they came in the voice of an old man, came with the awful clarity that it was complete truth.

She couldn't run. She had to find him before he found Noah.

She walked around the little house. Aimed the flashlight through the boarded-up windows. Peered inside and then back out at the woodland surroundings, sweeping the beam over what looked like wilderness this time of night, the woods a dark forest.

Somewhere in the night there was a soft thunder like the wind but not just the wind. It was a breeze passing over the distant waters beyond the floodwall, wide and deep and black—

The Lost River.

She moved quietly through the backyard, her feet scuffling softly over sticks and grass and weeds and roots. The night slowly began to conquer the silence around her with its usual music. Bugs whistled and pattered. A dog howled somewhere far away.

There were two boarded-up backdoors she couldn't get through, one down an outside stairwell that led to the basement and another at the house's main level. She circled back around to the front, to the same entrance she used the last time, the window beside the front door.

A breeze whistled through the air before she went to enter. She watched the rustling canopy of a weeping willow brush the side of the house, stars peeking through the branches. There was a sheltered darkness under the arc of the willow's reach, leaves and branches that stretched to the ground and created a black hole.

She waited for a shape to emerge from it.

There was none.

She turned back to the house and climbed through the window.

The inside was a deep black save for the starlight filtering in through the window boards. The flashlight was able to illuminate the rest.

She paused for a moment in the vestibule, waited.

Silence.

"I'm here." She spoke softly but it resounded loud in the empty darkness.

She waited some more, then began her search.

She kept the knife gripped at her side as she walked further into the house and probed with the flashlight. She swept the beam over the bare living room and into the kitchen, past that into the den, saw the door that led out to the backyard.

As she walked back through the kitchen, she stopped before the basement. She looked into the gaping blackness of the doorway, sighed, walked past it.

Maybe later.

She went back into the living room and stood before the hallway that led to the bedrooms, the master at the very end.

The door to the master bedroom was closed. She hadn't closed it the last time she had been here, three months ago.

Of course, kids came here all the time.

But there was a light on, showing underneath the door.

It was soft, barely brighter than the light from the windows she at first suspected had been causing it. But instead of the purple-white hue of starlight, this had the soft yellow glow of something else.

She walked slowly down the hallway, shedding the flashlight's beam on the other bedrooms and the bathroom on her way down. They were all empty.

She tried to slow her breathing but it only rose as she approached the door. She didn't want to give herself away any more than she already was with her softly creaking footsteps.

Taking a deep breath, she aimed the flashlight and the knife forward, palms and fingers slick with sweat. She raised her foot and kicked the door open.

It swung all the way back, the beam from her light falling upon—

A jack-o'-lantern.

It sat atop a small crate on the floor below the windowsill, its face crudely slashed into creation, the grin evil, primitive. An almost melted candle inside flickered a dying flame.

Someone had been here.

Within the last few hours.

Maybe still was.

She breathed and walked into the rest of the room, the usual small pile of trash on the floor. Crushed beer cans, potato chip bags, cigarettes. Noah's flashlight was still there, dirtier, in broken pieces.

From somewhere in the bowels of the house she heard a rapid scurrying.

She spun just as she remembered the rats from last time.

She shined the light back out into the hallway just to make sure, saw nothing but darkness with the faintest tease of starlight. She turned the beam back into the room and pointed it toward the open closet. She peered in and saw nothing except the stairs leading up to the attic.

She took the stairs, skipping the broken first step and climbing the rest.

It was when she reached the top that she heard it.

Footsteps.

She froze.

Light scuffling somewhere in the house.

Soft footfalls.

Getting closer. Slow, sure.

Down the hall.

"Oh God."

It was then she realized just how much she was hoping she had been wrong, that she had just been paranoid all this time and that no one was ever coming back for Noah, for her—

The loss of that hope was paralyzing, more than she could have prepared for.

Now—blind panic. Had to be quick, footsteps getting closer—

There was only one way to go now and that was up. As quickly and quietly as she could she swung herself up into the attic, pulling the stairs up manually.

The only sound she made was the soft click as the door shut into place.

She held her breath to silence her frenzied breathing and listen close, pray that whoever it was—she knew who it was—hadn't heard the attic door close.

She heard no more footsteps. Nothing but silence now.

She literally didn't breathe, not a difficult feat in the suffocating mustiness of the attic.

Then she realized. She hadn't seen it, but unless she was very lucky, the attic probably had some kind of a string or door handle on the outside. She prayed again, prayed that maybe the handle or string had been torn off, lost in one of the floods years ago or broken off by kids.

The footsteps started again.

Slow and methodical.

Entering the master bedroom.

She heard them below, muffled through the ceiling, slowly walking through the room. Maybe turning to the closet now, the stairs that had always been down now gone back into the ceiling…

"Oh please God…" A whisper.

She aimed the flashlight around the attic, looking for a piece of wood or something to use that would jam the door. She saw only wooden beams, insulation, and—

The window.

It was a tiny octagonal affair, letting in some starlight through a cover of two by fours. If the wood was as flimsy and old as the boards on the downstairs window…

She looked for the safest way to get over there. She would have to crawl on the beams, careful not to rest on the insulation lest she fall through the ceiling.

The footsteps stopped again. She listened and made not one move for a full minute.

The attic door moved.

Budging slightly as something pulled on it from below.

Her breath caught. She didn't move, couldn't.

The door budged again.

She waited.

Waited.

Silence.

Then:

Footsteps receded.

Away and out of the bedroom.

She waited a little longer, trying to swallow both fear and the urge to cough. A lingering mildew odor, years and years old, mingled with the stale attic air and clung to her throat.

She waited in five minutes of silence before she thought it safe to move again, go back out the way of the bedroom.

But first she climbed across the beams toward the window, brushing past dense cobwebs, to look out and see how an alternate escape route would fare.

Through the two by fours, she could see the skeletal limbs of trees, starlight peeking through. She peered below and saw the side yard, dark.

It would be a far jump if she had to do it, but not impossible.

But suddenly there he was.

He materialized out of the shadows below as if given life by the night itself. And though he took on the form of a man—this tall shape, this walking shadow—it was certainly not a man.

For in its manner it evoked not the familiar presence and poise of a man, but that of an alien entity using a man's body.

And that entity, that force, it emitted an energy Charlee felt even at this distance. And though she had experienced nothing like it in all her life—for it belonged not of this natural world—she knew exactly what it was:

Death.

Like before, all she thought about now was how much she wished she had been wrong. Deep down she had always known, somehow, that this killer wasn't just any man. Somehow, on a subconscious level, she had always known who this killer was. And now that Death itself was here, as shocking as it was to see it living and walking before her very eyes, it was not surprising.

He seemed to float slowly across the yard, this tall dark specter shrouded in shadows and the night.

She watched him as he walked down the side of the house.

And then he stopped.

From a side pocket he slowly drew out a large object. Charlee could not make it out at first, not until the starlight glinted off its sharp edges to reveal a large blade.

A butcher knife.

She felt her eyes bugging now, and a sharp gasp escaped her lips as suddenly the shape spun around and looked right up into the attic window.

Black hollow sockets where eyes should have been glared up at her from the palest face she had ever seen.

She only saw it for a moment before she dove out of view of the window, covering her mouth to stifle the scream her gasp so desperately wished to become.

"Oh fuck, fuck, fuck."

She turned off the flashlight so the beam wouldn't give her away. Unless he had already seen her in that second before she ducked.

She suddenly wondered just what the hell she was doing here. All pretense of protecting Noah, of stopping the killer for good, somehow killing him herself—one look at that face, one moment just feeling that evil presence—

She knew now it was impossible. All along she had to have known. On some level she always knew exactly who she would be facing tonight.

And yet she had come anyway. Had she repressed that knowledge on purpose? Blinded by romantic notions of avenging Alison and saving Noah?

No, there was something else.

What was it?

What was the force that had led her here? Because she had certainly felt a force for some time—whispers, suggestions, subliminal messages growing louder and more frequent, telling her exactly what it was she had to do, that she was to come here, tonight, and that he would be here, that she could end it all—

She was here and wasn't going to turn back now. She gripped the handle of the bowie knife hoping it would provide some comfort. It didn't.

She waited another five minutes to see if she would hear footsteps again, if he had figured out where she was and was coming in to get her. But there was nothing.

She chanced a peek out the window.
He was gone.

Slowly, carefully, she crawled back to the door. She pushed it gently and used all her strength to hold onto the stairs as they lowered so they wouldn't fall down with a loud clack.

They finally came to a rest silently against the closet floor. Quietly, she descended.

She used the flashlight again once she reached the bottom. Out of the musty attic she could smell for the first time the stink of her own profuse sweating.

She took a few moments just to breathe.

Everything suddenly grew darker and she knew he was coming back into the room, the deep dark of his aura smothering all light.

For a moment she just stood there, staring at her flashlight beam and waiting for it to inevitably grow dim and shut off completely.

But it didn't.

And when she didn't hear approaching footsteps, she turned the beam on the grinning jack-o'-lantern and realized that the candle inside had gone out. A thin wisp of smoke dissipated into the air from the dead flame.

She walked slowly over to the door, knife and flashlight out, back to the dark hall. She made her way quietly back toward the living room, approaching carefully past each doorway.

In the living room she looked through the boards of the windows out to the front yard and saw nothing. She hadn't heard any sounds in the house and as far as she knew he was still outside.

She walked through the kitchen to the back of the house and into the den. She looked out the window of the back door and one along the side of the wall. The backyard looked clear as well.

On her way back through the kitchen—a creak.

She froze.

It seemed to come—

From her left. Folding doors to a closed pantry. Darkness in between the thin slits…

She tightened her grip on the knife and inched toward the door. She swung it open and raised the knife high—

Empty.

Some shelves and that was it.

Another creak.

Close.

Another.

Closer.

She didn't think. She shut the flashlight off, slid into the pantry, and folded the doors closed. In her panic it had been the quickest thing to do. But now she was trapped.

She waited, peering through the slits in the door.

And then she saw the rising form of the dark shape as he emerged from the basement steps onto the landing.

She thought, The back basement door.

He stepped out of the darkness of the doorway and into the kitchen, a hulking silhouette. His head panned slowly as he looked around, the knife at his side. Charlee could hear his heavy breathing. And she recognized it. She had heard it before. In her room.

He stepped toward the pantry.

He was very tall, wearing some kind of black uniform, the coveralls of a trucker or janitor. And his face: preternaturally white with black eyes and a blank expression. A human face that was utterly devoid of all humanity—

A mask.

She could see it now, could hear his breathing come out muffled underneath the rubber, could make out the neckline where the mask ended and a thin layer of skin poked through the collar of his undershirt. She could see the thick head of dark hair atop the mask.

Was there really a man beneath all of that? No. It was in its true form now with the mask on. Whatever man there may have once been, whatever boy there may have once been, there was only darkness now, a soul forever lost, used as an unwilling—willing?—vessel to a host of evil spirits. Or maybe just one spirit—perhaps the very Devil himself.

Whatever the case, Charlee couldn't keep her eyes off his knife, the blade glistening in the faint light that seeped through the windows.

She pleaded in silence that he would not look in the pantry. But she had the knife gripped tight and ready to thrust in a swift upward motion should he open the door.

She held her breath, held it steady.

He walked right by the door—slowly. His breathing, heavy and muffled, had the subtle undertones of a growl.

She backed up as far as she could into the pantry, hiding herself in the shadows under a shelf. She waited, beginning to shake, from fear or from holding her breath so long she wasn't exactly sure.

But then he was gone.

Footsteps faded and in the silence that followed she only heard a faint ringing, her head throbbing. She took a deep sweet breath.

She left the pantry a minute later, leaving the flashlight off and in her coat pocket. At this point the beam was too much of a giveaway. She would have to let her eyes adjust to the darkness, and she did so as she stepped back into the kitchen. She looked down into the dark den and then moved back across the small corridor that led into the living room.

Her steps were careful and cautious. She made not a sound, tip-toeing all the way.

And then a weak piece of wood she stepped on decided to creak.

She froze.

Nothing.

Eventually she began to walk again, around the corner and into the living room.

And there he was.

He stood in the center of the room with his back to her, looking out the window.

Charlee froze again, eyes wide.

She wanted to back up but feared the mere shifting of weight on her feet would again cause a creak.

Meanwhile the shape stood patiently, unmoving.

Charlee swallowed and turned her head slowly, saw a corner to her right immersed in shadow. If she could move over there she had less of a chance of being seen.

She stretched out her right leg slowly and quietly for a wide step, her heel and then her sole coming to a silent rest on the floor. Now for the next foot…

Her boot made the slightest scuffle.

She paused, eyes on the shape.

His head turned to the side, only his head, but he didn't move. There was just his breathing. Heavy, steady.

For a moment it seemed as if he knew she was right there, just a mere few feet behind her. A few more angles of a head turn and he'd see her for sure.

But eventually he turned his head back around and once again looked forward.

Charlee breathed soundlessly and finished her stride completely into the fold of the shadows. She brought the knife up to her chest, poised.

If he walked by her, she would have the advantage. She could lunge forward, stab him, catch him off guard and drive the blade, plunge it, right into his evil heart. It was possible she could rush him where he was now, strike him in the spine with a diving blow—but he would hear her coming and move faster than she could, spin around and lash out with his own knife.

She shifted her weight just barely, prepping for a pounce, a way to jump far enough and still keep the surprise in her attack. But she could feel the floor underneath her feet threatening to creak.

Shit, she mouthed silently.

But it was fine. She was safe in the shadows now. She would wait for him—

But then a thought:

He belonged to the shadows.

He was the shadows.

She wasn't hiding at all.

And suddenly the shape turned around.

He faced her, looked right at her. She wasn't sure if she imagined it or not but she swore she could hear in the profound silence the sound of his grip tightening on the knife handle.

Could he see her? Certainly he could hear her heart, pounding double-time.

But he didn't move. Just stared.

Eventually the uncertainty, the waiting—it got to her more than the fear.

Come on, she said, lips moving but no voice. Come on, come on, come on…

He took a step toward her.

Charlee braced herself.

But then he turned and walked away, down the hallway toward the bedrooms. He disappeared into thick darkness.

Charlee exhaled. He hadn't seen her at all.

Unless...it was a trick…

She waited, leaning forward slightly to peer into the black void where he had gone. The hallway taunted her in the depths of its darkness, darkness that swallowed the sound of his receding footsteps.

She relaxed her grip on the knife, wiping her palm against her pant leg. She loosened up her whole body a bit.

Now that he was gone, she wished she had made a move, wished she would have had the balls to charge him.

Now she had to go find him. And back in the darkness, he had home field advantage.

Eventually she made her way toward the hallway, knife up by her chest and ready as she inched into the darkness.

She held her breath and listened as she took step by careful step. There were soft creaks under her feet. Maybe he could hear her, maybe not, or maybe he was luring her into a trap.

This time she wouldn't wait to attack.

She passed slowly by one doorway, aware that he might be in one of those rooms as she went further down, back to the master bedroom.

And then she heard laughter.

She stopped.

The laughter was deep, arrogant, evil. It began as a menacing chuckle before it turned into a hysterical howl.

It stopped for a moment and then restarted the same way, a low snicker, dark and knowing, rising to the throaty pitch of a taunting cackle.

Then a third time. The same laugh, exactly the same.

Charlee thought, Electronic, automated, where—

She looked for the source, listened, squinted through the darkness, turned around—

There he was.

He stood in the doorway to one of the bedrooms, only a silhouette.

She didn't wait this time. She charged, grunting, "Motherfucker—"

She dove across the hallway and into the shape, driving her knife right into his dark form—

It was too late by the time she realized her blade had hit a door-length mirror. The momentum of her body sent her hurling into the punctured glass, shattering the rest of it and knocking the bedroom door open. The dark shape's reflection fell with the shards to the floor.

She held onto the knife, bracing herself for impact, for the sharp edges of mirror scattered about now. She fell and pushed herself into a roll, diving into the bedroom, all the while knowing he was behind her, behind her, had to get up—

Somehow she glossed over the mirror shards unscathed. She could feel his presence behind her, ready to snatch her from the trap he had laid. She wouldn't let him, kept pitching herself forward. She got her footing, swung around—

The shape hadn't moved. He was standing in the bathroom doorway, the same silhouette that had reflected on the mirror affixed to the bedroom door.

That same laugh, rising and falling—

Again she didn't wait. He stood there stiff and unmoving as she rushed him. Growling, she raised the knife and dove into him—

She landed into his body but the knife landed first. It pierced his chest, straight through his heart. She buried the blade to the handle. They fell to the bathroom floor in a narrow space between the cabinets below the sink and the bathtub. She lay on top of him, hand still gripped to the knife.

She panted in bloodthirsty accomplishment, eyes wide as a smile of pure shock broke across her face.

But then the laugh again.

She frowned.

And looking at the knife buried in his chest, she saw that there was no blood.

And the body, it had felt light, had gone down easier than she imagined a tall human body would—

She also saw that it wasn't the killer's dark clothing she had stabbed through. It was a baggy suit with pom-poms down the middle.

What the hell…

The laugh again, coming from its face, its mask, a different mask, not the killer's—

It was a clown.

Red hair, red nose, pasty white face with a wide devilish grin.

A small electronic device on the back of the mask triggered the laughing.

HehehehehehehahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—

She pushed a button, silenced it.

She tore off the mask, the blank face of a rubber dummy staring back at her, an apparent life-size CPR manikin.

"No," she whispered, pulling the mask back down and glaring into the clown's taunting eyes, the smirking smile that said one thing: Got you.

And she was got—for behind her she heard the floor creak and the formidable sound of muffled breathing.

She spun around and there was the shape, tall and dark in the doorway, white face and hollow black eyes staring down at her, knife at his side, knife being raised—

He lunged toward her.

She only had a moment. She spun around on the floor and grabbed the dummy, her bowie knife acting as a hook. She tossed the dummy at him as she unhooked the knife from its body.

As the shape's blade connected with the dummy's back, Charlee felt the power of the blow as much as she heard it, crushing deep into rubber flesh, tearing—

She took the opportunity the diversion offered and bolted, scrambling over the edge of the curtain-less bathtub and running out the door as the shape yanked his blade out and threw the dummy to the side, hitting and puncturing the bathroom mirror.

Charlee had no control over the scream she let loose, panic taking form and rising as she stumbled into a run down the corridor, back to the front of the house.

Heavy footsteps behind her, the whoosh of a blade slicing air, the whisper of a hand flirting with the back of her hair—

She slammed her body against the front door, pulling and squealing and banging. "Somebody help me please!" Of course she knew there was no one around and of course she knew it was futile.

She dove down to the window at the side, her way in and her way out, had to squeeze through, crawl—

The blade of the shape's knife hit the doorframe where she had stood not a second earlier.

She would never be able to get out in time.

She bounced back up as the shape ripped the blade out of the door and rested it at his side. He looked at her and she advanced, raising the knife. She drove it down to his chest—

The shape caught her wrist with his hand, the blade stopped just inches before his heart. His strong hand squeezed her wrist. Hard. She moaned, trying to push the knife further—no dice.

In fact he was pushing the knife back, turning her wrist around, turning the blade on her…

"No, no…"

The muscles in her wrist were crying and soon a tear escaped from her eye. She was helpless as the blade inched ever closer to her heaving chest.

He was teasing her, toying with her. She knew if he wanted to he could overpower her immediately. But he was dragging it out, making her squirm, making it last.

All she knew to do: she gave up her knife and made a break out of his grasp, pitching to the side.

Still the knife grazed her, tearing through clothing on her upper arm and opening up her shoulder. Warm blood oozed out and she screamed. She fell back and hit the floor. Pain seared and she immediately went to grab the wound, couldn't for long—

The shape was above her. Fast.

She scurried in a backward crawl toward the hallway. Tried to regain her footing.

The shape—towering over her—raising the knife, her knife—slicing down—

Charlee—trying to back up, flailing against the blade that was coming down fast—

The blade struck her ankle and tore it open. She cried, fell over on her stomach, and tried still to crawl, get leverage on her knees and push herself up.

One of his boots stepped down on her sliced ankle. She cried out again. She squirmed back around, trying to twist herself out from under his foot, panic overwhelming her as he rushed her pinned body, wielding both knives, and as she was staring at the blades in doomed anticipation, he raised his other foot and barreled his boot hard into her face—

She was awoken out of dreamless unconscious by the rough swiping of a match and the hiss of a flame brought to life.

Through a blurry gaze, she could see from her position on the floor that she was back in the master bedroom. The shape—a fuzzy silhouette, spinning—had lit a new candle and was placing it into the jack-o'-lantern. Dim orange light shed across the dark room.

He waved the match out. In his other hand—her bowie knife. He raised it high, brought it down—

Plunged it into the pumpkin, splat, the blade buried halfway into the squishy top of its menacing face.

Charlee stirred. Tried to move. Could just barely.

She coughed on blood that ran down her throat and out of her nose. Her head ached with each movement, her ankle and shoulder searing.

She rested on her back and took a moment when through the flicker of the jack-o'-lantern, she noticed the name that had been crudely carved into the ceiling:

CHARLEE

It was written in a child-like scrawl—and she had seen that writing before. On a piece of paper she had found outside her house a year ago, just before leaving for the harvest fair with Alison. And then in the notebook of her writing binder back in May. The Beltane note.

And suddenly it came to her, the truth, crushing and final and with utter clarity—

The force that had led her here, the voice that told her what it was she was supposed to do, that told her she could put an end to everything and save Noah—

"It was you," she said, spitting blood, her eyes growing wide. She lazily swiveled her head over to the shape, who after stabbing the pumpkin had looked at something out the window and then began to walk over to the closet.

He paused and turned around slowly, staring at her as she spoke. His face was hidden in rippled shadows under the muted orange glow of the pumpkin-head. He glared down at her, his gaze dark, empty.

"You were never going after Noah," she said, her voice garbled in equal parts pain and fear. "It was a trick. It was always me you wanted. And you led me here. You knew I would come."

The shape walked slowly over to her. He loomed above her, butcher knife at his side. He watched her, black eyes bearing down, burning into her.

Charlee couldn't believe it. It had to be another nightmare. This couldn't be happening. Why hadn't she stayed with Noah? God, if she could just rewind things, if she had just realized earlier the fool she was being played for—oh God, if she could just go back—

He'll always find you.

Again the voice. And again the strangest assurance—the game was rigged. No matter what move she made, even if she had stayed back with Noah, even if she was somehow able to get away now—he would always find her. It was always going to end the same way. His way. Its way.

"Why…" she bleated. Pathetic. "Why…" Tears. "Please…"

He flipped the knife around in his hand to a forward-pointing position. He hovered.

"Please…" This time barely a whisper.

But it wasn't her time, not yet. The shape turned around and made his way back to the closet. Charlee watched him turn left when he went inside, opposite the side of the stairwell to the attic. He dragged something out: a large roll of barbed wire.

She watched him roll some out using only his bare hands. He cut off a long strand with a pair of bolt cutters he had also retrieved in the closet and then proceeded to wrap the wire several times over into a perfect circle.

As he began to make his way back over to her, Charlee realized the use he had fashioned the barbed wire for:

A crown of thorns.

She knew what he was planning to do, and crying now but feeling a little stronger, she turned over onto her stomach and tried to crawl for the door, her eyes wide. "No, no…"

The blade that traveled across her back felt like fire, a fast swish of the knife burning through clothes and skin. She cried out and felt the blood seep out slowly, wet and warm. She turned over on her side. The shape was again hovering over her, knife raised, his image blurred through gushing tears.

"Please don't kill me—please!" she screamed. She thought about Alison, stabbed over and over and over—dozens of times over.

The shape shook his head slowly in a disapproving manner, turning the bloody knife from side to side, tsk tsk.

He brought up the crown of thorns and—"No, no!"—affixed it to Charlee's head. The little points pierced the flesh of her skull. Blood matted her hair. It ran down her face and mixed in with her tears, stung her eyes.

She tried to ward off the pending shock, wipe the blood and tears out of her eyes. She blinked several times and looked at all the blood on her fingers—this had come out of her—so dark and thick.

As she leaned on her elbows, trying to prop herself up, she stared up at the shape who stood with the knife at his side watching her.

"Stop, please…" She sobbed.

As she came to the realization that she was about to die, she thought about her life and how it had only just begun. She thought about Noah and all the plans they had together. They were supposed to escape. They were supposed to start their own life. They were supposed to be happy, together, forever…

They were supposed to show the world…

It was then that true shock set in.

She had always tried to imagine what shock felt like, and it was only now that she realized how crippling it was. It wasn't, as some believed, caused by the pain of the situation—no, it was caused by the materialization of the situation itself, the realization of it in your mind that this is actually happening to you, that you are about to die, that you are being killed and there is nothing you can do about it—

She was never going to get published. She was never going to see Noah again, never kiss him again, never make love to him again…

Any moment now she would pass out and then it would all be over.

She had to try, had to stay awake, gather whatever energy she had left to take whatever chances she might still have—and override the shock with sheer will, the will to survive.

She tried to focus on specific aspects of her surroundings. Her name on the ceiling. Peeling, faded wallpaper. The window. The boards on the window, an open space in between the boards, a chilly draft seeping in—she felt it, cool on her open wounds. She realized how heavy she was perspiring. Beads of sweat were popping over her face in the shock, while meanwhile her clothes were soaked through.

Keep focusing. Anything, anything. Her coat. Her shirt. Her pants. All black. Yes—focus on anything except the obvious.

The shape was still watching her, as if he knew all of what was going on in her head—and Charlee didn't doubt that he did.

Focus.

Try to sit up. Dizzy. Wounds stinging.

The shape—staring, leering.

The floor—leverage to prop herself up, get on her feet. Her palm brushed against her coat—the flashlight still in her pocket.

The shape just watched her, allowing her to stand up, even to get her bearings. She felt the streams of blood running down her face, her back, her ankle, drops hitting the floor. She faltered for a moment finding her center of gravity.

The shape stood there. Charlee glared at him, her focus slowly moving from shock to rage. She met his dark gaze and seethed.

And somehow, in all the fear and anger, she laughed, a bloody sneer crossing her face.

The shape tilted his head to the side—slow.

Charlee tilted her own head to the side, but quick, taunting. Your move.

The shape raised his knife and took a step toward her, bounding—

She swiped the flashlight out of her pocket and with a mad grunt threw it into his face. He was caught off guard but for only a moment—enough time for her to rip the crown of thorns out of her skull—howling in the tearing pain—and send it flying at him like a Frisbee out of hell, whistling finely like a spinning saw—

She didn't wait to see how or where it landed, or his reaction. She used it as the distraction she needed and lurched forward into a stumbling run, diving out the opening in the window in between the boards. There was room just enough for her skinny frame.

She felt the fumbling attempt of a grasp at her leg on her way out.

She hit the ground outside hard. The pain—blinding—bright spots flashing pop pop like camera bulbs before her eyes. Still she shot up as immediately behind her pieces of wood were sent flying into the night, a knife-wielding hand busting through two by fours, beating through both window frame and wall—

She shook off her flapping coat and ran like hell—hobbling into a full sprint despite the protests of her ankle and back.

She ran deep into the woods, toward the distant floodwall, panting, pounding her arms, darting around this tree and that, managing it all even in the dark, even as the night spun around her.

She felt like cheering, like crying, like laughing—but she saved her breath and kept running—plenty of time for that later—sprinting through cramps in her side and tearing muscles and legs that burned battery acid.

She would beat Death, cheat it.

But first—outrun it.

She realized her mistake as she burst out of the woods and bolted down the high floodwall, the expanse of town—dark and asleep—spread out before her. She should have gone back up to the main road, to Sleepy Hollow proper, found the closest house and gotten help there.

But she had wanted distance. Something told her that the nearest house would be too close, too dangerous, that the shape would catch up, would maybe even be waiting for her there…

So she ran to the floodwall. But as her body threatened to give out and she remembered the incredible distance to the nearest neighborhood from here, she thought about how a 911 call could have already been placed, that maybe a neighbor would have a gun—this was Iowa—and she could be off her feet and resting, awaiting an ambulance…

But she had made her choice. She ran through the burning stitch under her ribs and the throbbing in her skull and the nausea in her gut, clearing the length of floodwall as suddenly the Lost River loomed in front of her. In the panting and hacking that was her breathing, she had missed the steady rush of the wide dark waters winding through the hill country. Hollow Hills. She could see the distant homes peppered across the countryside. Civilization. Hope.

She stumbled over a series of grassy knolls beneath a large expanse of power lines and telephone wire. She tripped and tumbled down a final slope before rolling back up to her feet in a wide clearing beside the river. She had slowed to a steady jog and began looking over her shoulder.

She kept at it through the pain of her cuts and bruises, through the heat and acid of her crying limbs and the pounding in her head. But soon she began to sway, staggering in zig zags across the clearing, the night around her alive and moving in circles—trees dancing, the ground jumping, the river rising to swallow her whole—the land taunting her, laughing—

She gave herself a moment, barely that, to stand still and collect herself. One look over her shoulder and she was back on the move.

Far in the distance and to the side she could see a secluded farmhouse and the neighboring orchards where not long ago she and Noah had gone apple picking. She pressed on—somewhere coming up was the county road that led back into town. When she crossed that, she'd be in Hollow Hills. There'd be houses there. Homes.

A huge abandoned barn rose up on her left, starlight poking through the weathered slats. A rusted-over silo emerged behind it. And suddenly she was in a pumpkin patch, navigating her way through the tangle of vine and weeds, pumpkins green and yellow and orange, big and small, rotted and whole. Her tripping was inevitable.

She fell on her face but immediately rolled and sat up.

That was as far as she got.

The dizziness overpowered her now and the nausea was too much. If she tried to get up, her body would not have it.

She fell on her back and the stars above swirled across the night sky and came crashing down.

She wasn't sure how long she had been out when she finally willed herself up, breaking through the nightmarish realm of anxious sleep and back to consciousness.

She sat up, anticipating the searing surges of pain that hit her brain and made her see flashes of white.

She rested awhile, bringing her surroundings into focus. She was even distracted for a moment by the pastoral beauty of the scene, the calm and still night, and the very absurdity of her situation, how anyone on a night like this could have a problem, a care in the world.

The plains and meadows that made up the far-reaching space between barns and farmhouses stretched to a distant purple-gray sky, tranquil, serene. Distant apple trees were black against the horizon. Here and there a lonely oak towered tall and majestic in an otherwise empty field. Far off she saw where the flatland began to take the slowly rising form of rolling hills. And beyond even that, she saw a pair of moving red lights and realized it was the highway, a lone car out at this late hour. All around her, the world still turned, life went on.

And if that wasn't enough to remind her to keep moving, suddenly a hooded crow swooped down before her and then rose again, soaring and taking flight into the night sky with a lonesome wail.

So she stood up, breathed, and looked ahead of her, beyond the barn and the pumpkin patch to the road, the houses.

She reeked, the hot perfume of her sweat mingling with the metallic stench of blood that was in her hair, under and over her clothes, in her boots, crusted around the skin of her open wounds.

She didn't want to think about things like infection and blood loss. She had lost so much time already. She had to keep moving.

She looked behind her, looked far to a lined cluster of trees and the darkness hiding in between. No one coming, not yet…

She limped her way into a steady jog as she crossed up to the road. The suddenly hard asphalt broke her stride and she tripped again, scuffing her knees and scraping the palms that broke her fall. She pushed herself back up, her panting breaths turning into moans of pain. But she continued to limp as she made her way across the road and toward the neighborhood, the houses close now, right there.

She ran carefully down the sloping incline to the block of houses that made up the edge of Hollow Hills. She approached a big house from its backyard, a nice country home with a tree swing and a pool. She smiled, heaving a huge sigh of relief.

It was dark and the family was certainly asleep. Charlee had lost all sense of time after falling asleep with Noah back on the roof of the mall. She didn't know if it was one in the morning or four.

She hurried to the patio doors and tried to open them. Locked. She banged on the square window panes and tried to call for help. Her voice cracked. It was hoarse. It took a few coughs and a rough clearing of the throat before she could yell loudly. "Somebody! Help me please!"

She backed off the patio and crossed the concrete walkway next to the pool.

"Help!"

She looked up at an upstairs window and saw the curtain rustle from the inside. She found a potted plant atop the patio railing and tossed it up. It shattered right below the window.

The light popped on. A pair of human shadows showed themselves against the curtain, male and female. They brushed the curtain aside, looking out to the backyard.

"Help me please!"

Then the light went off.

"No!"

She bounded over to a downstairs windowsill that looked like it went into the kitchen. She tore off the screen and was able to pry the window up from the back. She hauled herself up and started climbing in. A sink and a counter were in front of her, and across the floor and next to the refrigerator—a phone.

Trying to get in, she knocked over some hanging kitchen utensils. A light went on in a side doorway. She could see steps leading upstairs. A man's shadow came against the wall. She exhaled. She opened her mouth to call out for him.

Then someone from the outside grabbed her waist and pulled her back out the window. A massive dirty hand covered her mouth before she could scream. The other hand grabbed hold of her throat and squeezed.

There was incredible pain, then blackness.

Later, through hazy half-consciousness, Charlee felt herself being carried. She tried to scream—couldn't. Her throat burned, crushed into permanent silence.

Tears ran down her cheeks but her cries made no sound. She could only weep silently in helpless submission as she was carried through backyards, through clearings and hills and woods—deeper and deeper into the darkness, into the night.

After some time, her body was dropped like a rag doll to the hard ground. Shock dragged her in and out of consciousness. She could barely move. At one point she plopped over onto her side and looked at what was behind her.

No.

No, no, no, no—

It was the Phelan house. She had been carried right back.

No. Not when I was so close. God no please…

She couldn't see the shape but suddenly all her clothes were ripped off, even her undergarments. She was then roughly placed across a length of boarding, on her back with her arms outstretched.

She felt out of her body, seeing everything that was happening to her but hardly feeling it, her senses dulled. Only as several minutes passed did she feel the cold of the night creep across her damp skin and settle into her flesh, her bones. And when she was tied down by her wrists to the wooden beams, she felt it.

Because she was tied down not with rope, but with barbed wire.

And she felt it when the studded crown of thorns was returned to her head—and when butcher knives impaled each of her palms, pinning her further to the wood.

She tried to scream, to make any sound at all, but she couldn't. She cringed against the piercing pain of her bondage, coughing and crying silently. When she turned her head to the side and vomited violently onto the ground it made little sound. The dry heaves that followed turned into heavy shaking sobs, and even those made nary a whimper.

And then the beams were being lifted—and Charlee with them. As she went up into the air she realized just what the boards had been fashioned into: a cross.

She was being crucified.

The cross rose to its full height and rested secure in the ground. Her body hung, strained by her bonds. Warm rivers of blood flowed from her many piercings. Dark red covered most of her naked flesh. The rest was stark white.

The shape secured a stake in the ground with the rope he had hefted effortlessly by himself fastened taut to the cross. He padded the ground at the base of the cross with a shovel and then tossed it off to the side. In her shock-stricken and dazed state, Charlee watched him walk front and center of the cross, only a few feet away from her.

And he watched her. Just watched her. At times turning his head this way and that. His soulless black eyes stared at her, into her. She had to look away. She knew looking into the eyes would kill her faster.

Help me! she cried. Somebody please, please, help me!

But she had no voice. No one could hear her.

Noah, she whimpered. Noah…not like this…please…help me…oh God…God help me…I'm sorry I left, Noah…I'm so sorry…I just want to be back with you…I want to feel you…

Fighting against her sharp bonds only made the pain worse, only made more skin tear and the blood run faster and her body grow weaker. Her lungs heaved and she couldn't seem to find enough air. She slipped in and out of a waking state.

But she struggled to stay awake. She even tried to concentrate on the pain, to embrace it, to become aware of all manner of physical experience, however excruciating, for it was by that alone now that she remained part of this world, by that alone was she hanging on.

Her open arms, pinned by the nailed-in blades and the tight piercing wire, supported the burdensome weight of her slack, colorless body. The strain on her muscles was agonizing. Under the load her breaths came in short gasps, less air reaching her brain every minute. Between the pain and the shock and the loss of oxygen—her energy and very life-force draining out in steady streams of crimson—a dream-like delirium set in, threatening to break her focus and swallow her into oblivion forever.

No. Concentrate. She knew that if she blacked out this time there was no coming back. She would die. And any minute now there would be sirens. Any minute now Noah would come running to save her.

Minutes or hours passed.

In and out, in and out, in and out.

All she saw before her was the shape. Standing. Waiting patiently. Watching. Staring.

Forever staring.

And when she thought it was all over, when she thought she finally felt herself slipping away for good, an odd sentience came over her, a supreme awareness of self that was almost supernatural—

And she woke up.

The dream was gone and she felt herself coming alive, truly alive, emerging from her subconscious and wondering now that she was back in the real world how she could have ever believed such a nightmare was actually happening.

She opened her eyes and it was morning and she was back on the roof of the Collins mall. Noah was there lying next to her and stirring awake as well. He smiled and ran a hand through her hair and let her cheek rest in his palm.

Dawn broke across the sky pink and golden and warm like the promise of a sweet forever.

The police found her body that morning.

Behind Sleepy Hollow Drive, in the front yard of the old Phelan house, Charlee McCool's naked corpse hung limp from a missing scarecrow's cross.

Deep footprints were settled into the dirt a few feet in front of the cross, boot engravings of someone who had stood patiently for hours and watched her die.

A trail of footprints led police around the house and into the woods, but they went cold as the terrain got rougher. In the distance, the sun crept over the floodwall, giving light to a new day, erasing the last vestiges of night and with it, Charlee's killer, back into the darkness, home.

NINETEEN

One Year Later

October 1, 1997

Smith's Grove, Illinois

In the back of a municipal surveillance van in the south end of town, Eliza Lehman opened the Velcro flap over the small tinted window in the back door and peered out at a row of old brownstone homes.

She had been at it since daybreak. It was almost seven in the morning now, and while the sun was up, it was shrouded by a sheet of steel gray overcast. Her van was one of a few parked vehicles on the street and at this early hour the sidewalk was void of pedestrians.

But if someone did walk by or peer out a window, they would see a remarkably nondescript white van with a fictitious hazmat company's logo emblazoned across the side.

She had several van placards for surveillance jobs like this, some of them actually legit small-time companies that didn't mind the P.R. When she started out years back, she made the mistake of using big utility or cable companies as her front. But sudden knocks on the van door by people asking why their heating bill was so high or how they could score a decent premium channel package tended to disturb her work. When it came to hazardous materials, however, people remained at a distance.

She stared through the focus on her camera to make sure she got the money shot should her girl choose to leave from the house she had eyes on.

Times like this she missed Andrew. It had been some months since she fired him, and while she had always been fine on her own, she had grown accustomed to his company, especially during stakeouts. Right about now he'd be taking a sip from a big thermos of coffee and bitching that he had to take a piss. Private Investigation 101, she'd tell him, water only, and conservative sips, anything else and make sure you bring a piss bottle. Then as he'd peer out the window with a camera, he'd sing "Private Eyes" by Hall & Oats until she threatened bodily harm.

She was sure that if he was here today she would be hearing a long soliloquy about good girls gone bad, a speech that had become such a staple of Andrew's that it was the stuff of legend. The girl Eliza had her sights on this morning was Melinda Fraser. She was seventeen, pretty, and on the honor roll. She came from a nice neighborhood and a well-off family with loving parents. Yet a few weeks ago she had run away from home, fleeing her stable parents and a doting boyfriend who mentioned in passing that he and Melinda were both virgins. Eliza had followed her trail downtown and through a few bad neighborhoods. Evidently Melinda had fallen for a drug-slinging gang-banging high school dropout who had convinced her to come away with him and live a little. And in that time Melinda had been in search of good parties and good times, club beats and college boys, liquor drunks and cocaine highs, and casual sex with different men, not to mention at least one woman.

Oh, how Andrew would have loved this. I've seen it time and time again, boss, he would say, a good girl and a bad girl are one and the same. The transition is inevitable. A good girl will stand firm in her virtue against the advances of a nice guy, but let some smooth talker with danger and charisma in? Shit. Suddenly the panties drop and all innocence is lost. Then he skips town, leaving his seed but taking her virginity. Meanwhile the nice guy marries someone else and settles down and the good-girl-turned-bad is left with bitter regret, raising a child on her own. But oftentimes it's hardly ever that easy. Usually the good girl just turns worse and keeps up the same pattern in her dates. And the nice guys, well, some do settle down, that is if they can find any good girls left. Usually not. That's when the good guys lose heart and turn bad themselves, and soon we're all damaged goods, fucking and fucking over in endless cycles of jealousy and insecurity. It's science, 'Liza. Fucking human nature.

She had to smile just thinking about it. Of course she would always respond with the obligatory comment that she was a good girl who never went bad. To which Andrew would rather sweetly and with sincerity remark that she was one of a kind.

When Melinda Fraser left the brownstone some minutes later, she looked much older than the recent school photo Eliza had a copy of. She wore tight jeans and a revealing pink halter top and shivered in the cold. Her new beau followed her out a second later, leaning out the door and slipping her some cash. He was a white guy donned in a flat-brim Chicago Bulls cap, Tupac shirt, and baggy bleached jeans (oh where are you, Andrew?). Eliza snapped a few pictures.

Melinda disappeared down the sidewalk where Eliza knew she would be going to the corner store for some food and a pack of cigarettes. Sure enough a few minutes later she reappeared with a plastic bag.

By now Eliza had her routine down enough to know where Melinda would most likely be at any time of the day. It was enough to go on for the parents. She waited a few minutes after Melinda went back inside the brownstone and then started up the van in time for the hourly news on NPR.

She rode toward her side of town through districts of corporate and industrial parks, drab edifices that sprawled and loomed heavy against the gray morning sky.

Back at the office on Morgantown Road, she parked the van in her secluded garage that was affixed to the back of the strip mall, a weeded-over once-upon-a-time loading dock. It led to a basement where she kept overflow boxes and old case files, all secure behind a floor-to-ceiling chain-link fence.

But as she exited the van in the dark cellar and made her way to the staircase that led up to the office, she glanced at the gate that kept the fenced-in area secure.

It was open.

The door was slightly ajar, a chain hanging loose from two rungs in the fence and a padlock open on the floor.

She stopped.

She took a quick scan of the tight basement area behind her and then glanced around the shelves and boxes in storage. Gray light filtered in through a dirty hopper window, making for weak but sufficient illumination. The chain-link enclosure appeared to be empty of persons unknown, and beyond that it appeared nothing was tampered with.

Before she went to investigate further, Eliza went back into the van and retrieved the .38 special snub-nose revolver she kept in the glove compartment. She affixed the holster to her belt and clasped the weapon in her palm. It was her favorite gun; she liked how it fit compact and nearly hidden in her hand. She had never had cause to use any weapon on the job, even for show, but there had been times she appreciated the assurance of knowing it was there.

She spun the chamber to check for ammo—full—and tried to remember the last time she had it cleaned. In any case it seemed fine. She ducked back out of the van and closed the door. Now that she was aware of a possible intruder, the echo of the door being shut resonated unsettlingly loud in the concrete dungeon that was the basement.

With a quick glance around the space bordering the van—clear—she approached the storage area, slipping on latex gloves in the process. She fingered the open padlock, the loose chain, and the gate itself. It almost seemed as if it had never been touched, like somehow the padlock had just opened by itself and slipped to the floor, unraveling the chain with it and causing the door to become slightly ajar.

It certainly was possible. It was an older lock. Maybe she had not closed it tight enough, leaving it compromised. But any carelessness on her part was unlikely—though it very well could have been Andrew when he was still here; Eliza herself had not had reason to root through storage in quite some time.

Another thought: what if it had been Andrew but it was more recent? What would he have been doing here?

She hadn't spoken to him since the day she told him to never come back, and while there were certainly hard feelings, it was beneath Andrew to be this type of childish. If it came to it, she would give him a call. He knew how smart she was and he knew she would find out if it was him. For that reason alone was she not on the phone to the police yet.

She slowly opened the gate and made her way in to the stacks of boxes neatly arranged on old metal shelving. She walked the rows calmly, eyes scanning over the boxes all organized meticulously by months and years. Nothing was missing and nothing appeared tampered with.

She made the slightest adjustment to a dusty box labeled AUG '82—JAN '83, making it square on the shelf. It was unlike her not to place anything on the shelf perfectly square, but it was plausible that she had missed this hair of an adjustment at one point. Either that or someone who knew her very well had left this clue for her to find, if indeed there was something to this at all. Andrew?

In any event, she took the box off the shelf and placed it on the floor, careful not to disturb the dust. She opened it and rooted through old files, cases that were now nothing more than vague memories. While there was perhaps a little space left to account for a missing file, it wasn't definite. She had a near-perfect memory, but not enough to recall each of the individual files in all the old boxes.

Mulling over the names in the file she did remember, she tried to recall her life and career at that time. She would have been 31, still working for O'Dell and Pritchard, living alone as she always had in the same apartment she had today. Nothing glaring came to mind. She closed the box and placed it back square on the shelf.

She took the gun with her upstairs, keeping it snug in her grasp as she searched the entire office. There was not the slightest indication of anything out of place. To her expert OCD eye, all was as she had left it. She checked the main door, still locked. She looked through the glass, past the lettering that now read only LEHMAN INVESTIGATIONS, and into the parking lot and road beyond. Empty.

Her mind going back to the Andrew, she went over to his old desk and looked atop it and through the drawers. Nothing had changed. He had taken all he wanted back then and the rest of it was still there. Aside from removing his nameplate, she had left his remaining belongings undisturbed. She wasn't sure why.

She did a sweep of the bathroom and moved on to a tight utility hallway in the back of the office. The emergency exit door was undisturbed, a red seal still in place. In an even tighter alcove was a steep set of metal stairs. Roof access.

She slowly made her way up and unfastened the latch with a series of clicks that opened the hatch door. She trained the gun and swung the door wide. She was met with the harsh gray light of the outside. She squinted and climbed out, sweeping the expanse of roof with her weapon.

She walked carefully over the pebbled surface, gravel covering a tar paper top, all unremarkably uniform in nature, except—

A tan object poking through the gravel near the roof ledge. She approached it slowly and as she got closer, could make out its shape.

It was a file—weighed down in the pebbles against the wind. Before she even saw what was written on the tab, she thought of the box in the storage closet down in the basement, ever so slightly askew, thought how it could have fit one more file—

Here it was. And any doubt in her mind subsided when she saw the name in bold print on the tab: MYERS, MICHAEL.

Eliza breathed, did a final glance around the roof—no place to hide up here—and with her gloved latex hands, picked the file up and brushed off the loose gravel and dirt.

She opened the worn manila folder to a faded sheaf of papers.

On top: A memo from one Dr. Samuel Loomis. The letterhead: Smith's Grove Warren County Sanitarium.

She looked up and out into the town, across the miles of commercial buildings and residential homes. Not far from the Lost River, the old sanitarium sat sprawling and abandoned on a hillside off a long private driveway. It was just a dot from here.

She closed the file, rushed back downstairs, locked up and turned the alarm system on—it had never once gone off—how could anyone get—Andrew?—then climbed into her car.

It came back to her in droves as she hurried across town…

1982.

They met in the gray dawn of an early morning one cold fall day outside the Smith's Grove Sanitarium. Dr. Loomis led her inside and they navigated the maze of hallways.

To anyone who might have seen them, Eliza had to wonder how odd they must have looked together. There was Loomis, a balding old man in a trench coat, sports coat, tie, and permanent scowl, made all the worse because half of his face was covered in burn scars. And then there was Eliza, fresh and pretty and young, sharply efficient in a dark blue blazer and pencil skirt.

Loomis's office was a cramped affair off a long nondescript corridor on the third floor. The walls were lined with file cabinets, as well as book shelves with textbooks and medical and psychiatric journals. Though Eliza did not doubt the doctor had his own system, it looked so horrifically disorganized that she shifted in her chair uncomfortably.

Loomis removed his trench coat, hung it behind the door, and offered her a seat in the chair across from his desk. He poured a cup of coffee for himself in an old mug from a pot he kept atop a filing cabinet. For Eliza he poured some into a Styrofoam cup and handed it to her across the desk.

"Cream?" she asked.

"Fridge," he said, and pointed to a mini-fridge that sat atop a filing cabinet behind her.

Eliza nodded thanks, took out the small carton, smelled it first, then poured some in her cup. "Helps the ulcer."

"You drink coffee with an ulcer?"

"Shouldn't. That's why the cream. Feels good on it."

When Loomis settled in behind his desk—a stack of files covering half of it—he pulled one file out of a drawer and dropped it onto the only empty surface the desk offered. Eliza glanced at it. MYERS, MICHAEL, it read on the tab. It was thick.

"I thought you gave me all the paperwork already," she said.

"This is something extra."

"So what is it?"

"Back story."

"Back story."

Loomis said, "There's more to Michael Myers than the tabloids know about. Some things the residents of Haddonfield have tried hard to forget—and certainly worked hard to cover up. Things you should know for a proper...perspective."

"Everyone knows about the sister by now," Eliza said, "Laurie Strode. The state has long since opened the file. It's public record. And she's dead anyway."

"This is something different."

She nodded, opened her hand for him to continue.

"It's all in the file, genealogies and such, but I'll give you the long and short of it."

Eliza took a sip of her coffee. "Go ahead."

Loomis took his own sip and said, "I've traced it back to the 1600s when his mother's ancestors emigrated to the new world from Ireland."

"Michael's mother," Eliza said, "Edith Taylor."

"Correct," Loomis said. "I can only speculate, but my guess is that the Taylors came from a long line of druids back in B.C. times, and that over the centuries their pagan ways were never quite weeded out by the Christianization of the land. In any case, sometime late in the 1600s, they were chased out of Massachusetts by the Puritans. Their story, naturally, was that they left for religious freedom."

"Witchcraft," Eliza said.

Loomis opened his hands, nodded. "So they moved, like a storm heading west, and settled in the French trading land that would become Illinois. Some even intermarried with the Indians, and who knows what kind of pagan syncretism went on there. Now I don't know the details of all that was practiced back in Ireland, what deals they made with the devil centuries ago in appeasing their gods. But what I do know is that come the 1800s, Michael's great-grandfather, Nordstrom Taylor, went on a killing spree in the small, newly formed township of Haddonfield. On Halloween."

Eliza narrowed her gaze. "Why hasn't some journalist come across this yet?"

"Towns have secrets. Believe me, if I wasn't the boy's own damn doctor, I probably wouldn't have gotten this information."

"So what happened?"

"Oh, he was caught, of course. And hanged. And things were quiet. Until Halloween night 1963. The night little Michael Myers, only six years old, stabbed his seventeen-year-old sister Judith to death."

Almost theatrically he tossed a photograph across the desk of little Michael at the Haddonfield police station shortly after the murder. He was a handsome little boy with blonde hair and rosy cheeks and a blank, thousand-yard stare. He stood stiffly in a baggy clown suit—his Halloween costume—drenched in his sister's blood.

Eliza glanced at the photo and let everything run across her mind for a moment. "What about Donald Myers? Michael's father. The lineage on that side."

"The Myers name, Irish also. But hardly with the insidious past. Nothing of note. But...when it comes to Michael's father the individual..."

"What."

"You're aware that the night Michael killed Judith, she had had sexual relations with a gentleman just prior."

"Yes. Alan Becker. They went to school together."

"Yes, well, Mr. Becker was one of many suitors, shall we say, that made his way into Judy's bed."

"Okay."

"Well, it wasn't long after her murder that whispers started coming out around town of her promiscuity. Small town mourning gave rise to small town gossip. Many young men came forward to admit having relations with her. It was no short list."

"How do you know all of this?"

"I did a fair amount of field work in Haddonfield those first few years I had Michael as a patient. Trying to reach him, to learn him."

"What else. You mentioned her father."

"I have evidence that for years he had been raping Judith."

Eliza kept her gaze steady. Loomis paused to down some more coffee.

He said, "He also forced her to have several abortions. None of this was ever on paper, of course, at any clinic in or around Haddonfield. But you ask questions to the right people—especially when they find out who I am—you get answers. Naturally, a man of my profession has studied child sexual abuse, so I could put two and two together between the father's molestations and his daughter's precocious sexual behavior."

"Where does Michael come into play?"

"His and Judith's bedrooms were connected by a doorway. He could hear the sounds, some nights even get a peek through a sliver in the door at what was happening."

"But it can't be known for certain that he knew. You said yourself he never spoke, not once."

"And I didn't know. Until I received this..." Loomis opened the file and took out several sheets on top held together by a clip. It was a copy of a handwritten letter.

"A letter from Edith, Michael's mother," Loomis said. "It arrived at my office the day after her death in 1965. She had planned it that way."

"Planned it that way? But her death was—"

"An accident? No. That's how she made it look. She writes that she had found out what was going on with her husband and her daughter…and had done nothing. And some nights she even saw Michael, transfixed before the adjoining bedroom door, staring at what was taking place. She even mentions that the date night she was on that Halloween night in 1963 was to finally confront her husband about it. And what drove her to talk to him about it that night was what had happened the night before. Once again she had caught Michael staring at his sister and father making love, and that she even caught a glimpse of it herself. She said that what really got to her then, more than the other nights, was that this night it looked like actual lovemaking. Judith wasn't crying…she was moaning tenderly, reciprocating his caresses…and if not exactly enjoying it, making the best out of it…if you can put it that way."

Loomis took a breather, sighed and rubbed his goatee. Eliza retained her calm cool but on the inside felt sick.

"Anyway," Loomis said. "Edith felt responsible for her daughter's death for the next two years, convinced something had gone off in Michael from all he had seen, something that led him to murder his sister. I wish I had gotten the chance to explain to her that Michael's evil was something far deeper than this. That there were a number of factors beyond our mortal understanding that had gone into the corruption of his soul.

"Nevertheless, she could no longer live with the shame and the guilt for her years of silence. And it was her baby girl that finally did it. Cynthia. The little child that would one day become Laurie Strode. Of course I didn't know who the sister had been adopted by until the night Michael returned, but she was only two years old when Judith was killed. Edith says she stared at Cynthia one night and knew that she could not face another repeat of Judith.

"So one snowy winter day, her husband in the passenger seat of the family car, she drove a little too fast over the Haddonfield bridge and"—Loomis made quotations—"'lost control'. Car went sailing a few hundred feet down, crashed right through the ice into the Lost River, sank beneath the black waters.

"It was this accident that allowed Cynthia Myers to become reborn as Laurie Strode, get adopted into a loving family and never be the wiser. Although I'm sure she had memories. Had questions she could never ask. Questions that became particularly relevant when her brother escaped in 1978. And went looking for her."

Eliza gazed out the gridiron sanitarium window, the only solace to the room's tight confines. But outside, the white sheet of overcast did little to help. Her face remained impassive, even as she said, "Jesus Christ."

Loomis returned the letter to the folder and moved the whole file closer to Eliza. She looked back at him.

Loomis said, "You're the only one besides me to ever see the letter. And I'd appreciate your utmost discretion."

Eliza nodded. "'Course."

Loomis leaned back in his chair, drank some coffee. Eliza took more sips herself. Eventually she said, "Why now?"

Loomis turned in his swivel chair and looked out into the empty gray morning. "You believe in God, Detective?"

Eliza pondered it for a moment. It had never been a question she gave much thought. "I don't know," she said. "I don't like things I can't see for myself, that I can't measure or make sense out of."

Loomis nodded. He said, "At one time I was a rigid atheist. I was young, I had fancy degrees, I thought I was smarter than everyone. So one day I get into this argument with a priest. And I said, 'Look, how can I be a credible, sensible psychiatrist in the medical community and believe in nonsense like demons and evil spirits?' You know, something that's not testable, not empirical. And so this priest, he just looks at me and he asks me, 'How can you be a psychiatrist and not believe in demons and evil spirits?'" Loomis shrugged, eyes glazed over in memory. "Well, it wasn't long down the road when I had Michael Myers as a patient. And that was when I saw proof. Pure evil before my very eyes. Disguised in the form of an angelic little boy."

"That's some nice fancy talk," Eliza said, "but I'm talking about here, now. Why."

Loomis stared at her long enough for Eliza to feel uncomfortable. He said, "I need you to understand exactly what you're dealing with, Detective. Every facet is important. You may not believe me, you may think I'm crazy like everyone else, but I implore you to think otherwise. By understanding what happened in Michael's family, in his own past and his ancestors' past, well, we can look at the whole picture in perspective. And in future cases when he kills again—and he will kill again—all this material may become very important."

Eliza just stared at him, kept holding his gaze.

"I may be a crazy old man," Loomis said, "but I'm right."

Now, some fifteen years later, Eliza stood outside Smith's Grove Sanitarium again.

The place had closed down many years back, something about budget cuts. The state hadn't figured out what to do with it yet, though Eliza had heard rumors in recent years about several possibilities: a casino-hotel, another shopping mall, luxury condominiums.

Back when its closure seemed imminent, petitioners complained about sex offenders let loose into the public, about their children in mortal danger, about prison overcrowding and increased recidivism rates. But the sanitarium closed its doors and the county jail took on the overflow, the same money politicians had refused to pour into the mental health budget now being spent on expanding the jail. Tough on crime rhetoric trumped rehabilitative efforts and the result was a steadily increasing crime rate.

Today Eliza had driven up its long and old and bumpy driveway, weeds sprouting through the cracks in the asphalt and tall grass tangled in the warped old fence that lined the perimeter. At the gate, she stood outside her car and reviewed everything in the old file. She didn't know what all this meant, finding the file like she did, and briefly entertained ideas both far-fetched and ludicrous.

Right now she had to go back to the office. She wasn't sure what had driven her out here. She had never been one for nostalgia or sentiment.

She had case notes to log, reports to write, calls to make. In the storage closet downstairs, she would take pictures and dust for prints with her own kit. She'd keep the police out of it, whether it was Andrew or otherwise.

But she was strangely compelled, almost as if some force was tugging at her. And before she knew it she had ducked through an opening in the gate and was making her way up to the derelict edifice that in its worn state loomed large and terrible and gothic, like a clinical house of horrors.

The lock on the front door was easy for a woman of her profession to manipulate. A sign forbidding entry warned also about the dangers of toxic mold and asbestos. Eliza kept a surgical mask in her jacket pocket for such occasions. She put it on and slipped into new latex gloves and made her way in.

Every so often cops found kids sneaking around the old corridors here, or even squatters making a home in the winter. Years back a couple of dope fiends started a small fire when they tried to smuggle out old copper piping.

Eliza walked briskly through the halls and stairwells to Dr. Loomis's old office. While she didn't have an eidetic memory, it was still pretty damn good, and she recalled distinctly the same route she had followed fifteen years ago. The revolver was snug reassuringly on her belt.

She navigated the corridors efficiently and carefully. Peeling walls were peppered with occasional graffiti, doors sagged or were missing completely, floor tiles were loose or uprooted, and some patches of hallway were altogether missing or unstable.

The door to Loomis's office was among the missing. Walking in, she found it to be utterly vacant outside of a desk, not nearly as cramped as it once was. Faint outlines on the wall were all that was left to suggest the former presence of bookshelves and filing cabinets and degree frames.

On the desk: a piece of paper. New. Folded.

Written on the outside of the paper:

DETECTIVE

Inside the paper:

616

From Loomis's notes, Eliza remembered it as Michael Myers's room number from his days here.

"Jesus," she whispered, wondering how the hell…

With that she was up the stairs and on her way to Ward C, following the faded signs that were posted through the old hallways. Room 616 was one of many down an incredibly long corridor. The faded numbers were on a slightly ajar door that Eliza pushed aside with her weapon drawn. A quick sweep of the room showed it to be completely empty. A large sanitarium window poured in the day's gray light.

A lone piece of paper on the floor. Yellowed. She walked over slowly and picked it up. Blank. On the other side: a faded memo, written in the typescript.

PATIENT: GANNON, CELIA ROSE (SUMMER PROGRAM)

D.O.B.: 10/15/42

ROOM: 616

ADMISSION: 06/29/57

SCHEDULED DATE OF RELEASE: 09/01/57

SUPERVISING PSYCHIATRISTS: CHANCE, MATTHEW

ROGERS, BARTHOLOMEW

DIAGNOSIS (TENTATIVE): BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

PARANOID DELUSIONAL DISORDER

NOTES: Exhibits manipulative and hypersexual behaviors;

Self-destructive and impulsive tendencies;

Has exhibited both paranoid and schizoid behaviors;

FULL ADMITTANCE IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR CONTINUED

TREATMENT—ACCURATE DIAGNOSIS CONTINGENT UPON

EXTENDED OBSERVATION

Eliza frowned. Who the hell was Celia Gannon, other than being a patient who happened to stay in Michael Myers's sanitarium room years before he was admitted? All this felt like a wild goose chase and she had gotten duck. Unless this twisted scavenger hunt was not yet over. She could still look into this further.

For now she pocketed the memo and left.

She went back to her office, did her CSI bit around the gate in the basement which proved futile, and then ran a brief computer search for Celia Rose Gannon that came up nil. She didn't exist. Eliza guessed alias.

She leaned back in her chair and decided to take her mind off it all for now. She left, grabbed a café salad for some lunch, came back, and dove into more pressing work. After calling Melinda Fraser's parents, she finished a typescript of her logged hours for the case, topped it off with a complete report, and dropped it in the outgoing mail. Then she lost herself in some company ledgers a manager had asked her to audit. By the end of the day she had marked all the discrepancies and knew exactly which employee was embezzling. She typed up and faxed the official report, then made the phone call. She was out at five.

She stopped by the range at the sports club, practiced with her .38. All shots hit the same exact point at dead center mass except one just a centimeter off. She fingered the errant hole after she brought the target back up. She frowned. Clumsy. So she shot again and got it perfect.

She brought some work—including the old Myers file and the Gannon memo—home, and did all the things that helped her think. She cleaned and ate and cleaned again and showered and then proceeded to put a 1000-piece puzzle together in less than an hour. A cornfield at dusk.

All this felt just too damn weird for Andrew. Too damn subtle. And he was anything but. Before she called him, she'd wait and do some more work of her own.

The Gannon memo alongside the keyboard on her home computer, Eliza ran a search for the psychiatrists and their whereabouts. An obituary for Dr. Bartholomew Rogers, former chief administrator of Smith's Grove Sanitarium, explained that he had succumbed to cancer in 1991. But Dr. Matthew Chance was alive and still living in Warren County.

Eliza leaned back, stared at the computer, then turned in her swivel chair and gazed out her large apartment window into lonely night, past the city lights and countryside to the clouds that shrouded the moon and stars, the expanse of night sky bathed in a ghostly silver light, bringing alive the ghosts that walked the land below.

TWENTY

Waverly, Iowa

Sofia saw the tall dark shape standing on the sidewalk a few houses down. He was half-hidden behind a hedge in someone's yard.

"Hey, look," she said, nudging Brittany who walked alongside her, rooting through her book bag.

"What?" Her friend looked up.

By that time the shape was gone.

"You missed him," Sofia said. "I saw this guy watching us, up behind the bush."

"One of the many guys after you?"

"Hush."

The girls eventually reached the hedge and looked behind it. There was no one there.

"Could have sworn I saw someone," Sofia said. She kept looking behind her as they continued walking.

"You've screwed so many guys," Brittany said, "now you're seeing them behind bushes."

"He was right there. And fuck you, Brittany."

"Poor Sofia."

"I've only slept with…"

"See, you can't even think of the number off the top of your head!"

"Shut up, no, it's…six. Six guys. There, you happy? That's not so bad." She didn't add all the guys she'd done other stuff with, stuff like oral and fingering.

The two friends laughed as they walked the last few blocks to their college campus.

Sofia Sutherland was a freshman at Bremer County Community College. She was tall, slender, and lithe—in her own right a beautiful young woman. She was model thin, short in the bust and long in the legs, legs that always ended in a pair of sensible heels. She had brown eyes that matched long brown hair that often fell teasingly across her face, a doll's face.

She had grown up in Waverly and hadn't managed to escape yet, as her grades had not been able to get her into anything beyond the local community college.

Waverly was small-town USA. Had more Lutheran churches than people and more cows than both. The race demographics: white. The only black person Sofia ever got to really know was walking beside her now. Brittany Ward had moved from Cedar Rapids with her family just that past summer. When they met, Brittany overheard Sofia making a comment about how white she sounded for a black girl and how she was expecting someone more ghetto. Brittany pulled her aside and told her if she wanted ghetto, here it was you ignorant white-ass Midwest beauty-queen coke-whore looking bitch, all this corn around can't even get corn-fed you skinny triflin' skank. I don't need this shit—forgive my cussing, Jesus. But I tell you, it's really something. White people never really accept me because I'm black, and then a lot of my own kind won't accept me because to them I act too white. Just take me as I am. This is me.

So Sofia smiled. She apologized. She said I like you. They were best friends by the end of orientation.

They walked the pathways of the college now, tracing the sidewalks through grass so green it hurt the eyes on a sunny day. Everywhere bustled with students going to class.

Sofia returned to the topic they had been discussing before she had noticed the man behind the hedge.

"Anyhow," she said, "you're telling me that sex is always better than food?"

"I sure am," Brittany said.

"First of all, virgin, how can you say something is better that you've never even done before?"

"Because. They're inherently different."

"Inherently different because food is far better."

"Now how can you say that? Making love is something precious and sacred. You're sharing this fundamentally divine experience with someone, connecting your hearts, your souls—"

"The fuck are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about making love."

"See, that's your first problem. It's not 'making love.' It's sex. Just sex."

"And that's your first problem. You've desensitized yourself because you've taken it for granted."

"Is that, like, code for you calling me a whore again?"

"I'm saying you don't see it as what it should be—a spiritual experience, the ultimate expression of love."

"Love, huh?"

"Yeah, love."

"Sex. Fucking. Boning."

"No, no, making love. I'm serious, girl. I mean you know—you know—I like to eat. But I can tell you that it doesn't come close to sex."

"Let me tell you the main reasons why food is better. First, food always gets me off. I cook it right and it hits the spot. Guys can be hit and miss, literally. Second, food never lets you down. Food is always there for you. But guys? Guys will always let you down. They're never there for you when you need them. Food is."

"Mm-hmm, little Miss Twig over here, can eat a damn horse and lose weight. Talking about food is always there."

"I'd eat a tofu horse."

"And that's the worst part. That you're vegetarian and eat nothing but nasty and still think food is better. Plus, I don't want to hear it. You eat anything you want, you're just fine. I have one milkshake, it goes right here to this behind." Brittany jutted out her large butt. She was a bit of a heavy girl, a lot of it concentrated in her posterior.

Sofia slapped that ass hard and laughed as Brittany gasped.

"Okay," Brittany said, "so then explain this to me, Sof. Why do you even have sex then?"

Sofia shrugged. "It feels good."

"Just not as good as food?"

"Nope."

"You don't feel that, that euphoria, that bliss of connecting with someone you're so in love with? When you want nothing more than to light some candles and make love all night long?"

"Girl, I got no time for lighting candles. And definitely no time for any making love all night long. You've been listening to too much R&B."

"R&B? What's the matter with you? Always gotta be racial. I'm the token black person in town so I gotta be listening to R&B, huh?"

"No, no, I just—"

Brittany laughed. "You're too easy. In many ways, apparently."

Sofia nudged her. "No, I'm serious. That much sex hurts, trust me. I can't have sex more than once a day, and most of the time it's a few days apart before I can even get remotely horny again. Trust me, after the first few times you've had sex, it gets tedious. It's like a chore you do just to keep your man happy. You'll see what I mean, mark my words."

"You just need to find the right man. And before it's too late."

"Maybe I need the right woman. Maybe you, Brit." She slapped her ass again.

"You need Jesus!" Brittany slapped Sofia's behind back. "Nothing but bone in that behind, girl. Can't even call it a booty 'cause there ain't no treasure. What you see is what you get. Ain't hardly got no titties either."

She playfully fondled Sofia's chest, her small boobs underneath an AA push-up bra. Sofia grabbed at Brittany's rather large breasts and groped them. "You want to practice on me, Brit?" she said. She grabbed her and wrapped a leg around her waist, started humping her and making high-pitched moans. "Oh God, Brittany, yes! Unh! Unh! Right there! Don't stop!"

"Get off me!" Brittany laughed as she pushed Sofia away.

A wide-eyed stoner type with a slap-happy grin gawked at the girls from a nearby sidewalk. "Dude!"

"Nothing to see here!" Brittany yelled. She looked at a still chuckling Sofia and shook her head. "Anyway you perv, I'm over here." She nodded over to the building she had class in. "Meet me after, we'll have lunch with Emma."

"Yep, see ya." Sofia walked on past the Social Sciences building to the English building where her own class was.

Despite her own beliefs about food being the ultimate high, Sofia did have to admit a bit of a horny itch then. She had broken up with her last boyfriend, Ethan, just before she started college. He had gotten real clingy and possessive, not to mention insanely jealous when she confessed to him how she got drunk on a family vacation and ended up having oral sex with one of her cousin's guy friends. She had done the honest thing and told him, but she should have kept her mouth shut.

It was fine. She was good at being single. Shit, she was made to be single. She walked the halls of this college like she owned the bitch, put her swagger on (as Brittany put it), and made guys turn their heads. As always, she'd smile back at them like, yeah, you wish you could have this—all the while making note of the hot ones with potential. If she did the guy thing again, there'd be no thoughts of getting into a relationship. Her ideal guy was someone who could fuck good, make her a drink right after, and then leave. Ethan had been more of a girl than she was, wanting to cuddle and shit after they fucked. Sometimes it was nice but most times it drove her up the wall. When it came to him she blamed only herself. He was a virgin before she corrupted him, turned him into one of those little fru fru dogs who wouldn't stop humping your leg.

She put exes off the mind and went to her first class of the day, ENG 103: The Short Story, hoping there hadn't been any homework. She checked the syllabus when she found a seat in the back next to the window. There was nothing due, just a few readings she had not done. She hated this class. It was a general education requirement and she just wanted it out of the way.

Professor Hall was a cranky old bitch who needed to get laid. And she was boring as hell. Today she went on about some bullshit for a half-hour or so and lulled Sofia back into the sleep she had hated to leave behind in her bed this morning. She gazed out the window as her eyes grew heavy, deciding she'd get some coffee with lunch. She saw students walking to class holding books and bags, couples holding hands, and a few student organizations setting up tables before the stairs that led down to the front of the campus center. She saw the bright green grass and the sun reflecting off the windows of the school buildings and quite possibly one of the last blue skies Iowa would see for awhile. To the side of a large courtyard, in the shadows where no one else was, she saw a tall man standing half-hidden behind one of the trees, sort of like the shape who had been behind the hedge earlier, maybe—

"Ms. Sutherland."

Sofia jerked at the sound of her name. Professor Hall's toad-like old face was staring her down.

"Yes."

"The question, Ms. Sutherland…"

"Um…" She tried to remember what the question was, if she had heard it amidst her dazing. She looked down at her paper, at where she had stopped taking notes. They had been talking about a short story called "The Lottery." She hadn't read or even skimmed it before class. All she knew was that it was about some town who selected someone to be stoned to death every so often through a lottery process. "I'm sorry, what was the question?"

Professor Hall sighed. "The question, Ms. Sutherland, was why do the townspeople in the story feel they need to perform this stoning ritual?"

"Um, well, I, uh…I think maybe it's just…it's always something they've done, so they figure, you know, why stop?"

A couple kids laughed.

"Not quite." Professor Hall could obviously smell the bullshit. "Why do they feel they need to kill one of their own people in the first place?" She called on someone else, a prissy little blonde in the front row. "Yes, Ms. Kaufman, enlighten us."

Sofia looked out the window to see if the man was still there. He wasn't. There was just trees and shadow, nothing else. Meanwhile the squeaky Kaufman girl answered: "The townspeople feel they need to perform a sacrifice, an offering that would be pleasing to the gods to ensure they reap a good crop for the coming season. A bountiful harvest."

"That's exactly right, Ms. Kaufman…" And she went on.

Sofia didn't pay any more attention.

After class she met back up with Brittany and their friend Emma Mackley at the picnic tables outside campus center. She used a meal swipe to get a veggie burger, a whole wheat pasta salad, and a coffee with fat free half-and-half.

"Look at you," Brittany said, nodding to Sofia's plate. "That's disgusting. Man is meant to be a carnivore." She chomped down on a real burger, followed it with some fries lathered in ketchup.

"Maybe man was," Sofia said. "But not wo-man. And not this woman who's in that modeling contest my job is offering. It could be my in. But this is terrible," —she held up the piece of lettuce on the burger— "you see this? Iceberg lettuce."

"What's wrong with that? Lettuce is good for you."

"Not Iceberg. It's not bad for you, there's just no nutrients. It's only water. I need Romaine lettuce. That has all the nutrients. The greener the leaf, the better."

Emma smiled at Brittany and jerked a thumb to Sofia. Emma said, "Well, if that's what it takes, Sofia. I mean I wish I was as skinny as you are."

"Says Twig One to Twig Two," Brittany said. "Thanks a lot, guys."

Emma and Sofia laughed. Emma was a sophomore, Sofia and Brittany's orientation leader before college. She was a tall dirty blonde and sickly pretty. She had the kind of nice medium-sized boobs Sofia wished she had, and legs that were long and not as scrawny as hers, plus some nice curves that made for a killer figure. She might have felt threatened but for Emma's bad life choices and lack of intelligence. Emma was consistently drunk, sluttier than Sofia could ever think to be, and had grades so bad she had just barely missed being put on academic probation. Plus Sofia was clearly more fashion-forward than Emma, who in her perpetually hungover state never seemed to leave the house in anything other than pajamas or comfy clothes. Today she wore a pink sweat suit and her hair was a mess. Still she was one of those lucky girls who looked good like that. Sofia on the other hand had her hair perfectly straightened, wore a hot ruffled halter top under a black shrug, and rocked some tight-ass ripped jeans.

"I gotta watch out," Sofia said. "I got all my exercise in high school with cheerleading, but I've been slacking lately since this place doesn't have anything like that. Least I can do is eat right."

"You're already skin and bones," Emma said. "When you turn to the side you disappear."

"We can't all have your perfect curvaceous figure, Em."

"I guess that's true."

"I'm right here, guys," Brittany said.

Sofia laughed.

Emma said, "So you guys coming to Mooner's tonight or what?"

"I thought tonight's our show night," Brittany said.

"That's tomorrow," Sofia said. "Beverly Hills 90210 at eight, Party of Five at nine."

"Yeah, and there's specials tonight at Mooner's," Emma said.

"There's always specials," Brittany said.

"Dollar shots, three dollar pitchers. Come on, you guys going out or what? We gotta beat the crowd, get there early."

"I don't know," Sofia said. "I got work two to ten, I'll be exhausted."

"Come and unwind. What better way?"

"Peer pressure, Sofia," Brittany said. "Resist." And to Emma: "Unlike you, Sofia's paying her way through college. She don't need to be wasting her money on your foolishness."

"Hey, you're coming too, Miss Thing," Emma told Brittany. "You know you have fun with us."

"Yeah, well, maybe, sometimes. I'll go if Sofia goes, and she's not going because she has work."

Sofia said, "No, it's all right. I'll go when I get out at ten."

"What! Damn!"

Emma laughed. "It's settled, then. Can't party it up and get my drink on without my girls."

"You did just fine before us," Brittany said.

"It'll be great," Emma said. "Round of shots on me."

"I'll have water," Brittany said.

"What're you, Amish or some shit?" Emma said. "Water. Have some fun. One drink. Fruitiest thing on the bar. My treat."

"All right, sure. That's all I wanted, you to say you were paying."

Emma nudged her with a laugh.

"You also need to get a guy sometime soon, Sofia," Emma said. "I know Brittany here won't go up to no guy 'less he's in her church or some shit—"

"You're hilarious," Brittany said.

Emma continued: "But I'm out on my own here. You're over Ethan, right?"

"Yeah."

"And he was hot too. And could fuck, right?"

"He was pretty good. But he would always stare at me while we were having sex. And then he would keep staring at me after sex. He'd want us to stay in bed all day, just staring at each other for hours. He called it basking. He'd say, 'Baby, let's bask in our love.' Yeah, okay. I got shit to do. He was always trying to make sex into something it wasn't. It was all flowery and lovey dovey to him and it was exhausting. Like, get your fucking man-vagina together. I'd want to put a bag over his head for all the staring. And the talking too. Oh God. He loved to talk during sex: 'Baby, you're so beautiful, I love you,' all that. It sounds sweet, but it got on my nerves so much. Sex is no time for talk. The occasional call-out in the throes of passion, fine, but keep it limited. Oh, oh, and he'd always make this 'I'm-gonna-cry' face before he got off. It was so annoying!" She laughed, making an impression of a scrunched up face contorted with pleasure. "Oh baby, oh baby, I love you, oh, oh!"

Emma laughed.

"All I'm saying," Sofia said, "is I want more of a guy's guy. Who'll fuck me and leave me alone. At least until I want a relationship. Just not now."

Brittany pointed to Sofia and told Emma, "Don't get me started on this one over here."

"Hey," Emma said. "Guys have been doing it to us for years. I salute you, Sofia. It's time to move on. You know what they say about getting over a guy."

"Yeah. I don't know, maybe. I'll come out, see how it goes."

"Y'all bitches are both the same," Brittany said, "You're gonna waste all your good years chasing after the wrong guys when good guys like Ethan are right in front of you."

"I just want to have fun now," Sofia said.

"Yeah," Emma said. "Enjoy these college years. Party it up!" A singsong lilt in her voice.

"Well, all I'm saying," Brittany said, "is you both might gonna regret this someday. Throwing your youth away on all these bad boys ain't worth nothin' but a big dick. Then come mid-life crisis, you'll be looking around all alone wondering what happened and why there aren't any good guys left."

"Well," Sofia said, "that's when I'll settle down and decide to be with a good guy."

"Me too," Emma said.

"It'll be too late by then," Brittany said. "They'll all be married. To girls like me." She polished her chest with her fist.

Emma nudged Brittany again. "Oh shut up. I like a nice guy every now and then."

"You'll fuck anything that walks," Sofia said.

"I resent that."

"I'm not like Brittany over here, but at least I got limits."

"Nice guys are sweet," Emma said. "They just usually have small penises."

Brittany shook her head. "That's what I mean, you hear this? That attitude. Both y'all, you get into your forties, your pussy so worn out by bad boy dick, if any nice guy comes along you gonna be like, oh shit, I don't feel anything." She started thrusting her pelvis forward many times. "Are you in yet? Are you in yet?"

Emma and Sofia rolled over in laughter.

"And yet I," Brittany went on, "who does it right and waits 'til I get married, won't know the difference and will be loving me some nice guy dick. A guy who cares about me, loves me, takes care of me, is considerate, attentive."

"Good luck with that," Emma said.

"Yeah," Sofia said. "If you take a look around, there aren't many nice guys for the picking in the first place."

"They're there," Brittany said. "Girls like you two are just too wrapped up in yourselves to notice."

"Well, you have fun with them," Sofia said. "You'll be using those toys we got you, remember?"

"Y'all go straight to hell."

Sofia was referring to the time the three of them all went to a porn shop in Waterloo and Emma and Sofia bought Brittany a vibrator and clitoral stimulator. Brittany swore she hadn't touched them but they noticed a glow on her the next morning that seemed to prove different.

Brittany went on: "You'll see. I'll be calling you girls on my wedding night and telling you both about my amazing sex that trumps anything you two ever had."

"Please," Sofia said. "First times are never good. I remember, it hurt so bad. And my boyfriend was only in me for like twenty seconds before…poof!"

"Ugh, gross."

"Yeah, gross. Think about that, that's your first time."

"She's right," Emma said. "You got to get an experienced guy your first time. They last longer, teach you things. Then you become the teacher." She bit her bottom lip seductively.

Sofia balled up the wrappers and napkins from her lunch. "Well, hey, I gotta head to my next class and then go to work. Call me tonight, guys, about your plans, all right?"

"Will do," Emma said.

"See ya, girl," Brittany said.

"Behave," Sofia told the both of them with a laugh, and she was up from the picnic table with her books.

She counted down the minutes in her business class later. She was going for a two-year degree in business, hoped it was something general enough to get her foot in some doors out in the real world. Her parents wanted her to transfer to a four-year college when she was done so she could get a degree worth something, but Sofia was tired of school. She wanted to earn enough money to move away—New York, she was thinking—and get discovered by a reputable modeling agency, maybe become a paid intern at a fashion magazine, get her career rolling.

She had been hot shit in high school. Popular. Cheerleader. Boyfriends. College was different. It was bigger, easier to get lost in, easier to blend in with all the other losers who had it made in small town schools K-12 but then crashed against the cold hard wall of the real world after graduation.

She missed cheerleading. People noticed her and it kept her in shape, two things she needed for a modeling career. Modeling had been a dream of hers since she was little, a dream she never gave up on even when people like her parents told her to have a realistic back-up plan.

More than school, she was focused on making money. She worked two jobs because she wanted out of this godforsaken town and eventually a boob job—nothing big but something fuller than the pitiful pimple-looking things she had now.

She walked home after class. Her parents weren't there yet. She dressed in an Abercrombie and Fitch outfit for work, a 2-6 shift. After that she'd head down to Ooh-La-La in Waterloo where she moonlit as a stripper, work a 6:30-10:30. Brittany was the only person who knew about her job there. To everyone else she claimed she pulled long shifts at Abercrombie. Brittany was her best friend; she didn't judge.

She packed a bag with a pair of higher heels and some risqué clothes she kept hidden under the bed along with her stash of tips. She called and left messages with Brit and Em to solidify plans for that night. She added a clubbing outfit to her bag for Mooner's later that night.

On her way out to the car her parents had gotten her for her eighteenth birthday—given she took on the responsibility of the gas and insurance—she grabbed the phone that started ringing.

Bad choice. Ethan. Her ex.

"Sofia, baby, hey. I was hoping I'd get you."

"Ethan. You know you shouldn't call me that anymore."

"Sorry, baby. I mean…well, old habits, you know?"

"I guess. So, uh…what's up?"

"Well, I just, I just felt like calling. Maybe see if you wanted to go out sometime."

"I don't know, Ethan."

"Just as friends."

It would never be just as friends with Ethan. He'd always want more. Going out with him meant they'd probably end up sleeping together again and he'd take it as a sign of getting back together. She already made that mistake once by giving him a pity fuck shortly after they broke up.

"I just don't think it's a good idea," she said. "Not right now at least."

"Yeah, you're probably right. It's just…what happened, you know? Remember when we were good? I know we had our problems, but…"

"We're just two different people, Ethan. We had fun, but we're not meant to be together."

"What if I think we are?"

"You're really sweet, Ethan. And you're going to find someone. A nice girl. A good girl you deserve."

"But I only want you."

"Ethan…"

"I love you, Sofia."

"You don't."

"I do. I've never felt this way before. I think about you all the time. I can't stop thinking about you. I'm crazy in love with you."

"You just think that because I'm the only girl you've slept with."

"You're wrong."

"Trust me. Sex does things to you."

"I just…I want another chance. I don't feel like we ever…finished."

"Ethan, I gotta go to work. Maybe we'll talk about going out eventually. As friends. But right now I can't have this conversation."

"Okay."

"Take care of yourself."

"I'll wait for you."

"No! Don't—" She put her palm against her forehead. "Please. Don't wait on me. Live your life, Ethan. Fuck a lot of girls. Or find one who wants the same things you do."

Ethan sighed. He said nothing.

"But I gotta go," Sofia said. "Bye, Ethan."

She hung up before he could say anything more.

Before getting into her red Camry in the garage, she noticed the trunk slightly open. She edged toward it slowly, swung it completely open. Looked in.

There was nothing but the compartment for the spare tire and a scattering of blankets covering up most of the back. She wasn't sure what else was buried underneath all that.

She closed the trunk tight and got in the car. She opened the garage door, backed out into the driveway, shifted into drive, and was gone. It was a ten-minute drive south, a highway ramp pouring right out into the shopping mall.

She worked her shift out on the floor: selling, folding, and putting back clothes, drowning in the stench of cologne that was sprayed into the air vents each night after closing. There was a soundtrack of loud thumping music—Top 40 remixes. The selections grew old fast and were the reason she listened to little else than quiet indie music anymore.

She found a letter in her locker that told of locations where fashion photographers would be in the following weeks for the modeling contest A&E was offering its employees.

After her shift she drove further south to downtown Waterloo, parking on a side street next to a brick building with no windows and a sign outside that read, Ooh-La-La, A Gentlemen's Establishment.

She entered through the back and into the dressing room with the other girls, everyone either getting dressed or undressed in front of light-bulb-studded mirrors. She knew only some of the girls here personally. None were her friends. The competition was real for top-dollar clients, and Sofia knew she was already resented because she was younger, prettier, and skinnier than most of the washed-out bitches here.

When it was her turn, she went out in a bra and some panties and a button-down shirt, the top buttons playfully undone. This was one of her popular acts. She'd tease for a little bit down the bar, slowly unbuttoning more, and then when the shirt came off she'd work that rotating pole, building to the climax when she'd slip out of her bra, all to a list of songs she had given the DJ, a few current jams for the younger crowd and some oldies-but-goodies for the older clientele. They had the real money. She wasn't big on the private dances but every now and then a few offered her enough money as a nice incentive. As long as they let her do her own thing, a lap-dance with no touching on their part, it went fine and she could make a hundred dollars or so extra some nights.

It was a topless bar, no full-frontal. She knew of some places that paid good money for all-out nudity but she was only comfortable showing so much skin. Originally she wasn't even sure she had the boobs for stripping, having such a flat chest, but somehow a lot of men still fawned over them. A co-worker told her there was actually a big market of clients who loved tiny boobs because their fetish was pre-pubescent girls. Sofia with her baby face and small chest provided that fantasy—more than once she had done theme shows, done up with pigtails and playing her tongue over a big lollipop.

She walked out that night with a hundred and fifty bucks. Not bad for four hours and pretty good for a weekday.

She was exhausted when she finally sat down in the car. Her stomach growled—at least she could order something at the bar. She slipped her aching feet out of her death heels and rubbed them. Nothing like a foot rub. Another thing better than sex.

She changed into her clubbing outfit and some smaller heels and drove the half-hour back to Waverly. She pulled into the bar's packed parking lot, checked her hair in the rearview mirror, and got out, strutting her stuff on the way. Had to make an entrance.

Mooner's wasn't far from BC3 and was your typical college bar, kind where the bouncers pretty much know you chalked your ID and aren't 21 yet but are cool enough to look the other way.

Inside, the music was loud and pounding and not too different from Abercrombie. Sofia shouldered her way through the heaving crowd of people, most in their late teens, early twenties. Her friends were at the bar. Brittany smiled. Emma shrieked: "The third musketeer, baby!" She hugged Sofia as they all came together.

"You guys been here long?"

"No," Emma said. "I just barely got this one to come out a little while ago." Brittany made a face.

"You gonna do shots with us?" Emma asked. "We were waiting on you."

"No, she is not," Brittany said.

"I don't know," Sofia said. "I'm already pretty tired. I don't think I want to drink too much."

Emma ordered three shots anyway. "Come on. You guys are dressed up and fabulous." She took her shot down without so much as a flinch.

"Yeah," Brittany said. "All dressed up and no one to blow, right Em?"

"Ha, ha. No one to blow yet."

"No guys have hit on Emma yet," Brittany told Sofia.

"Hey, the night's young," Emma said. "But look around."

"Yeah, those cretins look real promising." Brittany jerked her head to a group of beefy guys who egged their friend on loudly to keep taking shot after shot.

"Come on, you fucking pussy!" one guy yelled.

"Quit being a fag," another said.

Their red-faced friend kept on in spite of the insults.

Sofia laughed. "They're Emma's type."

"She's not paying attention," Brittany said as Emma disappeared into the crowd holding a colorful drink.

Brittany ignored her shot and ordered a hard iced tea. Sofia took her shot and ordered a rum and coke, telling herself that it would be her last drink for the night. She had to drive home. Hell, if she didn't love to party so much, she'd quit drinking in general for the health and fitness benefits.

She and Brittany managed to find two free stools and sat down.

"Believe this?" Brittany said. "Em's always pushing us to come out and then abandons us as soon as we get in the door."

"Well, Emma's Emma. You can't hate her. And she needs us for a ride home if she doesn't find a guy tonight. Plus she's live entertainment."

Across the room, Emma yelled loudly: "Hell to the yeah, motherfuckers!" This was followed by jeers from several gentleman patrons.

Brittany laughed. "I shouldn't be laughing. She's so vulgar. No couth."

"No what?"

"Never mind."

"Hey, you want to share a basket of something?" Sofia asked. "I'm starving. Plus it'll suck up some of this alcohol."

"God knows your skinny frame needs it. Sure. Basket of chicken tenders?"

"Eh. It's meat."

"I thought you eat chicken sometimes."

"Grilled chicken. Free range and no hormones. The ones here are fried. Dripping in grease and saturated fats."

"It's Mooner's. Nothing organic here."

"Fine." Sofia put in the order.

When the chicken basket arrived a few minutes later, Brittany asked her, "How was Ooh-La-La?" She said it in a sing-song manner.

"The usual. Horny old men. Even some women."

"Just be careful. I hate you driving alone to and from there. You know some sick-ass people go to those clubs. You don't know who might be waiting out in the parking lot."

"I know. But speaking of which, you remember that guy I said I saw behind the bush this morning on our way to class?"

"Yeah."

"I think I saw him again. Standing outside of one of my classes. I saw him out the window."

"This is the shit I'm talking about. It could be some obsessed stalker."

Sofia laughed.

"I'm serious!"

"Well, I didn't see anyone too sketchy at the club tonight, so I don't know."

"Just watch out. All I'm saying."

Emma returned with a vengeance and happily took Brittany's shot.

She told Sofia, "This guy's been looking at you, he's pretty cute."

"Who?"

"Over there." Emma pointed and Sofia saw a fairly good-looking guy across the room standing with a couple other guys. He was tan and well-built and looked a little older than her. He smiled and raised a drink. She nodded in return and he motioned to his buds that he was leaving for a minute.

"He wants to talk to you," Emma said, then turned to Brittany conspiratorially.

"No, wait, don't leave me," Sofia got out, but by then it was too late. Emma dragged Brittany a respectful distance away so Sofia could be alone with the guy approaching her.

"Hey," he said when he reached her.

"Hey."

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"I shouldn't really be drinking anymore, but thank you."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"I'm Steve," he said, holding out his hand. It was a big hand.

She daintily shook it. "Sofia."

"You're hot," he said.

She raised her drink, gave him a sheepish smile and a look that said thanks, I guess.

"You go to BC3?" he asked.

She couldn't hear over the loud music. "What?"

"You go to BC3!"

"Yeah! You?"

"I did. Didn't get all my credits yet though. I do some work on my uncle's farm."

That explained the muscles and the tan. He definitely wasn't bad looking. And he had balls enough to come over and talk to her.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Twenty-four. You?"

"Twenty-one."

He chuckled.

"What, you don't believe me?"

"No, I believe you."

"Hey listen," Sofia said, "I gotta go." She slipped off her stool, laying some money down on the bar. "But thanks for the drink offer. It was nice meeting you."

"Yeah, sure, hey, could I get your number? Maybe you wanna hang out sometime?"

She smiled. "I come by here often. If you see me here next time, let's talk then."

"All right, so that's how it is?"

"That's how it is."

"All right, that's cool. Nice meeting you. Catch you next time."

"You too."

And Steve sauntered away back to his friends.

Brittany found her way back over. "Emma disappeared again," she said. "You wanna find her and go?"

"Sounds good to me."

"How was that guy?"

"Steve. Steve was…we'll have to see about Steve."

They looked over all the heads in the crowd trying to find Emma.

"Let's just go outside," Sofia said. "We can't find anyone in all this. Em will come out looking for us eventually."

They did just that. They hung out in the parking lot by their cars and rubbed their arms against the cold.

Emma came stumbling out a few minutes later, a guy on her arm with spiky hair and tattoos. She met up with Sofia and Brittany and told them that apparently this guy was having a kick-ass house party with some friends and that she was going.

"You guys coming?" Emma slurred.

"Oh hell no!" Brittany said.

Sofia laughed. "I gotta get some sleep. You have fun, Em. And be careful." She looked over at the fool who was going to get lucky that night, pointed at him. "You. Emma's our friend. You answer to Brittany and me if anything happens to her. I've seen you at BC3 and I'll find out who you are."

"Damn right," Brittany added. "You can drive okay, Mister Whatever Your Name Is?"

"I'm fine, it's cool, I got this," the guy said. "Damn, ladies. Sure you don't want to join us? The more fine females, the better—my motto."

"Nice," Brittany said.

"We'll pass," Sofia said.

"Bye, guys!" Emma squealed, barely holding on to her so-called date, falling every which way as he led her to his car.

"I don't like when she hooks up with strange guys," Brittany said. "You know the kind of house parties she's dragged us to. Some of those friends of hers are into dope and pills, been to jail even, and I ain't about that life. Remember those meth heads outside of town she hangs out with sometimes?"

"Yeah, out in the boonies."

"Yeah, that's some Klan territory out there."

Sofia laughed. "There's no Klan out there."

"Well, I know I didn't want to stick around to find out. Backwoods redneck folk, think camouflage is acceptable fashion. Lookin' like they ain't never seen a nigra before. Only heard from their grandfathers about how they used to string us up in trees."

Sofia shook her head.

"Believe," Brittany said.

"You're too much." Sofia laughed. "I have to go."

"You all right to drive?"

"More tired than buzzed. I'll be fine. You get home safe too."

"I'll see you tomorrow, girl."

Sofia headed home with her high beams on, curving through some dark back roads and into the Waverly suburbs.

The gas light turned on.

"Shit."

She didn't want to worry about it tomorrow so she took a detour to the nearest gas station. It looked abandoned at this late hour. It was a little past midnight now. Her car was the only one around. Bright beams beat down on the pumps and the little convenience store, beacons of light in the darkness.

She pulled up to a pump and went to pay inside. A door buzzer rang but no one came to the register. She waited, cash out, some of the night's tips.

"Hello?"

Nothing.

She sighed. She checked her purse for her credit card, pulled it out, and left. She would rather have paid cash, but she didn't have time for this.

She walked back to the car. There was the faintest blur of movement in the backseat.

She remembered what Brittany had said. She approached slowly.

She peered into the window from a safe distance but couldn't make anything out. She got closer, cupped her hands in the window and looked inside. Still too dark to tell, all the shadows.

So she took a deep breath and swung the door wide open.

The backseat was completely empty.

She remembered to breathe, and then shut the door. She walked over to the pump, slipping her card in the slot.

She filled up the tank and looked around. She paused over a grove of oak trees adjacent to the station, shifting shapes in the thick darkness, murky shadows giving form to the bumps in the night.

When the nozzle finally clicked, she put it back on the pump, closed the gas slot, and was back in the driver's seat. She pulled quickly out of the lot and back onto the road.

She exhaled and watched the gas meter move from E to F.

Then came the bump from the back of the car.

She quickly turned around.

Nothing.

She checked the road, turned the interior light on, looked back again.

Still nothing.

Maybe something in the trunk had moved. Or maybe some deranged stalker really had been in the backseat, and then pulled the seat back to sneak into the trunk after she saw him in the window back at the gas station.

She laughed to herself. Sleep deprivation.

Nothing like that would ever happen.

Not in this town.

TWENTY-ONE

His alarm went off at six in the morning, beeping loudly in the dark. Noah Faison slapped it off and swung his legs off the edge of the bed, rubbing his shaved head that ached from the wake-up call.

He got up, left his dorm room, and went to the bathroom outside in the common area. He blinked against the strong fluorescent lights, then almost fell asleep again as he sat on the toilet. After flushing he washed his hands and rubbed his eyes, slapping cold water onto his face. There were dark rings under his eyes and he needed a shave. These days he didn't always shave regularly; these days he didn't much care.

After brushing his teeth and washing his face he went back to his room and knelt before the bed. He prayed the rosary, then blessed himself and got up, dressing in a t-shirt and gym shorts for his morning jog. He ran outside on the sidewalk that circled campus, warming up against the frigid autumn air in the foggy dawn, the sky a sheet of gray.

He took a scalding hot shower when he got back, then dressed for the day while brewing some coffee in his little coffee maker. He put on jeans and a plain black long sleeve shirt, draping the rosary around his neck. He had a class at 8:15, Introduction to the Old Testament, followed by Biblical Interpretation at 9:20 and Early Church History at 10:25.

He kept the coffee black and poured it into a thermos. Then he slipped into a tattered old leather jacket. His grandfather had owned the jacket as a teenager and gave it to Noah last Christmas. He had worn it ever since. He had his compact Bible in the inside pocket so he could carry God's Word wherever he went. Aside from other religious books he read for leisure or in the classroom, the Good Book, worn and battered now, was the only one he needed.

He slung an old leather messenger bag with his books over his shoulder, and was out. On the way to his class he nodded to a passing friar in a black robe. His first class was in the St. Paul building, all the major academic buildings of Blessed Trinity College named after saints.

The small private college was secluded in the countryside at the edge of Des Moines, a bucolic hamlet of red brick buildings and green green grass. It was a Catholic institution, not religion-specific in its undergraduate curriculum, but a seminary for graduate students wishing to grow in their Catholic faith or join the priesthood. That was why Noah was here. He had applied into an advanced program where he could graduate from seminary after only five years at the college.

Cherubs and statues of saints littered the campus, spewing out water over fountains and perched like gargoyles atop all the buildings. In the center of campus was the cathedral, the largest in Iowa, the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. Noah saw it every morning, a huge tower on top of which was a large cross.

Sometimes he would blink and see Charlee's crucified body hanging there, naked and bloody, a crown of thorns atop her skull. He had seen the crime scene photos. Stood with her parents in the medical examiner's office where Charlee's body lay on a cold slab.

And sometimes he heard the screams. Not what he imagined Charlee's screams would have been like, but his own, the sound of his breaking heart, his anguished sobs as he was told Charlee was dead and then looked upon her corpse.

The trouble with losing the one you love isn't so much a broken heart, it's that a broken heart still beats. All around you the world keeps turning. Life goes on. It doesn't care.

But today he didn't see Charlee on the cross. Instead he saw her leaning against a guardrail on the edge of the St. Paul building. She was staring out at the courtyard with its benches and fountains. He saw her turn around, look at him, and smile, her short hair rustling in the passing breeze. Today she wore the odd pairing of a blue blazer over a JESUS SAVES t-shirt, tie-dye leggings, and knee-high boots. Each time he saw Charlee's ghost she always wore a different outfit, all as eccentric in death as they were in life. He walked up closer, praying as he always did that this hallucination would stay a little longer, that one of these times she'd talk to him, touch his cheek, kiss him, tell him what heaven was like.

But a few steps later her form dematerialized, a smiling Charlee fading into the morning fog.

He looked away, accustomed to the disappointment. The visions happened every few days. They would happen, he knew, until the day he died.

After his classes ended for the day, Noah picked up a quick to-go lunch at the campus center and took a bus across the Grand Avenue Bridge over the Des Moines River and into downtown. On the bus he read that day's Register and then a little from his pocket Bible. As they crossed the bridge, he looked out the window at the city skyline.

In the overcast sky above, sprawling over the river, a flock of crows soared. There was a lone dove among the pack. He stared at it a long time before the birds became dots on the horizon and the cityscape blocked out the sky.

He fingered his wedding band, the Claddagh ring, staring at it awhile, the hands, heart, and crown. He had never taken it off not once since his wedding day.

He lugged his shoulder bag of gear off the bus when he arrived outside the boxing gym on Forest Avenue. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he trained there. The weekend he spent at the soup kitchen and work.

The old gym was a ramshackle facility that made up in heart what it lacked in appearance. He did a few reps of curls with the dumbbells, some pull-ups, and then benched with one of the trainers as his spotter. Afterward he spent some time jump-roping, then practiced at the speed bag and heavy bag.

Later, the gym's owner and head coach, a large and remarkably built black man, called Noah and another kid into the ring.

There was the ding of the bell. They danced toward each other, dukes up.

"Watch your footwork, Faison. Remember your center of gravity."

They sparred. The kid was much more advanced than Noah. Noah ducked a few punches and got a few of his own in but soon had to clinch up amid merciless jabs.

"Watch that left, watch that left!" the coach yelled. "Aw shit, aw shit!"

Noah was down.

The bell dinged again. The kid helped Noah up.

"Getting better, Faison," the coach said. "Keep it up. Watch your form. And watch that left. Your opponent sees your weakness."

They sparred a few more rounds. Noah lost every time but got better on his feet, worked on his reflexes and defenses. With the final ding of the bell, he and the other kid shared a good-game fist bump.

He hit the showers and caught the bus home.

He went to a late afternoon mass before heading off to the dining hall for dinner. He dressed up under his leather jacket in a white button-down shirt, slacks, a tie, and walked to the campus cathedral. He didn't care about looking good for anything anymore, but he always wore his best for God.

He blessed himself with the holy water upon entering and walked down the long aisle toward a row in the front. He looked up and around, losing himself in the spacious archway, the massive vaulting on the ceiling, the radiant stained glass windows that depicted scenes from the Bible. Animals led onto the ark in twos. Christ crucified. Michael the archangel rallying troops against Satan's army.

The congregation that afternoon consisted of only a few students and professors. They prayed, sang from the hymnal, listened to the priest's brief homily, and recited the Apostles' Creed. Noah got in line and took communion, an usher proclaiming, "The body of Christ," before laying the wafer in his mouth. Another proclaimed, "The blood of Christ," and Noah partook of the wine. He blessed himself again and left.

He ate dinner in the dining hall alone. He didn't have any friends, just acquaintances. But he liked the presence of people. Being alone, truly alone with his thoughts for too long, was dangerous. Keeping himself occupied, be it with studying, working, exercising, worshipping, volunteering—it all kept his mind off Charlee, kept the ache away, or if not away, dulled.

Life without Charlee was a life impervious to pain. Nothing scared or intimidated him anymore. But he got the sense that he intimidated others. And he supposed his demeanor wasn't the most welcoming. He had once looked the part of the straight-laced bookworm, drab in dress and appearance with his glasses, button-ups and ties, cardigans, khakis, loafers, classically parted hair. Now he kept his head shaved. He wore contacts. He shaved sporadically. He constantly wore his leather jacket. And he stayed bulked up from his extracurriculars and rigorous exercise routine, not to mention a job during the weekends at a shipping and receiving company where he worked the loading dock hauling crates and boxes on and off trucks. He had started working out regularly not long after Charlee's death. When his parents visited him over family weekend earlier in the month, they could hardly recognize this son of theirs, his shaved skull, filled out chest and arms, broad shoulders.

Girls began noticing him, something that had never happened outside of Charlee.

Even now as he kept to himself in the dining hall, reading his compact Bible and eating from a big plate of grilled chicken and salad, a girl approached his table. He didn't notice her until she was right next to him.

"Hey," she said.

He looked up.

She was stunningly attractive. Had the kind of tall toned body that men killed over, and long blonde hair with piercing blue eyes that hinted at trouble. A warm pleasant smile topped it all off, showing perfect teeth.

"Hi," Noah said.

"Uh, you're in my Church History class, aren't you?" she said.

"Yeah, from this morning."

"Yeah."

He stared at her, waiting.

The girl shifted on her feet, fidgeting awkwardly. She laughed nervously. "Our professor's pretty intense, right?"

"He's tough. But fair."

"Yeah." She laughed a bit too long and looked back at the table she came from. Another pretty girl sat there watching them. She waved. "Uh, that's my roommate. She's in our class too."

"Oh."

"Yeah, so, well, you seem to know what he's talking about. We can barely keep up with him half the time." She blushed, laughing nervously again.

Noah nodded, smiled softly, waiting still.

"Uh, well, I'm Christine, by the way," she said. "That's Donna." She indicated her table.

"Noah." He offered his hand. He gave her a solid grip as her hand hung there weakly.

She laughed. "Yeah, so, um, we'll see you in class then."

"Right."

"Right." With a final nervous laugh, she bit her bottom lip, gave him a flirtatious smile, and walked back to her table.

He didn't watch her walk away but went right back to his meal and his Bible. Upon taking a drink later, he noticed the two girls looking his way again, engaged in giggly hushed conversation.

He ignored them. Girls weren't ever on his mind. He didn't want or need the attention.

After Charlee he had taken a vow of celibacy. No sex, no masturbation, no dating or romantic pursuits whatsoever for the rest of his life. There would never be another woman to take Charlee's place, nor did he even want anyone to try. What they had shared together was theirs and theirs alone. He was not ever meant to share that with another woman and would live a life of complete and total abstinence. He would make his body and thoughts pure for a life in the priesthood and become an ordained vessel of God for the furtherance of His Kingdom, living a holy life of spiritual joys and sufferings.

After leaving the dining hall, he did the assigned readings for his classes, prayed, and got ready for bed. Even though he shared a suite with three other guys, he was glad his request to be assigned a single room had passed. It wasn't that he didn't like the concept of a roommate, it was simply that he did better alone. He liked being around others to dull the loneliness, but he didn't want anyone to have to suffer through his aura of sadness in such close and constant proximity.

He got in bed and tried to lull himself to sleep with busy thoughts.

Tomorrow would be more of the same. Dreams were all that he couldn't control now. He prayed, as he did every night, that there would be none.

The cops had a lot of questions for him in the beginning, right after she died. After that he didn't talk for a long time.

But he followed the case. The investigation, the manhunt. All of which went nowhere. Alison Brown's father, leader of Riggsboro's neighborhood watch group, petitioned for the impeachment of the police chief, Obadiah McDermott, who resigned quietly before any action was taken. Last Noah heard, the Browns had left Riggsboro, packed up one day and moved without telling anyone.

There was a lot of speculation about a connection between all the murders over the years. But only a few knew the truth. Charlee's identity as Abigail Phelan was never uncovered.

Noah moved in with his father's parents in Jasper County and started going to a different school. He hoped the change would do him good. Everyone did. He became active in their church. Prayed without ceasing. Read and reread and meditated on the Word.

One night, kneeling alone at the altar in church, he stared at the big cross behind the pulpit, at Jesus hanging from it, and wept bitterly.

"Why did you take her from me?" he cried. "Is it because I loved her too much? Because You, the Lord my God, are a jealous God? Because I loved her the way I was only supposed to love You?"

That night he felt the hand of the Holy Spirit over him. He felt his calling. He vowed before the Lord that he would become a priest.

And when he graduated high school, the very next day he hopped a plane to Mexico.

He spent the summer with some cousins on his mother's side in a poor neighborhood of clapboard houses and zinc roofs. He tuned up his Spanish and worked through a Catholic charity with some great aunts and uncles, often going beyond the hometowns of his ancestors to other crowded villages and sand swept streets, to the lands of border town whorehouses and back alley cockfights.

When he was there, el Cucuy came to him again in nightmares, a bogeyman far more demonic than the hairy monster under his bed from childhood. El Cucuy stalked the countryside of his dreamscape as a faceless man in black who would suddenly shift into a menacing plume of black smoke. He'd come pummeling through the air, blanketing the sky in permanent night, swallowing up everyone who crossed his path.

Noah's plan after seminary was to return and live out his years as a priest in Mexico. Live a life of meager means in the impoverished towns of his homeland, preaching the Word and helping people.

He didn't know it for sure until he felt the hand of God move through a little girl he met on the street. She was naked, her bare feet calloused. She was looking for clean water for her family and he helped her gather some and deliver it. A few days later he came back with a little money, some clothes, and a Bible.

When the girl's mother had left the doorway, the girl herself called back out to Noah as he walked away. "Se?or, se?or."

Noah turned around.

"?Está usted de él?" she said. Are you him?

"?Quién?"

"San Martin De Porres."

He stared at the little girl. Blessed Martin De Porres, Peruvian patron saint of all those mixed-race Latinos and Chicanos. He had hung on the wall of Noah's family home since before he was born, in a position of honor next to the Mexican flag.

Noah was sure he looked nothing like the holy man, but perhaps his spirit was what the girl saw in Noah. Among many things, Saint Martin was noted for his work with the poor.

"No," he told the little girl.

The little girl smiled, said, "Sí, lo eres," and she was gone.

Yes, you are.

He looked around. If he had to live this life without Charlee, maybe this could be a place he could find peace.

A place he could call home.

When he got off the plane back in Iowa he felt a profound sense of homesickness the likes of which he had never known. Without Charlee, without Mexico, he felt utterly lost. He stood outside the airport with his bags, looking around at all the cars, all the busy people running to and fro, wrapped up in their lives, and he felt a loneliness and emptiness that threatened to swallow him whole.

But he breathed deep and remembered to trust in God.

So he went off to Des Moines to concentrate on his studies. In a matter of years, Lord willing, he would return to Mexico an ordained priest.

In Mexico, visions of Charlee had been rare, murky at best even when she did appear. But back in the states, she returned with a vengeance. He saw her every few days now, as clear as when she was alive, always for just a moment before she was gone.

In his dreams, they'd make furious love in pools of blood. He'd wake up sobbing, crying out her name. Mornings were the worst. His body would burn with wretched, agonizing desire to feel hers again. Etched into his mind was a brilliantly sunny day they had made love in Charlee's bedroom. The sun shone through the window so bright and pleasant and warm it was as if they had caused it, their love radiating with a strength so powerful it had to manifest itself in the form of this awesome light. He remembered the glow around Charlee, around both of them, the supreme happiness and completeness they felt connected in each other's arms, sharing what could only be called divine.

The hard days had gotten fewer and farer between as time passed. Keeping on the straight and narrow had conditioned his spirit for purity. These days it was the visions, a good cry once and again, and the occasional nightmare.

Being in an academic environment full of other Christians helped; he could relate to them more than he could the students in any public school to which he had gone. Back then, as an outsider, a wallflower, he had seen it all and grown weary. People who treated sex like a game and love like a joke. Guys that viewed girls as objects or conquests. Girls who bought into it or used sex as a form of manipulation. And while it wasn't all pure at Blessed Trinity, at least a good number of students shared his views, believing in the one true God, believing that sex is a precious and sacred gift.

He spent a lot of time in confession. Sometimes just to talk. He had taken a liking to Father Patrick McCreary, an old priest who liked to say that he had been here when the bricks were laid.

"You know I have an office, Noah."

"I like this. The solemnity of it."

So they'd sit in the confessional, a hazy veil separating them, and talk. Father McCreary was the only person in his new life who knew about Charlee, and Noah confided much in him.

"I had another vision of her this morning," he said. "And I still have these thoughts, and these dreams. I ache for her. And it's not just the physical desire, it's the…the longing. I know the Bible says God will provide all my needs. I know only He can fill that void. I just…"

"Go on."

"Father, Charlee and I were husband and wife. I know some may not agree with it or recognize it since it wasn't in the church, but we made our vows seriously before God. However you take that, us being young and foolish or, or an excuse to cover up our sins, whatever, we truly, deeply, passionately, committed ourselves before the Lord. For life. We were one flesh. And now…a part of me, the biggest part of me, is gone…"

Father McCreary took a minute before speaking. He said, "It is not my job to sit here and play the judge about your relationship. That is between you and God. But as for the battle you are facing right now, it is in the flesh. The enemy sees you drawing closer to God. He wants to swallow you up in bitterness and depression. He wants to constantly remind you of what is gone from your life. Satan desires nothing more than the anguish of the human soul. But you are a child of God. With strong faith. Devout. And to whom much is given much is required. You will experience much hardship and suffering as you bear the cross of Christ. But through prayer, through trusting in Him, God will give you peace in your trials. The peace of Christ that surpasses all understanding. In humanity's fallen state, in our natural bodies, we have the strong desires of the flesh. But remember you have dominion in Christ Jesus. Your chastity has built you a strong spirit. That's the spirit of the Living God living through you. Always remember to pray. God desires what? Obedience, yes, but seeing a commitment to the Lord as an obligation or a set of rules only breeds frustration. We can't do it in our own strength. The Lord wants—"

"A relationship with Him," Noah said.

"Bless your heart. The peace of Him living in you makes you desire more of Him. We are called to die to the flesh so our spirits become alive in Christ. We offer up our bodies as sacrifices to Him. As temples for His use. It molds us into the image of His Son. We are called to be Christ-like not just because He said so, but because of love. Jesus died for our sins on the cross. By accepting Him as the Son of God, we are saved. But we are asked to take up the cross ourselves and carry it daily. We're not promised a life without trials. Being Christian will in fact invite more trouble into our lives. The devil sees our salvation and he hates it. There is no salvation for the devil, no redemption for the fallen angels. Since the war in heaven ages ago, Satan and his host of demons have wandered to and fro upon this earth seeking whom they may devour. So into the Christian's life the devil brings persecution and adversity. But God will never tempt us or give us more than we can bear. The devil tempts, but God will test. And through Christ we are promised everlasting life. What a promise. Christ gave up His body for us. That's why we remember him in reverence when we partake of the holy Eucharist. And we are to give up our bodies for Him. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It seems hard to the unbeliever, but to us we recognize the riches a godly life offers. The peace that comes with complete surrender to Christ. Peace that nothing else in this world could ever give us. Not even close." He paused. "Of course, you already know all this."

"The only true freedom is in Christ," Noah said. "But Father, Romans eight twenty-eight…"

"Ah yes. Tell me, what does it say?"

"'All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.'"

"That's right."

"But then why all the bad, Father? Why such suffering? Why so much evil faced against Christians when God is promising good?"

"Remember again that to whom much is given much is required. And remember also what it says after Romans eight and twenty-eight. The twenty-ninth verse, do you recall?"

"Um…"

Father McCreary said, "'For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son.'"

"Right."

"Now think about that. What is good? What is the good for us that all things work together for? See, Christians like to shoot that verse around so much it becomes an empty platitude. We mean well, trying to help someone going through a hard time by saying it will get better, but that's not what the verse means. People think it means that if we love God and do what He says, we're promised smooth sailing and easy street. But no. 'All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.' And what is his purpose? That 'for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son.' That is the ultimate good. That is the reason we are here. We are called to be like Christ. To be molded into His image. And Christ is called the Man of Sorrows. He suffered. And in being like Christ we are therefore called to suffer. But God has promised His peace in those trials. He is there to strengthen us and see us through. And as more hard times come along, we become more equipped to handle them, fashioned as we are in the Son's likeness. As His children, we are tested and tested, tossed into the fire to burn and burn until we almost melt but then plunged into ice cold water that we may come out cold hard steel. He chisels at us and chisels at us and yes, sometimes it's excruciatingly painful, but He molds us into men, into men of God. For everything there is a reason and a purpose if we trust in God's will and let Him use us for His glory."

Noah leaned back in his seat, took a breath.

Father McCreary said, "You're one of the best students I've seen here in a long time, Noah. God has plans for you. Big plans. What you've been through, what happened to Charlee—it was an awful tragedy. But God allows tragedy—sometimes unspeakable tragedy—because that is how we mature in the faith. It builds up in us remarkable perseverance and gives us a remarkable testimony. It makes us powerful witnesses and examples to others. We can say to the unbeliever that I got through this only because of my Father in Heaven. Now sometimes it very well won't get better. Not on this side of eternity. Sometimes we are called to endure great sickness and pain and never recover in this life. Perhaps we will even be violently martyred. But it is still for our good. Christ suffered and died for us, for us sinners. Any earthly or worldly goods He provides for us—health, wealth, our loved ones—are gifts. Gifts from His abundant grace and mercy. Gifts we do not deserve. Son, the time you and Charlee had together—the great love you shared—it was an incredible, amazing gift. But as the Lord willed, it was only for such a time."

Noah smiled softly as a tear fell from both his eyes. He sighed and wiped them away. "What a gift she was," he said. "God, I love her. I love her so much." Twin tears fell once again.

Father McCreary gave Noah some time. Then: "Remember what Joseph said to his brothers when he forgave them: 'You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.' It is the same with you. What the devil intended for evil, God has used for your good. He has called you to the priesthood. And you will do great works in His name. Keep in prayer. Read the Psalms, at least one a day. Read the book of James again. Book of Job too. Have you fasted?"

"Not recently."

"Dedicate a time to the Lord to fast. Much of the church today, Catholic and otherwise, doesn't place as much emphasis on fasting as there should be. I think that's unfortunate. It brings us closer to the Lord and reminds us of our complete dependence upon him. For man does not live on bread alone…" He waited for Noah to finish.

He said, "But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."

"Let us pray."

"Hail Mary, full of grace," Noah said, "our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. Amen."

Father McCreary said, "Give thanks to the Lord for He is good."

And Noah answered, "For His mercy endures forever."

He took an earlier bus into the city a couple days later, hauling the bag of boxing gear on his shoulder. He got some coffee and walked the streets. He took a stroll through the domed Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden and then down the John Pat Dorrian Trail to City Hall. He sat out on a bench by the river and watched traffic pass over the several bridges. Later he got up, bought a paper on the street, and went down East Grand to the Capitol building. He sat on a stone bench on the grounds outside in front of a statue of Lincoln and his son.

He read the paper and looked up at one point later only to see a ghost coming down the steps of the building.

Not Charlee.

This one was real.

David Collins III.

Noah lowered his coffee and stared at him. He wore a dapper overcoat over a suit and walked coolly toward the sidewalk holding an attaché case.

Noah followed him at a distance around the building to the parking lot out front. A limo pulled up on the street and a driver opened the door.

Noah watched the limo as it headed toward Highway 235, and if he had to guess, beyond that to 163 and back home to Riggsboro.

He thought about Charlee and how they had once tailed the man for weeks. He thought about the hotel-casino deal that was coming to fruition and he wondered what hands were being shook in the Capitol.

He watched the street long after the limo was gone.

He checked his watch and turned back toward the direction of the gym.

His mind was on Collins the next day as he sat in the office of an English professor. The professor handed him a binder over his desk, the binder that contained Charlee's completed graphic novel. Noah touched the cover and smiled softly.

The Ghost Orchid

By

Abigail Phelan

The cover art depicted a female silhouette perched on a rooftop before a nighttime city skyline.

"It's an impressive piece of work," the professor said, a balding middle-aged man with glasses on the tip of his nose that threatened to fall off. "I quite enjoyed it. The drawings are absolutely spectacular. There's a lot of talent there."

"Do you think it's publish-worthy?"

"The writing needs some work. I added my notes in the back. Your friend attempts a hard-boiled style with the narrative and the prose. Sometimes it works really well, other times it comes out a bit clunky and juvenile. Nothing a little polishing won't fix. You can do that with a good editor. But it's solid. A bit formulaic, clichéd at times, but the story's good and there's some real magic in there. I stayed invested. And of course I enjoyed the Christian element to it. The heroine, she's got a mouth like a sailor and some unconventional methods, but she loves Jesus and isn't afraid to talk to people about Him. In fact I showed an atheist friend of mine this. He's a graphic novel aficionado so I thought I would get his input. He said he enjoyed it very much but complained how it was filled with 'gratuitous Christian propaganda.'"

Noah smiled. "Thank you. I appreciate the feedback and you taking the time." He shook his hand.

On his way out, the professor added, "Bring her by some time if you can. I'd love to talk to her. Help her with revisions, a query letter, anything she needs. I may know some people who know some people, that sort of thing."

Noah smiled sadly and left with a nod.

He called his mother from a phone in the dormitory hallway. They spoke briefly and in Spanish, enough for Noah to check in and be chastised for not calling more often.

"You've changed," she said. "Not just from Charlee. I know Mexico when I see it. I know because it's why I left. Charlee gave you sad eyes, but then Mexico...I saw it when your father and I came up last. You have hard eyes now."

Noah stood in the hall and didn't say anything.

"Just take care of yourself, Noah."

"Si. Te quiero, Mamá."

"Te quiero, m'ijo."

After his boxing class that afternoon, he walked to an Irish pub some blocks over that just happened to be named MacCool's. He sat at the bar, dropped his bag next to the stool, and ordered a burger and fries and some coffee.

It was a cop establishment, run by retired police and frequented by current. He was in the mood for some company and was happy to see Mark Hagen when he entered some time later.

The veteran detective was a big man, riding the bad end of middle age with a healthy beer gut and a head of thinning brown-gray hair.

These days Noah was in the habit of bar-hopping. He'd order some water or a club soda or a coffee and listen to the stories. It was an opportunity to talk to people about Jesus, share the gospel.

Hagen met Noah like this one night and was amused by him, this straight-edge Catholic boy who went into dives all over town no matter the clientele, cop or criminal or both, order his sissy club soda and start talking about the Bible.

And in true Noah fashion, he had given Hagen a history lesson. "You know what Des Moines means? It means 'Of the Monks.' It's speculated that the name arose because of a group of French Trappist monks that lived out close to St. Louis off the Des Moines River. So think of me as a monk from back in the day. I'm merely doing what the title of our fair city suggests—the Lord's work, spreading the good Word."

"Well, Monk," Hagen said, a nickname born, "I've seen you around town in some pretty rough and tumble establishments. Talking to bikers, hookers, street gangs, dope slingers. You got some balls, kid, I'll give you that. But a cop bar? Now you're just fixing to get yourself killed."

"Cops do the Lord's work," Noah said. "'Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.'"

Thus a friendship was born.

Tonight, Noah raised his mug of coffee to Hagen as he entered. He joined Noah at the bar.

"Detective," Noah said.

"Monk." Hagen ordered a corned beef sandwich, fries, and a Guinness.

They talked the crime blotter and they talked city politics.

Noah asked him, "You ever hear of a man named David Collins III? Big developer out of Poweshiek County?"

Hagen mulled the name over as he chewed a big bite, shook his head. "No."

"Hmm."

"Who is he?"

"He basically runs the small town I used to live in. Owns most of the county. Yesterday I saw him outside the Capitol."

"Well, I'm not as good at big names as I am with your low-level offenders, but I can tell you this. Land. Development. That's where all the money goes when you look hard enough. All the drugs, the rackets—you work a case long enough, you follow the money, it doesn't end at the kingpin. It goes beyond that. Politicians. Stock brokers. Real estate moguls. The brass wants us putting down cases but not when it means going after City Hall. Much less the Capitol. It's all a game. We'll never really fix any of the big problems because it's all connected. The corruption is everywhere."

"You don't have to tell me," Noah said, washing a bite of hamburger down with some coffee and getting the bartender's attention for a refill.

Hagen looked at him. "I see that in your eyes, Monk. You got street smarts as much as book. I bet you seen some crazy shit in Mexico. Excuse me, crazy stuff."

"Yeah," he said, nodding and thinking, sipping at his refilled mug. "Yeah." Hagen knew about Mexico but not about Charlee. Noah had told him about some close calls with drug cartels and border contrabandistas. Some of them dirty cops. He'd seen men ripped to shreds from automatic gunfire, very nearly been in some crossfire himself. He touched a small scar on his jaw from a time he'd been pistol whipped with a machine gun.

"You got something with this Collins person?"

"Curious is all. I'm familiar with a few of his secrets."

"Mmm."

"You've been police over twenty years, you got any friends at City Hall or the Capitol?"

"On a good day."

"You hear any word on the street about Collins, you let me know?"

"Listen to you, word on the street. Yeah, I got you, Monk."

"Thanks."

"Got something for you," Hagen added, reaching inside his shirt pocket and pulling out a slip of paper.

Noah opened it. There was a list of names as well as a list of bars. Noah looked at him.

"If you're interested in some work," Hagen said, "your Catholic boy act around town could do me some good. You recognize any of them?"

"The bars, sure. The names, maybe. They're familiar."

"That's good. I'm just asking for you to listen, see what you hear through the grapevine. You ain't got to lie to 'em or anything."

"Yeah, seems all right. See what I can do."

After leaving the bar, he took a few scenic detours through the city. He walked along the shore of the Des Moines River and tried to will a vision of Charlee to show up, take his hand and walk with him. God, what he would give. Everything.

He sat on a riverside bench, thinking of her and looking out at the city. Torturing himself.

Oh, Charlee. When you died, you took everything I was with you and left a ghost here on this earth. A ghost in purgatory.

I just wish I had been there. I wish you had woken me up that night on the roof. But you went alone to try and stop him. Because you had thought he was after me. But he tricked you. He tricked everybody.

Noah caught the beginning of tears, stifling them as he cut through a few alleys back toward the bus stop he needed, the Principal Financial Group tower on Grand his guide.

And that was when the hooded guy behind the dumpster jumped out and snapped open a switchblade.

He was alone, a shadowy scruffy face hiding beneath his hood.

"Your wallet," he said. "Toss it here. Toss it."

Noah stared at him. He thought about the lack of fear he felt at the moment, the complete unconcern he had at the prospect of injury or death. He let the shoulder bag with his gear slip down to the asphalt.

The guy said, "Hey, you deaf? Give me your fuckin' wallet!"

"No quiere hacer esto, vato," Noah said. "No quiero hacerte da?o."

"Hey, what—motherfucker, your money. Give me your fucking wallet-o." He held out his free hand.

Noah looked at the hand, looked at him. He stood there.

The mugger approached Noah. "All right, motherfucker—" He brought the knife up.

Noah ducked and grabbed the knife-wielding arm with both hands. He spun on his feet, got off line, and pulled the attacker's arm down with a twist, driving a knee into his stomach and punching him in the face. The man stumbled back and lashed the knife into the air, missing Noah as he ducked again. When he came back up, his right fist connected with the mugger's chest. His left brought an undercut to his jaw.

The man fell to the ground, knife falling to the asphalt with a clink. He bled from the nose and mouth.

Noah shook the pain out of his hand, bent forward and picked up the knife.

"Hey, no, man, please," the guy cried, blubbering blood. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" He was crawling backwards, struggling to get on his feet. Noah watched him stagger back as he gained footing.

"Vaya," Noah said.

The mugger bolted around the corner and into the night. Noah slowly stood back up. He looked at the knife, folded the blade up, and pocketed it. He grabbed his bag of gear and made his way to the bus stop.

He got up early on Saturday for a shift at the soup kitchen, dishing out breakfast and lunch. He then took a bus to the warehouse where he worked hauling crates and pallets onto trucks.

He caught a late supper at the dining hall on his quad and then walked to a video store not far outside campus. He hopped the bus again, took a couple different routes, got off, and walked to a street corner on Sixth Avenue in River Bend.

The girl standing there was about five feet tall with heels. She had long brown hair and wide blue eyes that pierced the night. She had the face of a child—beautiful, angelic—but world-weary eyes gave her away. She wore a tight black dress that if not exactly modest was at least better than most these days.

She eyed him cautiously as he approached.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

"How much for maybe three hours of your time?"

She stared at him for a few seconds. "Where you from?"

He knew she was really asking what gang he rode with. Between his rosary and olive skin, he could easily have been Latin Kings or Spanish Cobras, among others.

"I'm a student. Blessed Trinity, over the bridge."

"Blessed Trinity?"

"Yeah."

"You a cop?"

"No.

"You're young looking but you got a hard face like a cop."

"I'm not a cop."

"Okay. What did you have in mind?"

"I want someone to read the Bible with."

"Read the Bible?"

"Yeah. You read a chapter, I'll read a chapter. My wife passed last year and that's what we used to do."

"Your wife? Aren't you young for that too?"

He shrugged. "I also rented a movie. I was hoping you'd watch it with me."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"What about…"

"I'm not after that. I just want to spend time with someone."

She stared at him a long time. "What movie?"

He pulled it out of his messenger bag, showed it to her. "The Crow: City of Angels. It's a sequel. My wife really liked the first one. She never got to see this one but…well, I talk to my priest a lot about triggers, things that remind me of her, make me sad. He said it would be a good idea for me to face some of those things. Help me move on, you know?"

Something in her face seemed to break and she looked suddenly ten years younger, innocent. She said, "I like you. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe you just got nice eyes. Or maybe you remind me of an ex-boyfriend, someone before all of this…"

Noah put the movie away and took out his wallet.

"No," she said. "Let's talk about that later."

At the bus stop and then on the bus to campus, they read back and forth to each other from the Bible. At his dorm they sat on the bed and watched the movie on his small TV that had a built-in VCR.

Later, he rode back with her on the bus and they got off and walked to the street corner where they first met.

"Thank you so much," Noah said. "I had a really nice time."

"Me too." When she smiled it was the smile of a child. "Was it able to help at all? Tonight? With getting over your wife, I mean."

"It's not about getting over, just moving on. I will never get over her. I don't want to ever get over her. And that's okay."

He handed her some cash and she barely gave it a glance.

"I sort of really want you to kiss me," she said. "I want you to kiss me as if you were kissing her. Your wife. I want to feel that."

He hugged her instead. She returned the embrace. When he touched the back of her neck, she shuddered.

He whispered in her ear. "You're a beautiful girl. Go home, huh?"

He released her and she looked at him the way Charlee used to after they kissed.

"I'll see you around," he said.

He hadn't picked up his mail for a few days, so after mass that Sunday he stopped by his school mailbox. There was one envelope waiting for him.

Only his name and school mailbox address were written, done so in messy childish handwriting. There was no return address. The postmark said Des Moines.

He tore the envelope open and slid out a single sheet of paper. On one side there was a row of numbers written in black crayon:

319506773428

On the other side—

A crude stick-figure family stood outside of their home, a sun in the corner of the paper. There was a father, a mother, and a daughter. It looked like an innocent child's drawing—except for the depiction of the daughter.

Underneath the little girl was written the caption, SOFIA. And Sofia, unlike her parents, was not smiling. She was crying, a knife in her throat with blood spurting out.

He spent the rest of the night too distracted to do any of his assigned readings or get a head start on the paper he needed to write for his philosophy class.

He sat at his desk and stared at the drawing of the bloody little girl and her family, the strange set of numbers on the opposite side. Whatever it meant, he knew one thing for sure:

This was the work of Charlee's killer.

The numbers he had no clue about. And the girl, Sofia—he didn't know anyone by that name, but it seemed only obvious that the killer was hinting at his next target.

He contemplated calling the police.

Not yet.

Maybe later.

He was too restless to sleep so he hopped a bus outside campus and headed into the city to take a walk. He found a 24-hour Mexican diner he liked and ate a plate of huevos rancheros to a soundtrack of folksy norte?a music. It made him miss his mother, and homesick for Mexico.

He fingered some more through the binder containing Charlee's graphic novel. He had looked through it every day before handing it over to the English professor a few weeks ago. He was glad to have it back. He read some of the professor's suggestions and then skipped around to certain frames and passages he loved.

On an early page, the beautiful black protagonist, Alicia Banks, was imploring the man she loves, the black-Hispanic Martin Jones, in vintage Charlee speak: I don't want you to date me. Or court me. Don't waste our time. I don't want a love that's a chase or a game or a dance. I want a love where we look at each other like we're looking at each other right now and know that we have to make love immediately or we'll both die. No pretense, no bullshit, no waiting. Just love me. And kiss me. And fuck me 'til the stars come crashing down.

On the last page—Alicia in full Ghost Orchid get-up, kneeling before Martin's headstone, laying down a white orchid. We sleep until dark, she said. And we dream forever.

Noah's fingertips lightly passed over the text before he rubbed his hand over his mouth and sighed, closed the binder.

He had stuffed the killer's drawing into the front pocket. It stuck out a bit from the top so he took it out to study it a little more.

The waitress, a lovely Mexican girl in her twenties, came by to take his empty plate and refill his coffee. She was a gorgeous number, tall and curvy, with rich black hair, honey-gold skin, warm chocolate eyes, and full plush lips. She reminded Noah of something his father liked to say: There are no women more beautiful on the face of the earth than Latina women, and that's why I married your mother.

The waitress's gaze and smile lingered on him a bit too long. She placed the check down on his table with a wink and sauntered away, leaving him with a view of her tight jeans and something to think about.

He downed some more coffee and dove back into the novel. He put the drawing away, this time stuffing it into the back pocket of the binder. When he got resistance, he felt the pocket and noticed that something else was in there. He reached inside and slid it out.

A business card. Lehman-Daly Investigations. A fedora and magnifying glass were on either side of the name, the address and phone number underneath. Their office was in Smith's Grove, Illinois.

Noah remembered Charlee talking about them. They had interviewed her twice, once about Alison's murder and then to tell her about her true birth name. He hadn't given them much thought since her death.

But now he wondered.

They had once told Charlee to give them a call if she was in trouble. She never got the chance. Now someone else was in trouble. Maybe they could help him. Maybe he had found this card for a reason, just happened to come across it on the same day he received the drawing.

He took the rest of the coffee like a shot and left cash on the table for the bill, leaving a generous tip for the waitress. She had written her phone number on the bottom of the check along with her name, Leticia, the 'i' dotted with a heart.

He took the check with him to be polite but crumpled it and tossed it into a trash can a few blocks away. The binder clamped under his arm, he walked briskly back to the bus stop to make the last bus of the night.

He lay awake in bed later staring at the business card. Moonlight crept through the window along with the dimmed lights from those still on outside the dorms. The sporadic and faint voices of students still out on campus filtered through the night.

Before he finally drifted off, he saw another ghost. Charlee walked by the window as if she were another co-ed out late to meet up with some friends.

He closed his eyes.

TWENTY-TWO

"Celia Gannon. Now that is a name I have not heard for quite some time."

Eliza Lehman was in the secluded mobile home of Dr. Matthew Chance. He lived alone on several acres of land out in the ass middle of nowhere. It was hardly the home she had pictured for the retired Smith's Grove psychiatrist.

But nothing was what she had imagined when it came to Matthew Chance. She had found a few old pictures of him in her search dating back to Smith's Grove Sanitarium circa the sixties and seventies. In every picture, he wore a suit or a lab coat and thick-framed glasses, looking remarkably typical for a doctor of that era. So she had in her mind the image of an old man in a button-up and cardigan, living in that organized clutter of the erudite bachelor, an old academic still buried in his work after all these years, a home without the influence of a woman's touch or a woman's love.

But the man that met her at the door of the trailer was a veritable American Indian.

He stood about six feet tall, with tan skin and dark hair and a long face with high cheekbones and a dour expression. He wore a buckskin shirt, breechcloth, leather leggings, and moccasin boots.

She wondered if this guy was for real.

The inside of the trailer was, in her opinion, garishly over-decorated with Native American regalia. Though she was no student of tribal history, she saw the markings of several different tribes in the decorations. There were paintings of Indian scenes, framed tribal clothing and weapons, war bonnets, feathered head dresses, something that resembled a lacrosse stick, and seemingly any open wall space was claimed by various symbols. Food, animals, weather patterns, the sun and the moon.

Nowhere did she see the study lined with psychiatric journals and textbooks she had expected. Instead there seemed to be sprawled everywhere except a shelf various dog-eared books on Native American religion and culture.

"Why, it must be almost forty years since I've seen Ms. Gannon," Chance said. "Tell me, have you come across her?"

"Not exactly. Doctor, do you recognize this?" Eliza handed him the typescript patient analysis of Celia Gannon.

Chance did not reveal anything in his face as he read the memo. When he was done he looked up with his eyes only and stared at her. "How did you get this?"

"Found it."

"Found it."

"Leisurely walk through the old hospital."

"Is venturing through abandoned mental institutions a hobby of yours, Ms. Lehman?"

"The short story is this: A file from my office went missing. I tracked it down. It led me to the old hospital. To room 616 and that piece of paper."

"Room 616," Chance said.

"Yes. It's more out of curiosity than anything else that I'm here. It's…perplexed me. And I'm not the type of woman who tends to be perplexed."

"I see."

"Do you know what became of all the old patient files when the hospital closed?"

Chance shrugged. "I imagine most were transferred to other institutions. At least patient files that were still active. The old ones? My guess is those are buried in some vault belonging to the state somewhere."

"My thoughts as well. Which is why it is so perplexing that I even found that sheet of paper. There's no indication of any other paperwork still inside the hospital."

"Quite perplexing indeed."

"Do you remember Celia Gannon well, Doctor?"

"I do, actually. There are always a few that stick out for one reason or another. Ms. Gannon was not an extraordinary case by any means, but she was certainly a peculiar one."

"What was her story?"

"For that," Chance said, "I believe we will need a drink. I will also move us out to the front lawn. The day is growing old and the shadows are growing long and the view of the countryside right about now is something you wouldn't believe." He rooted around the bottom of his refrigerator. "Tell me, Ms. Lehman, have you ever tried or heard of choc beer?"

"No," she said. And when he pulled out two glass bottles, she added, "I don't drink, thank you."

"Religious reasons?"

"Health reasons. Ulcer."

"Ah. My condolences." Chance placed one of the beers back and came out with bottled water.

Eliza nodded, offered a smile, took the water.

"A damn shame," Chance said. "You haven't really had beer, in this man's humble opinion, until you have had choc beer. It's the only kind I drink."

"I'll have to take your word for it."

"It was the beer of the Choctaw Indians. Down in the Territory. Oklahoma. That's where I have it shipped up from. It's a home brew, never exactly the same. Barley, hops, yeast, sugar, various fruits—your apples, peaches, fishberries."

Eliza nodded as if she were interested.

And Chance continued as if she were: "It was Oklahoma where many of my people were forced to relocate in the 1700s. The Illiniwek people. Those that hadn't been killed already by the wars of white men." He motioned to the front door. "Come."

They went outside with their drinks and sat on a pair of rickety but clean enough lawn chairs.

"You must forgive me in advance for my rambling," Chance said. "As you have seen, I am somewhat a collector. I am what you might call an ecumenical Native American, though such a label is, in truth, woefully inaccurate. Indian, Native American, these are the white man's terms. To us, we are simply 'the People.'

"My own expertise is in the tribes of the Mississippi river valley. But I respect and study the differences in tribes and indigenous peoples all over the world. I identify and associate with many myself. Many of my own people do not approve of this pick and choose tactic, but I believe there is a cultural and spiritual richness to all of them. To me we are all one."

Eliza nodded some more.

"It all sounds horribly pretentious," Chance said. "Believe me, I know."

"No."

"It does. People think it when they meet me. It's okay. I'm not offended. I'd think it too. The lifestyle. The dress. The wistful manner in which I speak. But please understand, I do it not for show. I believe in it. I believe in the People, my people. It is a way of life. Of course, should it make you more comfortable, I believe I still have a suit and tie buried somewhere in the closet."

Eliza smiled. "You're fine."

As Chance sipped from his beer and closed his eyes for a moment, a pleasant breeze touched his weathered, sun-beaten face, and Eliza studied the land. Around them were miles of flat prairieland, of grass green and amber stretching for miles, peppered with the occasional brush and tumbleweed. At the horizon line, the land met with an indigo sky and thin streaks of clouds.

She looked back around the trailer. For all of the home's modesty, the yard had been impeccably landscaped. A fenced-in garden in the side yard sported vibrant vegetables. The house itself even had the loving marks of a home builder. She could see from here how rough and calloused Chance's hands were.

They were a working man's hands. Hands that built. Hands that worked the land.

Certainly not the hands of the bookish, professorial type she had imagined. Had he ever been that type at all? Had he been a closet outdoorsman all of his career? Or had Dr. Chance retired and given up the practice of medicine completely to live a simple, honest life?

It was as Eliza was thinking this that Chance began speaking, staring out into the distance with a storyteller's flair for the dramatic: "My knowledge of Celia Gannon is limited to the time I spent with her. We knew virtually nothing about her life outside the hospital and she was never open to sharing it. I'm pretty sure her parents wanted it this way too. You see, Ms. Gannon came from money, and her parents gave the hospital a rather sizable donation for our discreetness. It was never admitted to me, but I gathered that the name was a fake."

"That much I figured as well. She doesn't exist in anything I can dig up."

Chance nodded. "Ms. Gannon was a part of a short-lived summer program we did at Smith's Grove back in the fifties. Parents with problem children—behavioral, psychological, et cetera—could send their children to us when school was out, do what we could with them in the summer months. It was a way of temporarily committing them without depriving them of their normal school year. It also provided a means for those like Ms. Gannon to avoid the stigma of institutionalization back wherever she came from.

"Some thought it a creative way to treat patients who might otherwise not elect to get help. Others opposed its drive-thru-like approach to medicine. They said such a short commitment period for potentially serious cases was insufficient." He shrugged. "I saw both the pros and cons myself."

"Why was she admitted?"

"Her parents were worried about certain…episodes she was having. In most every respect, Ms. Gannon was a remarkably polite, well-trained young woman. A debutante. No seeming desire to indulge in any type of teenage rebellion that is typical for a fourteen-year-old girl. Except during psychotic breaks. Certain stressors triggered her to act out in ways both violent and sexual. She would randomly attack other girls at school. Engage in casual relations with boys. Perhaps even a teacher if rumor proved true.

"Celia Gannon was a beautiful young girl, Detective. All the charms and physical maturity of a grown woman. Orderlies were caught sleeping with her, and that was during a time where such an offense was more slap-on-the-wrist than a call for termination. There was something about her. A wild spirit that could not be tamed, that drove men mad. But sex was take it or leave it with her, and that would drive men even madder. One could attain full carnal knowledge of her but never pierce the wall of mystery that shrouded her heart. They would fall hopelessly in love with her, but she was perpetually uninterested in them. One gentleman confessed to me that her bedroom skills were hardly even worth mentioning, that she never even seemed into it but like she was watching it from the outside. He said that it only added to her allure, like this challenge to try and satisfy her."

"What was your impression of her? Beyond that, I mean. What caused her episodes?"

"She struck me as a very frightened girl. I believe she had been molested in her past, though she never admitted it. She came from privilege and was used to that kind of life. And because she was pampered and sheltered and repressed, the world outside of that, the real world, it scared her. Anything unknown scared her. She wanted safety, needed safety. Because of that for a while I assumed it was a simple, albeit deep-seated case of agoraphobia. But she did not fit the typical profile. Maybe it was part of it, but her fears of the world or other people did not cause panic attacks, or lead her to become a shut-in. Instead she coped by merely altering her reality. Deluding herself, by any means necessary. She would act out, of course, like with fighting or promiscuity. But most peculiar, most disturbing, was that she had this ability to create whole imaginary worlds in her mind. Whole different identities. They would act as defensive mechanisms. Today they call it dissociative identity disorder. Back then it was multiple personalities. Of course, I had less than three months to observe her, so I had no real diagnostic evidence to support that hypothesis, but…"

"Did you feel like the treatment did anything to help her?"

Chance sighed and gazed off for a long time. "Probably not. She was a case of too little time. In some respects I feel like her stay at the hospital could have made things worse. Sometimes I'm glad of my inability to find out what became of her. Because I probably don't want to know." Something seemed buried in Chance's eyes, something more than general concern for a patient's welfare, something deeper, something guilty.

"Dr. Chance…did you and Ms. Gannon…"

Chance looked at her. His gaze was unwavering. "No, Ms. Lehman. I was married. And it's grossly unethical."

"But you were a young man. She was a pretty girl."

"I was married. It's unethical."

"Forgive my cynicism and my candor, Doctor, but a woman in my profession often finds that marriage and ethics don't mean shit."

Chance gave that a bitter laugh.

"And you're not married anymore," Eliza said.

"Nope. Not anymore."

"A guy I used to work with?" Eliza said. "He would always tell me that everyone cheats. And those who don't are just afraid to."

"Do you believe that, Ms. Lehman?"

"I don't know. I never had much time for relationships and I have even less time for marriage. But it sounds reasonable enough. It's human nature."

Chance nodded and raised a finger like he was a teacher appreciating the point a student had made. "Human nature, yes. That's it, Detective. But never underestimate the power of the will. The will to resist our most reptilian and basic instincts in the name of something bigger than ourselves."

"Does that suffice it to say that you wanted to sleep with Celia Gannon but didn't?"

"Human nature, as you say," he said. "I'll admit the temptation was there. Things with my wife and I had gotten stale pretty early, so when a pretty young thing shows you a little attention, of course it's intoxicating. But the idea of marriage to me, coupled with my sense of ethics, well, that was my will overcoming the primal, the animal." He waved it off. "But I digress, Ms. Lehman. She was very young. Any thoughts I may have had about Ms. Gannon were nothing more than a passing fantasy, I promise you."

"And I believe you," she said. "If I may ask, what did come between you and your wife?"

"She cheated, left me for someone else. Not too long after Ms. Gannon."

"I'm sorry."

"Long time ago."

"The reason I ask you this," Eliza said, "is because it seemed like there was something that bothered you about Ms. Gannon."

Chance took a long time before he finally nodded, and when he did he did so slowly. He said, "Do you know anything about Smith's Grove back in the day? Its history?"

Eliza shrugged. "Little bit."

"Well, back in the late 1800s when the hospital was an asylum for the criminally insane, we were on the forefront of some very experimental treatments. In the early 1900s we were one of the first to perform lobotomies. It was an experimental age. Not long after that we started using electroshock therapy. Well, there was a resurgence of both in the forties and fifties. Celia Gannon received both."

"I thought that was reserved for the criminally insane, as you put it. Electroshock is one thing, but did Ms. Gannon warrant a lobotomy?"

"It was controversial. Our facility was trying it on some select minor cases. It was radical, admittedly."

"Unethical, arguably."

"Indeed. Short-lived, either way. I suggested it for Ms. Gannon only because electroshock therapy had been tried more than once and did nothing for her. I believed a transorbital lobotomy would be appropriate. I feared, as I told you, that her hospital stay was exacerbating her mental illness. On top of the sleeping around, she had begun attacking staff. I thought a few up and down jerks in the frontal lobe would cure it."

"But it didn't?"

"I actually saw a marked improvement. The attacks on staff ended. There was one sexual encounter, I believe, but it wasn't initiated by her this time."

"So…"

"So what was the problem?" Chance sighed deeply. "It took many of her symptoms away, yes, but the side effects…"

"Side effects."

"Something inside of her died. She became…dull. Emotionally stunted. Like a light had left her. She was still a polite, remarkably well-mannered woman. But cold. And while she no longer acted out, she was still deathly, deathly afraid of…life out there. I believe we sent her back somewhat fixed, but ultimately the worse for wear. And I should have known better. I knew the research, I knew the potential risks. I should have waited, should have…there were new anti-psychotic drugs coming on the market then. There were less invasive methods I could have taken."

"Did her parents know what the hospital did to her?"

"No. Unless she told them. Which even if she did…I have the feeling they were the type of people who couldn't care less, who merely wanted their daughter to go to boarding school and behave so no further embarrassment would fall upon them." He opened the hand he had resting on his jaw, as if to say, and that was it. "Hospital loved it because there were no legal ramifications. And the program ended not long after her. Both the summer stay-away and the lobotomy practice. Still…I never forgot her. It made me…think."

"Think?"

"Think. Doubt. Make me wonder just what the hell I was doing in medicine, or psychiatry for that matter. A terrible thing at such a young age in my career. Disillusioning. But then oddly sobering and refreshing. Allowed me to view cases with a marked objectivity, at a distance. It's like anything else really. Youthful naiveté giving way to a learned jadedness. But she was the beginning, I think. Of all of this." He waved an arm back at his house, at everything around him.

"How do you mean?"

"Years later, after Ms. Gannon, there was a young boy at the sanitarium…" His eyes glazed over and his gaze turned dark, almost fearful.

Eliza swallowed.

Chance went on: "He had an evil spirit in him. Perhaps more than one. His doctor saw it, but I in my clinical arrogance attributed it all to matters mental and psychological. It was only with the terror he caused some years later that I began to wonder. All the neat textbook definitions could not come close. There was a force inside of him, unable to be tamed or explained by the medicine of man. Oddly enough he…" His eyes moved, a fresh thought coming to him. "He and Ms. Gannon had the same room. Huh. It was years apart, of course. But he made me think about her and about…about the bigger picture.

"I spent much of my early life shunning my heritage. My parents had drilled it into me, but I wanted no part. I didn't care. But after that boy grew up and escaped and killed all those people…it made me realize that there was something bigger out there than all of us. So with a suddenly renewed interest, I revisited my roots and found a far more rational explanation for it all. Simple. Ancient. I found that there are forces out there to remind us that we—mankind—have overstepped our boundaries. Look at the way we treat each other. Look at the way we treat our environment. A slew of people are murdered in cold blood, the kind of thing that becomes the stuff of legend, and it scares us. Rightfully so. Because that is a force we cannot control, a force we do not expect in the fabric of our American construct, our American dream."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Look at it this way," he said. "In the course of evolution, us humans have only been concerned with our own survival. We talk science and biology and technological advancements, but with no sense of morality. No concern for the ramifications on our individual souls, or the soul of our land. In today's so-called sophisticated age, religion is scoffed at, be it toward your popular Christian god or the ways of my people." He stopped, met Eliza's eyes. "Are you a woman of faith, Ms. Lehman?"

"No. I believe in the fallibility of the human race. I believe we all look for something to make our god. Money, drugs, sex, relationships. We all find our addictions we allow to consume us. I'm a workaholic obsessive compulsive and perfectly fine with it. But any notion of an actual God or gods—protecting us, loving us, guiding us—with all due respect, it's pie-in-the-sky nonsense to me. Primitive superstition. Those who do choose to have faith, that's just their addiction, where they choose to find answers and find hope. But in all likelihood, Dr. Chance, it's this life of absurdity and suffering and making the best we can out of it, and then it's one long dirt nap. No heaven, no hereafter. Just the end."

He stared at her a long time.

"I would think," Chance said, "that a woman of your profession and self-admitted addiction would notice the signs. Look around you. Famine and drought. War and plagues. Natural disasters. Mass killings. The consequence of man's arrogance. It is nothing more than the land fighting back. Adaptation. Survival. You watch the news and wonder why, why. Hurricanes, floods. Mental illness, the spilling of innocent blood. Is it not possible that the spirits of the land can possess a human soul to do terrible things? To direct the weather even to devastating results? Could evil, Ms. Lehman—could evilbe used as an instrument of judgment?"

Eliza stared at him. She wondered if he had spent too much time in the bin with the other loons, wondered how they had even gotten on this topic.

Chance said, "While I follow the Great Spirit and cannot personally come to terms with the Christian god, there is something to be said about His judgment. Read your Old Testament. Read about God's curses on the land when His law is not kept. It is not so different with my people."

"I don't believe those are signs of anything, Dr. Chance," she said. "Just simple entropy. Nature, the world, people. Everything has a general inclination towards disorder and chaos."

"So then it's all just chance to you. We're all here by some grand cosmic accident, just living out our lives the best we can. No moral truths or spiritual ramifications, no eternity to consider."

Eliza shrugged.

Chance said, "Perhaps my former clinical arrogance has given way to spiritual arrogance, and for that I apologize, but you are wrong, Ms. Lehman. There is a natural balance to things, a natural order. Our fallible human race, as you so appropriately put it, tends to tip the scales in its own favor. In our conceit we believe we can conquer and tame and own. But the land demands retribution. Blood for blood. The ancients understood sacrifice, the need to appease the land lest it hold back its harvest. And somewhere along the line we lost our way. But the land demands its own harvest. And it only bides its time for so long. One way or another, there will be blood."

Eliza was just staring at him now, an eyebrow raised in bemusement.

Chance laughed. "Forgive me. I warned you I tend to talk too much on the rare times I do have company."

She waved him off. "Forget about it."

"It's just…" Chance stared off the porch into the countryside, to the western sky and setting sun that melted into an endless horizon. "You ever look around at people sometimes? In all my time apart from society, on the outside looking in, it has allowed me to see it clearer. People muddling through their lives, slaves to others and slaves especially to their own devices. Those who never truly find meaning, or even get a chance to look for it. So many lost souls." He chuckled. "There are even many that would call me a lost soul. A heathen." He shrugged. "Perhaps I am. Perhaps we all are. Perhaps we all just…" He searched for a word he couldn't think of.

Eliza said, "Wander."

Chance nodded. "Yes." He nodded absently a few more times, gazing off into the sunset and the fading light of day, dark pinks and grays adding to the blue and merging into a pleasantly golden sky. "Just look at that. Though we wander, we should all take time to look at the western sky. Slow things down. Listen to the universe. It has much to tell us, you know."

Eliza even found herself getting lost in the view. Moments of utter peace and tranquility were rare in her life, much less any lasting contentment, but for a second there, that sunset fooled her. For a second there she felt she could finally, at last, relax. Exhale.

When she looked back, she found Chance studying her, staring at her as if trying to remember something.

"You must forgive me again," he said. "Since you arrived, I have had the strangest feeling like I've seen you before."

"I've lived in Smith's Grove for twenty years," Eliza said. "Chances are you saw me around back when you worked there."

"No, that's not it. It was a dream. A vision."

"A vision."

"I doubt you believe in such things. And believe me I in no way hold myself up to be a great prophet or a shaman. Just a humble medicine man. But since I was young, even when I didn't believe, I would get these visions. Mostly during sleep. Obscure mostly. Surreal. But then down the road, something would happen and I'd realize that I had gotten a foreshadowing of it. And not too long ago, I had a dream with a blond-haired girl. It was fuzzy, of course, but I believe now that it was you. You stood atop a hill among many, overlooking a large valley. And somewhere not too far away a river ran through. It was long, long ago. Because I saw my people as they used to be. Before the white man. Living in their homes across the hillsides and in the valley. And storm clouds were rolling in from the east. I was standing next to you and I pointed at the clouds and you nodded. And I looked across the land of my people, this village, and don't ask me what brought these words out of my mouth, but I said to you, I said, 'Welcome to the hollow beyond the hills.'"

Chance stared at Eliza as if she could help shed some light now that she was here.

But "huh" was all Eliza could say.

"Odd, wouldn't you say?" Chance said.

"I would say that."

"Perhaps I will never know what it means. The visions, they come and go. Sometimes they don't mean anything. But other times…" He shrugged.

Eliza nodded, didn't say anything.

"Well," Chance said. "I have probably taken up enough of your time." He stood up. "I hope I was of some help."

Eliza stood up and shook the man's hand. "Very much. I appreciate it."

"I'll walk you to your car."

"Oh no. Thank you though."

Chance nodded politely and Eliza felt him watching her as she crossed the pathway to her car in the gravelly driveway.

"Ms. Lehman," he called.

And Eliza turned around.

"There is a darkness out there," he said. "A supernatural order of things that must be respected lest we all become swallowed by the night. I only pray that you realize it before it is too late."

Eliza stared at him. He was about to turn away, but then his somber face turned apologetic, and his voice lighter. "You'll forgive me for the dramatics. It's a weakness for the theatrical, as you no doubt have noticed. But then again my people are storytellers." He nodded. "Good day, Detective."

He walked through the front door and was gone.

Her head spinning with one part confusion and one part pseudo-spiritual poppycock, she climbed in her car and hit the road back home.

The next day, she got a call at the office from David Collins III.

It had been a year and a half since that day at the country club bar. But Collins did not waste any time catching up.

"What was the meaning of the letter you sent me?" he asked.

"Letter," Eliza said.

"Yes."

"What letter?"

"The letter you sent to my home. Not even my office, but my home, where my family and I live, where had I not gotten to it first, they may have seen what I saw."

"Mr. Collins, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Collins sighed. "Detective Lehman, I told you to stay out of my business. And not to contact me again."

"Mr. Collins, I assure you, I have not sent you anything. I have remained out of your affairs as I gave my word to you I would."

"And how about your partner? Ex-partner, I should say. It must have been quite a falling out to take his name off the company letterhead."

"I can't think of any reason he would be contacting you either, Mr. Collins." But inside she thought, Andrew, you son of a bitch.

Collins said, "How else am I to explain a letter with your return address on the envelope?"

"A tad obvious, wouldn't you think?" Eliza said. "Someone's idea of a joke."

"A crude and sick joke," Collins said.

"What did the letter say?"

Collins ignored the question. "What business do you have with my ex-wife?" he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"My ex-wife. Diane Fischer."

Eliza remembered. The first wife. She had been admitted into psychiatric care soon after discovering the mutilated bodies of her daughter and son-in-law.

"I have no business with your ex-wife, Mr. Collins."

Another sigh. Then a small chuckle. "I understand you two came around briefly during the investigation into Charlee McCool's death. Asking questions."

"It was a routine affair," Eliza said. "Harmless. I trust you already know that or you would have stepped on our toes back then. Beyond that, we followed the case from the outside. It dead-ended and so did our involvement."

"I understand it was shortly after this that your partner…left. Perhaps he has...different feelings?"

"Hardly, Mr. Collins. Ms. McCool is dead. Our client is dead. The case is dead. Done."

Silence for a long moment.

"Okay." He said it like, we'll see.

"About this letter, however, Mr. Collins…"

"You should be receiving a fax as we speak."

Right on cue, she heard the rattle of the fax machine atop a nearby file cabinet.

One sheet of paper was a copy of the envelope Collins had received. The writing was that of a child's, addressed to Collins's home residence. In the upper left corner was the name Lehman Investigations (the updated name), with the office address underneath.

The other sheet of paper was the letter.

But the letter was no letter at all. It was a child's drawing of five stick figures. On the bottom was a stick figure with the caption, ABIGAIL. She had been crudely crossed out with what Eliza assumed to have been red crayon on the original drawing. Next to her was a bold question mark. Above her the stick figures labeled MELISSA and DYLAN had also been violently wiped out. And above them were the figures of DAVID and DIANE. Intact. Unblemished.

But for some reason Diane had been circled several times.

Eliza stared at the drawing, playing with and turning over thoughts in her head.

"Detective." Collins. Still on the line.

"Mr. Collins, I am as in the dark as you are about this drawing."

"If that's true, and I still don't have a guarantee on that, it means someone else out there knows things that they shouldn't."

"Mr. Collins, I think we both already know there is someone still very much at large out there who knows things that they shouldn't. I'd like to run the drawing for prints."

"Already done. It's clean."

"Then is there anything else, Mr. Collins?"

Silence for another long moment. "I'll have my eye on you. Detective. Do not attempt to look into this. I have my own police department and private security firm for that. But if you decide to cross me and do otherwise, well…"

There was a chuckle and a sharp click and the call was over. Eliza placed the phone down slowly, staring at her desk, studying the duplicated envelope and drawing.

This week was getting weirder by the minute.

And it didn't stop.

Noah Faison called a few minutes later, talking about a stick figure drawing that had been mailed to him at college.

TWENTY-THREE

It was a crisp night. Biting. The air smelled like cider.

Sofia knew that if it was daytime she could see the leaves on the trees in the process of changing, a kaleidoscope in the colors of fall. But right now she lay drunk and on her back next to a cornfield on the outskirts of Waverly, silos and farmhouses silhouetted against the night sky. There was a picnic blanket between her and the ground. Steve, the guy she had met at Mooner's last week, was as drunk as she was and clumsily mounting her.

Most of their clothes were still on. It was cold.

As he moved inside of her, for some reason she thought about the cider in the air. She thought about apples. It made her think of her childhood, field trips to the cider mill.

The sex wasn't bad while it lasted. It didn't last long. Steve finished quickly. She gave him a little squeal to make him think he'd done something.

She didn't think twice about what looked like the shadow of a man falling over their bodies at one point, like someone had been watching them.

She'd forget it in the morning anyway.

Hopefully all of this.

She only remembered some of it the next morning when she woke up in the back of Steve's car, the windows fogged from their breath. The harsh sun still found its way in, pursuing her in her hung-over condition. Her stomach moved in ways it was never meant to when she sat up.

"Can you take me home?" she asked weakly, holding a fist against her mouth as she felt something rising in her throat. It passed, but she cringed with any bump or sudden movement the car made the whole ride back.

She had Steve drop her off at Brittany's house so she didn't have to see her parents like this. She acted as un-hungover as she could when she greeted Brittany's mother at the door. Brittany's mother gave her a mm-hmm kind of look and told her Brittany was upstairs.

"Hey Sof, come on up!"

But once up the stairs, she took a sharp and sudden detour into the bathroom. She nearly missed the toilet bowl into which went waves of last night's dinner.

She groaned and laid her sweaty head on the blessedly cool side of the bowl. Brittany stepped in through the doorway with a sigh and a shake of her head. She was in jeans but still had a pajama shirt on. Her hair was in rollers.

"Hey Brit," Sofia breathed, only to feel another torrent rising. She turned back and went for another round. This time Brittany reached her. She knelt beside Sofia and pulled her hair back. She patted her forehead with a cool washcloth.

"Oh, my poor baby."

"I was hoping this wouldn't happen," Sofia mumbled as she turned back around. "I'm sorry."

"Don't tell me you're sorry. Tell the toilet. How much did you have, girl?"

"I don't know."

"Scrawny little thing like yourself ain't meant to hold so much liquor. You're barely a hundred pounds."

Sofia smiled sheepishly. "You have any, um, Listerine, or something?"

"You sure you're done?"

"Yeah, I'm good now." She took a breath.

"Hold on." Brittany grabbed a bottle from the mirror cabinet above the sink and poured some mouthwash into a little Dixie cup.

Sofia swished it around some and spit it out. "Oh God," she said, taking heavy breaths. "I hope your siblings aren't hearing this." Brittany had a younger brother and sister.

"Nah, they're out playing somewhere."

"Good."

"You want to tell me about it?" Brittany asked. "Must have been quite an evening."

Sofia told her what she could remember. Meeting up with Steve at Mooner's, having a good talk and deciding he was a chill enough guy. They drank a lot and ended up parking outside of a cornfield.

"I'd only met him one other night," she said, almost to herself. "You remember, with you and Em last week? Is it bad I gave it up after only knowing a guy for two nights?" She sighed and shook her head.

"You were drinking."

"Still."

"It happens."

"Not to you."

"Well…"

"Exactly."

"Just relax, girl."

"You're a good friend, Brittany. Taking care of me like this. Never judging. I'm sorry to bust in here and ruin your morning. But I couldn't go home like this."

"I know. Ain't no thing. You're my girl, you know that."

Sofia shook her head some more. "I feel like Emma."

Brittany laughed. "Girl, you got about a few thousand more nights like the one you just had to even get close to Emma."

Sofia laughed and was relieved when it didn't hurt her stomach.

"That girl is lost," Brittany said. "You, on the other hand, are just fine. A little misguided sometimes, pain in my behind too, but I got nothing but love for you."

"See, you're such a good person."

"Yeah, whatever. Come on, we'll get you downstairs. Let's watch some TV, get you some ginger ale."

Sofia was happy to see her period come a few days later. She couldn't remember using protection that night in the cornfield, and didn't really feel like calling up Steve to ask. She didn't really even want to see him again.

Sofia was no stranger to a positive pregnancy test. About a year and a half ago she had stared at the strip of plastic and saw a plus sign form. She didn't believe it until two more tests showed the same result.

She never told anyone about the abortion, not even the father, especially not the father. She had been a junior in high school and he a sophomore in college. The relationship was exciting at the time, dating a college guy and going to college parties. They broke up when he transferred out of state and he was never the wiser and Sofia never saw or spoke to him again. All she had left to remember he even existed was a few pictures of him, usually the two of them at a party holding red plastic cups. He was one of those beefed-up juicehead types, liked sporting muscle shirts that showed off his arms and a sleeve of tattoos. It had been fun, but they were never in love or anything.

Still, that she had actually begun to carry a life inside of her that she then went on to terminate—it wasn't easy no matter what your view on it was. She'd never forget sitting in that clinic waiting room. A few girls had their boyfriends with them, some of whom looked supportive and some of whom looked like why do I have to be here. Other girls, like her, were alone. Sometimes she would meet their gazes. For some there was a look like how did I get here, for others there was a look like here we go again.

She never felt wholly right about her decision, but never wholly wrong either. She could never have faced her parents or everyone at school. And she couldn't possibly let a baby interfere with her future.

After the procedure, she went home drugged up and sick and spent a night in bed crying. She didn't even have sex for another four months.

But it was in the past now.

Home from class for the day, her parents still at work, she sat on the toilet and was never so relieved in her life to see all that blood and feel those cramps coming. Downstairs, she grabbed a bite in the kitchen and popped a couple ibuprofen, washed them down with some ginger ale. She had work at three but until then relaxed on the couch with her heating pad watching some TV.

Nothing was on, so she shut the TV off and watched it go black, saw the reflection of the living room window against the screen. The tree in the front yard, the street, the pathway to the front door, the man—

The man standing on the pathway.

With a jump she turned around and the man was gone. Knees up on the couch, she scanned the front yard. Leaves danced across the grass in a passing breeze. Branches from a tall oak tree hit a gutter on the side of the house. A single car drove down the street and turned onto the next.

But no more man.

She hadn't realized she was holding her breath until the doorbell rang and she stifled a high-pitched yelp. She tried to relax, breathe slowly.

She left the living room and went into the foyer and opened the front door and no one was there.

A gust of wind blew leaves across the empty porch and rattled loud wind chimes in the corner.

She leaned out from the doorway, took a wider scan. Still no one.

She sighed. Stupid kids. Had to be. She looked down at the Halloween-themed welcome mat for whatever pile of shit or laced candy some prankster had left.

But there was nothing of the sort. Only—

A piece of paper, held firmly by its corner under the mat.

She reached down and picked it up. The one side was blank. She turned it over.

HELLO SOFIA

That was it. It was written sloppily, a little kid's writing. Probably just some neighborhood brat, maybe one of the Kensington boys that lived down the street. Those little cretins were spawns of Satan.

Maybe she could catch them in the act. They couldn't have gotten far. And most likely they wanted to see the efforts of their prank. Any moment now she would hear cackling and giggling around the corner.

She stuffed the note in her pocket, slipped on a pair of shoes from the inside mat, and walked out onto the porch. She closed the door and crept slowly to the side of the house, saw the gentle slope that led up to the neighbor's yard, cardboard cutouts of Frankenstein's monster and the Mummy clattering from where they hung on their front porch.

She continued to inch alongside the house to the backyard, stepping softly over a leaf-covered lawn. There was a lonely swing set and some trees and nothing more.

She shrugged and turned back around, returning to the porch and the front door.

The open front door.

It swung wider in the breeze, provoking the wind chimes again. They sounded like an alarm.

Intruder.

She walked slowly back down the porch.

Back in the house, she shut the door and locked it, scanning the foyer, the doorway into the living room, the corner to the steps that led upstairs. All clear.

She walked into the living room, the entire house quiet, still, her footsteps creaking softly underneath the rug until she came to a stop. She thought she heard another creak from somewhere else on the floor. A small series of creaks. Like someone else was walking about. Inside her house.

She felt a literal chill up her spine and had the strangest feeling that someone was approaching her from behind. Her bottom lip trembled. She took a breath and spun around.

Nothing.

And she heard not even the slightest creak more.

She shook her head and chuckled. She needed to get out of the house. She looked at the clock. It was a little early to get to work but she left anyway.

She started up the car in the garage and backed out, that feeling never leaving her that she was being watched. That someone was in her house. Watching her from the window. Watching her leave.

Emma came and hung out with her at Abercrombie and Fitch for a bit. It made the time pass. They could talk and make it look to the managers like she was selling clothes. And Emma had the money to buy all she wanted anyway, make it look like Sofia was doing a damn good job. Emma always bought full price too. She didn't use coupons and she didn't shop clearance—she could afford not to.

Sofia had learned how to be a smart shopper years ago. She shopped a lot, and knew when stores had their biggest sales, which coupons to use, what clothes to wait on until they were marked down, and what full-priced A&F clothes were worth it to use her associate's discount.

She hated Emma sometimes—so carefree about money, so carefree about everything, so effortlessly pretty on top of it all.

"So you coming out with me tonight?" Emma asked as Sofia folded several tops on a table near the entrance of the store.

"No, I got some work to do."

"You too, huh? I called Brittany. Her being a wet blanket I understand, but not you, you're my girl."

Sofia took some clothes from the rack next to the fitting room and Emma followed her around the store as she put them away. "I got to chill out some. I partied a little too hard last weekend."

"With Steve from Mooner's?"

"Brittany told you?" She paused to smile and greet some incoming customers, let them know about the day's promotions.

Emma followed up after she finished. "No, you know Brittany. She doesn't talk about anyone's business. But I could guess."

"I just need to calm down a bit."

"Yeah, yeah, okay."

Sofia shot her a look. "Thank you."

"So, what else has been going on with you these few days you've been hiding out?"

"I haven't been hiding out. We have lunch together every day."

"I know. But then you go straight home or to work. What's going on?"

"Nothing."

Emma raised her eyebrows.

"Nothing. Well…"

"What?"

"I've been having this strange feeling."

"Strange feeling like what?"

"Like someone's been watching me. Earlier today I had it when I was leaving the house. And then last week there was this guy standing outside my English class. And that same day on my way to school walking with Brittany I thought I saw someone. And then at this gas station I…I don't know. It sounds ridiculous."

"Do you know who it could be?"

"I don't know if it's actually anyone or if I'm paranoid."

"Paranoid of what?"

"I couldn't tell you."

"Maybe it's Steve."

"Mm. I don't think so. Plus, it was happening before him."

"When did it start?"

"I don't know, um…maybe over the summer?" The more she thought about it, she realized it was true. She could think of a few times over the summer when she felt like someone was following her or watching her. A few times she dreamed that someone was in her room at night. At least she hoped they had been dreams. Some mornings her alarm clock would go off at random times she hadn't set. She also remembered one night when she and her ex, Ethan, parking somewhere to have sex, kept hearing noises outside like someone was close by. She even thought she saw a shadow against the steamy windows at one point. Ethan had gone out to investigate but came back and said there was nothing.

She told Emma, "I can't even be sure. It's like someone's there one minute and gone whenever I look."

Emma shrugged. "I don't know."

"It's probably nothing," Sofia said.

"Well, if you catch whoever this guy is in the act, see if he's cute. And if he is…show him something he could do that's better than watching."

Sofia laughed and slapped Emma's arm. "Buy something. Or get out of my store."

The next night, Sofia went to her second job for the first time since her drunken night at Mooner's and her cornfield excursion with Steve. She hated dancing while on her period, but the bleeding had slowed and she had it mostly under control.

She didn't feel any shame in stripping, but she didn't love it either. She'd seen a good number of girls at Ooh-La-La working the pole to help put in some extra money for their families and pay the bills. And while some were legit whores, most just wanted to put in a day's work.

Nearing the shift's end, she took off her bra, bore her naked chest, and got down on all fours, crawling mischievously across the counter and over to a distinguished-looking man alone at the corner of the bar. He had salt-and-pepper hair, wore a custom-tailored pin-stripe suit, and held a calm observant gaze.

She got close to him, gave him a series of playful looks, and teased her long hair over his face that smelled of a nice dusky cologne.

"And what is your name, lovely miss?" he asked.

"Luna." Her stripper name.

"Tell me, Miss Luna, how would you feel about earning a little something…extra?"

She let the question linger in the air until he slipped two twenties under the string of her thong. In the seductive voice she saved for her job here, she said, "I do allow the rare private dance for…special clients."

"I'm not talking about a private dance. I'm talking about something a little more…extracurricular."

Sofia almost broke character, almost let it show on her face.

The man took out a thick wad of cash, all twenties. "I'd be very generous."

She swallowed.

"I've seen you in here before," the man said. "I can tell you're different from the other girls. I see it in your eyes. You're smart. Making quick money here to pay your way through college, I assume. And you're probably thinking…this money, an opportunity like this, it could really help me out. A real nice cushion for just one night."

This was true. Sofia thought about all that. She let her confidence—her stage presence—falter for a few seconds as she considered.

But suddenly she got a random whiff of cider in the air and remembered being on her back next to a cornfield, letting a man crawl up inside of her that she barely knew. She thought of all the guys in the past she had given up too much to too soon, all for whatever reason seemed justification enough at the time.

She regained her composure. "While I appreciate your offer, Mister, I'm afraid I have to respectfully decline."

The man smiled. "Good night, Miss Luna. I come here often, if you ever change your mind."

He left with the grace of a self-possessed gentleman. She watched the door even after he was gone, waiting for her heart to stop beating so fast.

It was under an overcast sky and a teasing mist of rain the next day that she ran laps alone on the track in front of the BC3 athletic building. While the college did not have any official sports teams, there was a petition out to make them a Division III school for basketball. In the meantime it promoted physical and intramural athletic education and thus sported a pretty nice facility for sports and fitness.

She took advantage of it often. She loved days like these where she had the track to herself. A day as wet and depressing as this gave her full reign of the premises.

It came with memories too. When she was twelve, she and a boy she liked took a walk to this very campus one day after school. It was an equally grim day, and they walked the track and football field all alone. Sofia had her first kiss that day, right on the bleachers. It was so exciting to her at the time, kissing a boy, and doing it at this institution of higher education. She missed that time, that time in life when just a kiss, when just your crush holding your hand, was simply the greatest thing in the world. A world before sex and all the shit that came with it.

When she wasn't hiding it with friends and boyfriends, with sex and drinking, with dreams of the fashion industry and making it rich, these nostalgic pangs and longings could creep up on her out of nowhere and make her feel like she had nothing to look forward to in life. Life was only going to get harder. Happiness was temporary. Take the fleeting highs you can get and suck up the rest. That was life.

She tried not to think about it now. Exercising usually made her feel better. A good long workout could shake off the shame of drunken sex with a guy she wished she hadn't done it with. Could shake off the embarrassment of spewing vomit in her best friend's toilet. Could even make her feel like she was working all that alcohol out of her system. In a few hours she could go from disgusting to revitalized.

And working out reminded her of her long-term career goals. There were things she didn't like about her body—her flat chest and lack of curves namely—but she kept in damn fine shape. Had a body that despite its flaws made both boys and men pine after her. And on top of that body an angel of a face that won hearts and stopped people in their tracks. It was a body and a face that could break into the modeling world. A simple boob job was all she needed.

As she jogged an easy five miles, she thought about Brittany and how she seemed to have her life so together. She was her best friend for this very reason, because despite Sofia's own cool front, someone real like Brittany brought her down to earth. Brittany knew what she wanted and didn't fuck around and wasted no time in calling Sofia out when it needed done. And as much as Sofia made fun of her, Brittany seemed genuinely happy in her straight-edge virginal life. She was content in her religion. She didn't worry about her image, her weight, or what people thought of her. If anything, that made her more attractive. Sofia respected it, admired it, envied it even. But it wasn't for her. She was a little too boy crazy and liked the bottle too much to give them both up just yet.

Then there was Emma. Emma had a similar uncaring attitude like Brittany, but that was because she was too stupid to think otherwise. Sofia loved the girl to death, but she was one of those people who had everything going for her in life and pissed it all away on frivolity. She had looks, money, parents who catered to her every need and spoiled her rotten, and could have been Ivy League if she applied herself. But she liked to coast by and blow her money. Sofia did everything she could to save up. And while she knew she wasn't the ideal girl to bring home to Mom, she gave thought to the future, planned for a life outside of all this.

On her last lap, panting and heaving but giving it her all until the finish, she saw a lone dark shape standing at the very top of the bleachers. It was blurry in the fog and hard to see in the darkness that gradually approached as dusk grew closer and night crept in.

Someone's been watching me, she had told Emma. Just yesterday she had said it.

As she blew past the finish, she came to a rest briefly and put her hands to her knees, gasping in the cold fall air. When she looked up again, the shape was gone.

She began jogging in place.

Then she saw something. Above the top of the bleachers. The main entrance to the athletic center. One of the many doors was closing shut.

Someone had just walked in.

Her stretches would have to wait. Sofia jogged up the bleachers and into the building.

The spacious main lobby was empty. The high ceilings amplified the echo of her heavy breathing.

She stretched and walked at the same time, if that was possible, pulling back a leg here, leaning over a calf there, all while moving briskly past the lobby and into the main hallway.

It was a long corridor, the walls and floor tiles all an in-your-face insane-asylum kind of white.

And it was empty. No dark shape, no echo of receding footsteps.

On the other side of the hallway was the door that led to, according to its label, Gymnasium 1. The lights were on inside but she heard no noise. She pushed open the door and looked in at the huge gym. It was weird, it being so empty and quiet. Usually she'd be here watching the boys practice with Brittany and Emma, talking about which ones they wouldn't mind fucking. There'd be the scuffle and squeak of sneakers, the bleating of whistles, the thumping dribbling basketballs, the swish of the net, the cheers and claps and voices of those in the stands.

Now there was just silence.

She closed the door, the loud click of which resounded in the empty hallway. She sighed and continued to half-stretch half-walk down the rest of the hall, then turn onto another, at the end of which was a stairwell. A large window along the walkway looked into the indoor swimming pool below, the lights dulled and giving the large room a muted glow, the walls aquamarine and alive from the reflection of the gently lapping water.

She reached the stairs and proceeded up. Upstairs were the locker rooms where her gym bag was.

Another long corridor met her at the second floor landing. The view out the window on the side wall looked at the track and football field below. It was still empty, some of the stadium lights turning on with the coming night.

She entered a large fitness room, also seemingly empty. But as she walked in, she noticed someone else in the room walking with her.

When she stopped, so did the other person.

It was her reflection on the wall-to-wall mirror. She sighed and chuckled to herself, then did a graceful forward break-fall onto the mat, diving into some military push-ups. She followed those with some crunches and planks. She worked the jump rope a bit and then gauzed up her wrist and hands for a few minutes at the punching bag. She beat and kicked the shit out of the thing until she couldn't take it anymore.

She breathed heavy back out in the hallway, rustling her shirt as a little fan against all the sweat.

Then she heard some noise down the hallway.

Approaching slowly, she saw that it was just a television on in another fitness room, a big screen TV caddy-cornered before a row of treadmills and stair-masters. It was still on despite no one being around. She went into the room. The fucking thing was loud as hell, had to be to beat the noise of the treadmills when you were on them. She turned it off, thankful for the newfound silence, her ears ringing a bit.

"Hello?" she called out. Just in the chance someone was still there, waiting to come back.

No one answered.

She took another breath and moved on.

In the locker room, she took a walk past all the rows before going to her locker. She took her gym bag out and a fresh towel, resting her neatly folded change of clothes atop the bench. She stripped, and feeling watched for whatever silly reason again, quickly put the towel over her naked body and grabbed her shower tote, making her way to the shower annex off the bathroom.

On both sides of the room there was a row of showerheads down the length of the wall. She took one at the far end and turned it on piping hot, the way she liked it. While it warmed up, she removed her towel and crossed the room to rest it on a rail.

The steam was already shrouding everything in a thick moist haze. The water was near-scalding when she got to it. It opened the pores and put the skin in its best condition for an exfoliating body wash. She soaped up and then lathered some shampoo into her hair.

Then she heard the banging.

It sounded like something hitting the lockers. A steady persistent clang.

Sofia paused until it stopped. She waited, looking out the wide doorway. The steam clouded everything. She couldn't see a damn thing. She slowly walked out from under her showerhead, keeping it running, her wet footsteps making their way past the other showerheads. She peered around the corner and back out to the locker room.

Out there the steam dissipated and she could see clearly. See clearly that nothing was out there.

She went back to the shower and finished up, hating to do so if just because the sound of rushing water had made her feel safe. Now there was dead silence save for the sound of a few remaining drips and the swirling of water down the drain in the center of the room. She crossed the room again and got her towel, patting down her hair and then drying herself off. She covered herself and went back across the shower room to grab her tote.

Coming out into the bathroom, she scanned her surroundings through the film of residual steam. Still nothing.

She returned to the lockers. The air was a bit colder and the steam was gone completely.

And her clothes were no longer sitting on the bench before her locker.

They were gone.

She quickly froze, then just as quickly swung her locker door open, scanning the shelves. She dove into her gym bag and gutted that. Nothing.

"The fuck…?"

She stepped back and looked around, called out, "All right, who the fuck else is here?"

Silence answered her. She cursed herself for not locking her shit up.

"Is it you, Emma?"

` She walked briskly past the rows, checking each of them. She came to the end and started back, the confusion growing evident on her face. There was no one around.

But then someone turned one of the showers on.

Slowly, very slowly, she walked back to the bathroom, the stalls dark and all the doors shut, no feet on the floor. She turned toward the wide doorway into the showers, back into the milky sheen of steam…

There was complete silence other than the sound of a heavy shower spray. She breathed. She was going to peer around the corner and see another girl showering and that was it.

At least she hoped that would be it.

But around the corner there was no one in the shower, just a steam-filled sauna and a shower head spraying harsh lines of water. She'd bet they'd feel like knives to the touch.

She turned back around to the empty bathroom, watching the stalls. "Hello?" she called out again.

And again, no answer.

She turned back to the shower and walked inside the room, flip flops protecting her from the wet floor. Careful not to get in the way of the running water, she stretched out her arm and turned the nozzle to the off position.

Another silence followed that again scared the hell out of her. She wanted to get out of here.

She swallowed and slowly walked out of the shower annex back into the bathroom. As the steam faded, she noticed the word written in large letters on the wide mirror over the row of sinks. A name:

JUDITH

Droplets formed on the edge of the letters and streamed down the mirror. It was freshly written. And it was in the same crude handwriting as the note she left under her doormat.

And now, whoever had written it had to have walked out the only way in which Sofia could now escape. If he was still in the locker room, she was trapped.

She realized how fast she was breathing as she walked out of the steam and back to the lockers and back to her row—

Where her clothes had been returned. Neatly folded as if they had never been moved.

Her bag sat beside them, sweaty gym clothes and deodorant inside, all seemingly undisturbed. She examined her bag and her clothes for any kind of trick, any pre-Halloween joke some bitch had in mind. She wondered if some creep had gone after her used panties, but she found them right where she had left them.

She quickly changed, slammed her locker closed, drove the padlock home, and slung her gym bag over her shoulder. She hurried out of the locker room, head down.

She didn't see anyone on her way back down the stairs and out of the building. Nor did she hear any more sounds.

But she still felt watched. Knew, in fact, that she was being watched.

She didn't turn around once. She didn't want to.

When she left the athletic center, night had fallen completely.

Only when she was out in the fresh, cold, open air did she feel a bit safer. Still it didn't shake the sense that she was somehow being followed all the way home.

TWENTY-FOUR

Andrew Daly's bedside phone woke him up around midnight. He thought about ignoring it but knew it might be work. He leaned over the edge of the mattress that lay directly on the floor and clumsily picked up the receiver.

"Yeah."

"Andrew. Caitlin. Got one for you."

"It's late."

"Well, my client's at the shelter right now. Scared out of her mind. Her guy needs taking care of, if you're up for it."

"For you, Caitlin, anything."

"You'll love this one. Client broke it off with her abusive beau, started dating a nice guy, and now she's cheating on him with the abusive beau."

"Of course she is."

"And as you can imagine he's hardly reformed. This one's real bad. Broke her jaw with a flashlight once. Punched her in the face another time, busted all these capillaries around her eye. Found out she was pregnant months back, pushed her down the stairs and caused her to miscarry. That's all on top of the usual—stalking, controlling, threatening."

"All right, give me his info." He grabbed the small notepad and pen he kept next to the receiver as he took down all she told him.

"And Andrew?"

"Yeah."

"Hospital, not the morgue."

Well, it wasn't exactly work. Not legit work at least. Before long he was standing outside in the shadows beside an apartment building not far from downtown. He wore dark jeans and a black leather jacket and much of his long hair covered his face. Most importantly he wore gloves.

He checked the plates of a passing car and matched it up to the one Caitlin had given him. It was a beat-up old Volvo and it pulled noisily into the parking lot. When the driver got out he walked leisurely toward the sidewalk and the awning at the front of the building. He looked mildly buzzed and Andrew wished the universe had done everyone a favor and killed him on his way over here.

He even looked like a fucking asshole, shades clipped to the collar of his shirt like a douche. He had some pretty boy haircut and a well-groomed half-beard, looked like he spent some time at the gym.

Andrew made like he was walking into the parking lot as the guy was walking out and faked an accidental shoulder bump. The guy spun around.

Andrew's smile was a charmer. "Hey, my bad, man. Hey, wait, man, you're Robert Lawson, right?"

"Uh...yeah, bruh. That's right. We know each other?"

Positive ID. And he was a bruh guy. This would be fun. Andrew said, "Didn't we go to high school together? I'm Dominick. Dominick Stacconi. Dom. You remember."

"Uh...yeah, yeah, man, that's right, Dom, how you been?"

"Been all right. Listen, I gotta run, but you take care, man."

"You too, bruh. Peace."

Robert walked on and Andrew didn't waste time. He picked up an aluminum bat he had leaning in the shadows against the building and walked over to Robert's car. With a quick scan for witnesses he reared back and busted out the driver's side window. He followed up with the backseat window and front windshield and by this time Robert had run back from the sidewalk and was lumbering over to Andrew. "What the fuck—!"

Unsheathing a small pocket knife, Andrew stabbed a front and back tire and had time enough to wield the bat into position and connect it with Robert's chest as he charged forward. He hit the ground but had heart, bounced right back. Andrew dropped the bat and quickly pulled out his Glock and pistol-whipped him across the face. This time he fell down and stayed down.

Andrew lay the gun briefly on the hood of the car as he grabbed the bat again and brought it up.

"No, no, please—!"

The bat connected with Robert's chest and Andrew heard cracking ribs. Robert screamed and moaned and spat up blood. Andrew took the gun, leaned down over him, and slid the barrel into his open mouth. Robert's eyes were wide, tears streaming down his temples.

"Big fucking tough guy, huh," Andrew said. "You like hurting women? Hmm?"

Robert garbled something and Andrew stabbed him in the leg with the knife. He squealed like a little bitch.

Andrew pushed the barrel further into his mouth. "Now I want you to listen to me very carefully. This is very important. Darcy Wilcox. You will never be seeing her ever again. If youeven think about going anywhere near her, I will fucking kill you. Okay? I know where you live, I know the bars you frequent, I know where you work. I will find you. Now am I making myself perfectly clear?"

There was a weak nod in between whimpers.

"And if I ever hear that you're hurting any other women, I will kill you then too. You feel me, bruh?"

More nodding.

"Good." Andrew removed the gun barrel from Robert's throat. Robert coughed more blood.

Andrew gave him two quick hard punches across the side of his face and stood up as Robert writhed on the ground, crying. He removed an old pack of wipes Eliza had given him long ago and cleaned off his gun and knife. He returned the gun to his holster and the knife to his pocket. He picked up the bat and walked calmly up the street to a corner payphone. He dialed 911.

"Hey, I see someone bleeding, you better come quick, that parking lot on Gilmore next to Price Towers..."

He left the phone dangling and walked home and went back to sleep.

It was a slow night over slow beers down at a bar called The Lost Souls when Andrew's cop friend Scott, just getting off second shift, came in and plopped his large frame down on the stool next to his. Scott ordered one for himself and pointed at Andrew for another. Andrew nodded thanks.

They didn't speak until the bartender served them up.

Scott said, "Guys who caught the call, the name you gave me? Statement they got from the victim was, he didn't see his attacker. Wholly uncooperative. It'll be wrapped up by week's end."

"Good. Appreciate it." Andrew took a long pull.

Scott looked at him and shook his head. "You are one crazy fuck. Seriously."

Andrew toasted that.

"That fine-ass girl down at the shelter who gives you these names."

"Caitlin."

"You and her..."

"Sometimes."

"Nice. When you gonna settle down again?"

"I don't know. How's it working out for you?"

"You know what they say about misery."

"No thanks then."

"You know what my wife said to me the other night? She said I use her for sex."

"Women always say that. My wife used to say that."

"I don't know how I use her for sex. Couple actually has to have sex, one to accuse the other of using them for it. She's in the mood maybe once, twice a month. And even then it feels begrudging, you know, like she's doing me a favor. She's letting me have sex with her. Not that she's not enjoying it, at least somewhat, but like she could take it or leave it, like she's just doing it to get me off her back. I tell you, I wish she would use me for sex sometimes."

"Women are different than men. Being used for sex makes a woman feel cheap. But it's flattering to a man. Makes us feel good."

"I even said something like that to her."

"Big mistake."

"Tell me about it. Didn't speak to me for the rest of the night. I remember when I actually used to care about that. I don't know. Women, man."

"They're easier to understand than you might think."

Scott snickered.

"I'm serious."

"All right, explain."

"All you really have to do is listen, and show her evidence that you listen. Validate her feelings. Surprise her every so often, be spontaneous. Always stick up for her. Make her feel safe. And never look weak. Today's modern woman will tell you she likes being the boss in a relationship, but it's not really true. She'll lose all respect for you." He paused to take a long swig. "The rest is your basic physical mechanics. Look at her, look into her eyes, like you couldn't live without her. Don't gawk like a puppy dog, but really look at her, like you're looking at her heart."

"Man…"

"No, shut up, listen, this is good shit. Fuckin' important, you might learn something."

"All right."

"And kiss her long and slow, like she's the only woman you've ever kissed, ever want to kiss. As far as the bedroom? Confidence. Foreplay. Teasing. Then show her some moves her last boyfriend couldn't do. She'll be yours."

"My wife tells me to hurry up and get it over with."

"You got to do all the other shit first. Then she won't say that."

"You got it all figured out then, huh?"

"Wish I did ten years ago."

"I envy you, man."

"Don't."

"Not just with women but, like the shit you got yourself into now. Kicking ass out there. Really getting shit done when civil servants such as myself have their hands tied."

"You know, it felt good at first but..."

"What."

"Some of these women. I'd never hit a woman but some of them really need to get the shit slapped out of them."

Scott laughed.

"I'm serious," Andrew said. "A lot of these women like a certain type. You get one guy out of the way, they're on to another just like him. It's like mowing your lawn."

Scott had his eye on a tight piece of college-age candy drinking with her friend across the bar. "I'd like to mow her lawn."

Andrew made a sign to the bartender for the next round. He and Scott took down a couple of shots and nursed new beers.

Andrew said, "You asked why I'm not settling down any time soon, that's why." He raised a glass at the college girls.

"Because why settle when you can get different tail every night?" Scott asked.

"No. Because of these women. These fucking women. Don't look at those bitches over there. The clothes, the hair, the come-fuck-me eyes. It's all a game. It's lose-lose for everyone all around."

"I'm not following."

"I decided a while back not to settle down because I didn't want to be a right choice guy."

"Huh?"

"A right choice guy."

"The fuck is a right choice guy?"

Andrew drank some more. "There's two types of guys out there for a woman. Right and wrong. When a woman's young, she plays the field, dates all the wrong types. Because they're passionate, they're exciting, they're great in bed. But they don't have no job, no car, no prospects, don't do shit around the house. These are the type of guys treat her like shit or cheat on her or beat her around sometimes. But passionate, best she ever had. Then there's the right choice guys. Nice, thoughtful, got themselves a good job, would never even think about laying a hand on her or chasing other women, but eh, the sex is mediocre at best and let's face it, he's just dull as hell. But that's the guy gives a woman a family, kind of guy a woman can make a life with." He shrugged. "There's some overlap, sure. It's not always so black and white. Like me, for instance. I treat a woman good, fuck her right, but make no lies about commitment. Point is this. Safe and stable get the girl, but fire and passion win her heart. Nice and reliable will always play second fiddle to the memory of crazy stupid wild passion. There's nothing like it. it took me awhile to realize it, but when I did, I decided I would rather be someone's best mistake than the right choice. I would rather ruin a woman for any other man than play second best."

Scott stared at him like he was out of his damn mind.

Andrew went on: "Women have been talking a big game for years, going on about Mr. Right. But what they really want is to have their cake and eat it too, have a little bit of right and wrong. They want the bad boy allure with the nice guy qualities, want to be able to flick a switch to whichever one they want at a given time.

"But the trick, the trick is to find the one. Most of us never do. Never do. Two people who don't so much meet as collide. Instant insane passion, but true passion. Not the kind that tricks us into thinking it's love, but the kind that is love. Perfect love. Meant to be kind of love."

He drifted off, thinking of the one perfect couple he knew of that had found each other. That truly did have it all until…

He didn't like to think about it.

Instead, warm and drunk and philosophical, he thought about all his dalliances over the years and wondered how many women he had in fact ruined. How many sad saps had put a ring on his sloppy seconds? How many gave her a 401k and a sense of security, but not the bedroom magic, the eyes-in-the-back-of your-head-fuck-you-silly passion that haunts our hearts and taunts our loins long after the relationship is over? All this time Andrew had refused to mess with taken women but never once considered what happened when they took another. How many men were out there with bruised egos, who failed to measure up to past lovers? He felt pity sometimes for his ex-wife's current beau, safe and stable Sean. Not to toot his own horn but if Andrew was good at one thing it was sex, and just by looking at Sean he could tell he was a dull fuck. In the beginning, Sean was forbidden fruit for Amanda and that alone drove her to orgasm. She ate that shit right up. But now with wedding bells in her future and the idea of a weak lay the rest of her life, he wondered if she ever thought about him. Did she remember the sex and regret her infidelity? He knew Amanda and knew if he wanted to he could play games with her and get her into bed again. He had considered toying with her before, make like he was going to fuck her and tell her no at the last minute. It almost made him smile if it wasn't so fucking sad. When did making love become just sex? When did it become a game of comparing notes against our past lovers? Maybe the religious whack jobs had something after all. All the heartbreak and insecurity that could be avoided if we actually waited for and committed to one person. Maybe us heathen folk are just damaged goods. Hadn't Amanda been made that way by her father, doomed to be forever damaged by what he did to her—had it not determined the choices she made, her sexual urges and permissiveness, her inability to remain faithful? And what of her father? What hurts had been done to him to do what he did? Our sins don't stop with just us. They shoot out like shockwaves and bounce and ricochet and never once slow down, in fact grow all the faster and all the meaner. Eventually everyone comes across their paths. Eventually we're all hit. But still we press on, and while we may love hard, we fuck harder, ruining each other one by one and laying waste to all the old sacred notions. Sin is the architect of our human nature. We're notoriously unfaithful and endlessly curious and always at least a bit dissatisfied. We live on compromises—be someone's poignant reverie and favorite mistake, or actually have the audacity and courage to share a life with someone where maybe you don't rate first. So we make our choice in any case and suck it up, the loneliness, the jealousy and insecurity, the pangs of longing that come no matter what route you take.

Some time later, Andrew stood alone in the alley outside the bar smoking a cigarette, the smoke rising into swirling wisps that dissipated into the cold night air around the large neon sign above him in the window: LOST SOULS.

He went to work the next night.

When he noticed Eliza, she was standing in the shadows beside a chain-link fence at the chemical plant where he worked third shift. He stood in the cold with a thick coat labeled SECURITY and a duty belt equipped with a flashlight and radio and no weapons.

A bitter chill hung in the still night, the kind of night where everything was clear: the spattering of lights downtown, the curve of the landscape sporting rows of residential streets, the streetlights along the roads and those leading up the private drive to the gate that surrounded the industrial facility.

He felt her approach and said, "I thought you never wanted to see me again."

"Bored, I guess."

"How did you get up here?" He still didn't look at her.

"Walked in."

"There's a gate and another guard down there."

He turned around and faced her for the first time in nearly ten months. She was every bit of cold and lovely she always had been. The same sharp haircut, the same amazingly fit figure, but a new black overcoat that on this frigid night was buttoned all the way up, complete with a gray knitted scarf. Her gloved hands were at her sides.

"Check your pockets," she said.

He knew what she was getting at and checked the breast pocket of his jacket. One of his many facility security badges was missing.

He smiled, shook his head. "When?"

"Earlier. Broke into your car." She flashed the plastic ID, then put her hands in her pockets.

He nodded, smiled. "How you been, boss?"

"Same." She looked at his uniform and beyond the fence to the ominous chemical plant, shrouded in silhouettes of pipes and smokestacks. "So this is you now?"

A shrug. "It's work."

"You're better."

Another shrug. "I might do some moonlighting too."

"Moonlighting."

"Off the books. Friend of mine, she works at a domestic violence shelter. And sometimes the courts have their hands tied and the abusers aren't quite brought to justice as they should be. Sometimes I have to…convince certain gentlemen to be on their best behavior."

"I see."

Andrew stared at her and he didn't waste any more time with catching up and neither did she with any build-up. She said, "I need your help. A case."

He smiled. "I bet that hurt to say. How long did you toil in that twisted little mind of yours debating if you should come and see me?"

She just stared at him.

He looked away. "What's the case?"

"Charlee McCool."

He looked back—slowly. Then he chuckled, looked down, shook his head. "I knew this day would come." He shook his head some more and looked Eliza in the eye. "After she was killed, we went to Riggsboro and you couldn't wrap things up fast enough."

"That's because it went cold and you know it. Nothing we could have done that the cops weren't already doing. You grew obsessed. Unprofessional."

"So why now?"

"David Collins."

"What about him?"

"Someone made contact with him. I don't have to tell you who. But he thinks we're bringing heat on him. And if I—if we—look into this, he's definitely going to come after us. And I can't go up against him alone."

Andrew stared at her awhile, then nodded slowly. "We gonna talk at all about what happened?"

"Which part? When we fucked?"

"The other part."

Eliza shrugged. "You killed a man. Cold blood."

"If you're looking for an apology—"

"It wouldn't suit you."

"I'd do it again."

"I know you would."

"And that's the kind of man you think you might need now."

Another shrug. "Hopefully not. But the insurance would be nice. And I know how you feel about this. I don't know what it was about her, Andrew, but that McCool girl did something to you. What happened to her…it made you mean. Angry. The kind of angry made you go out and kill somebody."

"That had nothing to do with Charlee McCool."

"Not directly, no. But all that rage inside of you…her death brought it out."

"Because she—" He cut himself off. He sighed. "The guy I killed. He had raped at least two women—that we knew about. You remember. Molested countless others. That girl's mother hired us because the cops couldn't get anything on him. And that night we found him? The look in his eyes? I didn't know until then that I was going to kill him."

"You enjoyed it."

"What."

"I think that's what got me the most. I could tell you liked killing him."

"He deserved it."

"That's not what I'm talking about. The way you did it, so casual. You shot him in the nuts, then put a bullet in his stomach so he would suffer. You only finished him off with one to the head because I was there."

He shrugged. "He's not missed, 'Liza. We got rid of him."

"I helped you. My hands are dirty too. So you understand why we can't work together anymore. The man you were becoming. You were unstable."

"But now?"

"Now it's different. I'm not asking you to come back. It won't ever be like it was. I'm asking just this once. Whatever your personal stake in this is, the passion you have behind it, I believe it will be an attribute to us. You'll be amply paid."

"There's no client."

"You'll get your money."

He stared at her. "You once told me passion is messy. Passion is irrational."

"Yes. But perhaps it can be controlled. Focused." Eliza looked away into the night, looked back. "I can't have a partner like you on the books. But as demonstrated, off the books is your specialty."

Andrew nodded agreement.

"There is no case here," Eliza said. "Not officially. No client, nothing at stake."

"Just you and me working the streets," Andrew said. "Real police work. Like the good old days."

She nodded.

"What I did to that rapo," he said.

"I'm not looking for an explanation, Andrew."

"Amanda."

She looked at him, waited.

He said, "When she was young…her father…"

Eliza nodded understanding.

Andrew shrugged. "When she cheated, every other cheated spouse out there, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever…became me. Every assaulted woman, abused woman, raped woman…became her. Or my mother. I was going to be a cop so I could hunt these motherfuckers down. I ended up with you. Catching cheaters. I loved it."

Eliza met his gaze. They stared at each other a long time.

"So that rapo…" he said.

"Yeah."

Andrew removed his hands from his pockets. He reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a thick envelope. He looked at it, looked at Eliza. "Been carrying these around for awhile. Divorce papers."

Eliza said nothing.

"Anyway," Andrew said.

"Are you still using?" Eliza asked.

"Yes. That gonna be a problem?"

"Nope."

There were no lies and no pretensions. Things had changed since the last time they had seen each other. That night at the office, after giving statements to the police and washing themselves clean of the killing in every sense of the word…

Eliza made it clear to Andrew that he was fired. They had words. Feelings were hurt. Andrew took out his flask of Jameson and chugged from it in a way that would black-out the average drunk. For a moment Eliza abandoned her OCD and swiped the contents atop his desk to the floor. Andrew grabbed something from his jacket hanging over the chair and stormed off to the bathroom. Eliza wasn't sure how long she stood there, staring at the mess on the floor, but when she saw the traces of white powder on the zipper to his jacket pocket, she broke out of it.

She ran to the bathroom and saw him hunched over those neatly cut coke lines. She stormed over and beat the fuck out of him. She slapped the shit out of his face and gave him a clean uppercut to the nose. Blood ran. She grabbed his throat and squeezed with one hand, yanked on his hair with the other.

Andrew grabbed her throat in pure defensive instinct but let her shove him into the door of a bathroom stall. He fell and she helped him stay down with a few sharp kicks to the side.

She climbed on top of him and he slapped her and she slapped him and they rolled across the hard tile tearing at each other, sweating and grunting and bleeding and ripping their clothes. Eliza clawed his face and pulled more of his hair and punched him. Andrew backhanded her and she bit hard into his hand and he tried to push her off until she unzipped his pants and reached in. She pulled hard at his pubic hair, searing pain that was followed by the sudden tenderness of her stroking his manhood.

He went hard immediately and Eliza slipped off her trousers and dropped her panties. She mounted him and proceeded to ride him with as much violence and fury as she had hit him. The sharp pain of it having been so long for her soon turned into wild pleasure as she moaned and had her glorious way with him.

"Fuck," she sighed. "Young, stupid piece of shit…"

"God, you're good, fucking bitch," he moaned. He tore apart her buttoned blouse and unfastened her bra all in a hot second. He grabbed her supple breasts and kissed them, moved his tongue in a tender fury over her hard nipples. Finally he ran his hands down her bare back, and cupping her ass with a tight squeeze, they rocked together in the passionate heights of their ecstasy and came to a screaming finish.

They breathed hard for a long time, locked together, Andrew horizontal on the floor with Eliza on top. Andrew leaned up and grabbed her collar and yanked her down, taking her mouth in his, his tongue a hungry thing, alive, searching out hers. She resisted at first, tasting blood, until her tongue tangoed with his, their lips meshed and mobile, devouring each other whole.

Finally Eliza bit into his tongue and he moaned. She pulled back and punched him once more in the face. He was back on the ground.

She caught her breath, relishing for a final moment the tender warmth of him still inside of her before she promptly dismounted and stood up. She put her pants back on and he made some smart-ass remark about wanting to cuddle, a bloody sneer on his face. She told him to pack up his shit and that if she ever saw him again she would kill him.

She washed her hands and started cleaning up over the sink, ignoring Andrew as he got up and left the bathroom. She heard the rustling of belongings being packed for several minutes and then the front door opening and then he was gone.

She waited a few more minutes and came out. The floor had been cleaned up and Andrew's desk, what he had left behind at least, was neatly organized the way she would have liked it.

Back in the present day, Andrew slid the divorce papers out of the envelope and looked at Eliza. "Amanda called last night. She and Sean are moving out of Russellville when they get married. He's got some new job or some shit in Phoenix. Fucking Arizona. They're taking Chloe." He stared at the papers, folded them over to the last page. "I've known about it for awhile and I've been stalling just to piss Amanda off. I'll hardly get to see my daughter anymore now. But maybe it's all for the best."

Eliza waited, said nothing.

Andrew looked back up at her. "I don't know what it is now. Maybe you coming around. But I'm tired." He took a pen out of his breast pocket and signed and dated several lines on the last sheet, folded the papers up and put them back in his inside coat pocket.

Eliza tossed him the stolen swipe card. "Think about it," she said. And walked away.

His mornings were his nights now, so when he got off work he went home and took a few lines of coke and had a few drinks and got the kind of drunk that would kill a normal man.

In his bedroom, standing before the large swivel mirror atop his dresser, he stared at the person he had become this past year. Then in one fluid motion he spun the mirror around to the other side, to his shrine—

A collage of Charlee McCool photographs, crime scene notes, newspaper clippings, and copies of police reports.

His fingers brushed over one of the pictures of her. He sighed.

The gun. He had a strong impulsive thought and suddenly went to the closet and pulled his Glock out of the shoulder strap that hung behind the door. It was loaded. Plus one in the chamber.

He sat back on the bed and put the barrel of the gun in his mouth. It wasn't the first time. Always he wondered how much it would hurt in that last split second of life before his brains shot out the back of his head. He imagined the trepidation of the actual moment and wondered if he would have the balls.

Not today.

He thought about Charlee and about getting back in the game.

He put the weapon away, got back in bed, and jerked off, fantasizing about her. The release and the warm drunk feeling helped him drift off to sleep, but with it as always came that deeper sense of loneliness, the kind that told him he would never be loved the way he longed to be loved, the way he could love if only given the chance. The kind of love that had been deprived him, that had turned him into this sick drunk junkie piece of shit.

Women had always gotten to Andrew. They crawled underneath his skin and lived there. He smoldered constantly in excruciating lust and frustration. He couldn't pass a woman on the street without wondering what it would be like to make love to her. How many strangers had he fallen in love with? Did they know, did any of them know? Did any of them share this pain with him? Because that's all we want, right? To share moments. To share in that ecstasy we so poetically call making love.

And the young girls. God. It wasn't Charlee that had started it, he had had stirrings before. It wasn't even just a physical thing, though the warmth of a nubile adolescent girl—her light nimble limbs—was incomparable. No—it was their eyes, the innocence in their eyes, and faces that brimmed with freshness and naiveté, with the hope and excitement of a first kiss, first sex, the smile of a budding relationship. All girls lose it eventually—hell, we all do. Even in the best relationships or the most promising potential ones, we put on our best armor because we learn early that with so much love to give and so much heart to bear, there's pain in equal measure. It's with girls that you see it the worst. Somewhere in the late teens, early twenties, you begin to notice the hardness there, the wisdom and experience that comes with sexual knowledge and jaded romanticism. It's the saddest fucking thing. There had been so much expectancy there, so much light. A Charlee McCool and a Noah Faison come along once in a great while, but for the rest of us, we love and lust and crash and burn. Sometimes we have the audacity to love again. But then with every kiss and each love made, it's without illusion, full knowledge of the use or abuse that goes with it. Andrew knew it all too well. He wanted to kiss a girl again that kissed with hope. He wanted to taste that hope. He knew the right girl could breathe new life into him, could save him and he would save her and be hers forever, make it so that she never lost that youthful light in her eyes, that Charlee McCool light, would bring to fruition all her romantic dreams and desires and love her hard, love her with the purest, fullest love. The kind of love that brings tears to your eyes. Feels like music. Feels like magic.

He needed to get laid, so that night he did.

She was a skinny young grad student with boyishly short dark hair who reminded him of Charlee. She had been giving him the eye at The Lost Souls bar earlier that evening and now here they were. Her tall lithe body lay underneath him, tangled sweetly into his as she clutched his ass with one hand and the nails on the other dug into his back. "Oh God, yes! Just like that! Oh God! Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me!" Her eyes were wide, mouth agape, cheeks flushed with ecstasy.

One hand explored her sweating body, groping a breast and tracing up along her throat until he rested his palm in her cheek and pulled her face to his. He kissed her long and deep and they both came to a shuddering climax. Her high-pitched cry, muffled by the passionate kiss, was an uncontrollable squeal as their connected limbs shook in satisfaction.

Andrew imagined she really was Charlee, and his orgasm was so long, so tremendous in its power, he felt it everywhere, in his bones and in his teeth and in his hair.

"Oh my fucking God!" she cried when her lips were free from his. After she caught her breath, she kissed him again and he pulled her in hungrily and they stayed as one for awhile.

Lying together later, Andrew lit two cigarettes and passed one to her. Naked, he got up and started getting his security uniform out of the closet, putting it atop the dresser.

"Oh God," the woman breathed, exhaling smoke. "You are…a killer fuck."

"You want a drink?" he asked her, pouring himself a small glass of whiskey.

She sat up in bed, took another drag, shook her head. She blew more smoke. "No thanks."

As he got back into an undershirt and boxers, he looked over at her and smiled.

She finished the cig. "I mean it though. The way you fuck. So much anger, so much...passion. Do you have mommy issues or something?"

Andrew smiled. "You're fucking amazing yourself, lady. You got daddy issues written all over you."

"What girl doesn't?" She got up and started dressing as well, grabbed her purse.

As Andrew buttoned up his uniform before the mirror on his messy dresser top, she crossed the room and kissed him lightly on the lips before leaving. "It was nice meeting you," she said.

"You too."

Andrew imagined at that moment, in a cemetery somewhere in Hardin County, his mother turning over in her grave.

He didn't try to go to sleep the next morning. He showered, shaved, and ironed a white shirt he buttoned right up to the collar when he put it on, even made it so the tie was perfectly centered.

He went to go see Eliza.

She saw him roll in on his bike like the old days and when he came in it was like no time had passed. Hung his trench coat up, said good morning, started making himself a pot of coffee. He sat down at his old desk.

He looked at her, smiled. She did the same.

"Let's get to work," he said.

Open files and paperwork were splayed across Eliza's desk in what she could only call organized chaos. Andrew had rolled his chair over to one side of the desk and sat hunched over it all, looking through the Riggsboro material re: Melissa/Dylan Phelan circa 1980, and re: Alison Brown/Charlee McCool circa 1995-96.

Atop it all, Eliza placed the faxed copies of the two drawings. Andrew examined them.

Eliza opened a side drawer of her desk just a crack, enough to see the file marked MYERS, MICHAEL.

There didn't seem any point in sharing with Andrew the office break-in and the Myers family history, nor her adventure to the Smith's Grove Sanitarium and the mysterious Celia Gannon.

So instead she closed the drawer and picked up one of the drawings. "Now this is what Noah gets," she said. "Mailed to him at college. A smiling family. All except the little girl. Sofia." She pointed to the stabbed, bloody, and crying stick figure.

"Who is she?"

"Possibly a future victim."

"And the numbers on the back?" Andrew flipped the paper over.

"Clues."

"That mean what?" He stared at the numbers for what seemed the millionth time.

319506773428

"Too long to be a phone number," he said. "Too long to be anything really. Bank account number?"

"I don't know. I've tried everything, even assigned letters to the numbers, thinking maybe it's a code of some sort." She attached a post-it note to the paper below the numbers where each number corresponded to a letter in the alphabet, the '0' acting as a space:

CAIE FGGCDBH

"Looks like Gaelic or some shit," Andrew said.

"Tried that," Eliza said. "They're not real words. Nothing we can translate. Not even any names in any dictionary that look remotely like it."

"Maybe it's scrambled, like a word jumble."

"Tried that too. Nothing."

"Maybe it means nothing," Andrew offered. "Maybe he's just fucking with us."

"Even still," Eliza said, "we have the drawing Collins got. And that gives us a place to start. Diane Fischer." She pointed at the circled stick figure on the other drawing, along with the cryptic question mark. "And according to state medical records, right now she's under psychiatric care at the Capital Institute of Behavioral Health in Des Moines."

Andrew nodded slowly.

Eliza leaned back in her chair, rubbed her face, swiveled a bit.

Andrew looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"I don't like it."

"What?"

"These clues. This game he's playing."

"It's just some sick fun he's having."

"Even if we get something from Diane Fischer, even if we break this code or somehow get to this Sofia girl, even if we do all that…"

"What?"

"He planted these clues because he wants us to figure it out."

Andrew thought about that.

Eliza went on: "It's like a puzzle where only he knows the big picture, or a game of chess he knows every possible move to. Why give us anything if he can just go after his next victim and get her without us or anyone else in the way?"

"Because he's some sick twisted fuck. Like you said, he's playing a game. Maybe he likes a challenge."

"No," Eliza said. "It means he's in control. That he's always a step ahead of us. We don't get anywhere on this case without him wanting us there first. Which makes me wonder…"

"What."

"That it's a trap. That us showing up is exactly part of his plan. And that no matter what we try to do or how close we think we get to stopping him, in the end…"

She drifted off and Andrew waited for her to finish but she didn't and he didn't ask.

Robert Lawson didn't listen.

He went back to Darcy sooner than Andrew thought he would. And Darcy let him, even sneaked away to have sex with him one afternoon while her boyfriend was working.

So Andrew got him alone late one night after last call at a bar on the fringes of town. He had parked his bike several blocks over by the Lost River docks. He took a hit of coke off his pinky and wiped his nose. He got another one ready, thought better of it, put it back. One calmed the nerves, but two could make it worse than none at all.

Behind the bar, there were no cameras around and he and Robert were alone. Robert vomited behind a dumpster. He had a black eye, and some of his movements came with a wince. Andrew waited.

Robert was breathing heavy, and he started breathing faster when he turned around and saw Andrew, faster still when he saw the gun at his side.

The gun equipped with a silencer.

"Wait," Robert said.

"That's good," Andrew said. He raised the pistol and quietly shot Robert in the stomach.

A crimson flower blossomed on his jacket. Robert stared down at it with a stupefied grunt before looking back at Andrew, his eyes bulging.

"Promises to keep," Andrew said. "You understand."

Robert opened his mouth to scream, and with another twirp of the silencer, Andrew shot him in the throat. This time he fell.

Andrew walked over to him. He wasn't dead yet. He twisted and writhed on the pavement, gargling blood and crying.

Andrew knelt down over him and sighed. "Sh, shh, shh. It's okay. Just let go. It's okay."

Robert was taking a long time to die, his bulging eyes full of tears and panic.

"You were going to hit her again," Andrew said, checking the surroundings to make sure they were still alone. "They always do. One day maybe you'd have killed her."

Robert clawed at the ground, moaning, losing energy and life.

"But you want to know something?" Andrew said. He took out his lighter and a cigarette, lit up and started smoking. "Part of me thinks I should have let you. The truth is, you both deserve each other. I've watched her for the last week. She has a good man, a good man. Dotes on her, takes care of her, worships the ground she walks on. And yet she would go behind his back to fuck you. Shit. Men like you exist in this world because women like her allow it. Thus you had to be the one to die. Not so much because you went back to her, like I told you not to do, but because she went back to you. She's not worth it. I hope her boyfriend will realize that when he receives the photos of you two in bed yesterday. So she'll still be punished."

Robert was heaving on his side, his movements getting slower and slower.

"On a personal note," Andrew said, "you're only the second person I've ever killed. It was easier this time. Well, it was easy both times, truthfully. But something about the first time, you know, the idea of it, taking a life, even if they deserve it, it gets to you. But it was better this time. Not that I plan on making a habit out of it." He grunted as he got up, took one last puff on his cigarette, and crushed it out in his gloved hands, pocketing the butt in his jacket.

Andrew watched Robert breathe his last, and walked away, back to the docks. He tossed the gun into the Lost River and stared for a moment at the dark expanse of water, the night around it speckled with lights near and distant.

Andrew hopped his bike and rode it off into the night. Back home, he slept.

TWENTY-FIVE

Late night turned into early morning as Noah lay with his head down on the desk, books and notepaper strewn all around him. The radio was on, a droning preacher in monotone.

A sudden rise in the preacher's voice jerked him awake. He sat up, rubbing a hand over his scruffy face and his buzzed head. He looked at the books and papers in front of him and then at the digital clock that read 3:08.

He tugged at the corner of one sheet that was situated beneath some other paperwork. It was the drawing. He stared at bloody little Sofia, crying because of the knife in her throat, her mother and father smiling next to her, everyone standing in front of a crude depiction of a house, the sun in the corner beating down its yellow rays.

He turned it over, stared again at the row of numbers in simple black crayon.

319506773428

He sighed, tossed the paper aside. It fell off the desk and floated to the floor. He turned the dial on the radio, scanning a few radio stations. For a moment the tuner rested on a smooth jazz station.

It came back in tidal waves. The Collins Mall. He and Charlee sharing their first kiss on the bench afterhours. Making love there—

No. No—

He shut the radio off and breathed slowly, closing his eyes tight. He was able to steady himself for a few seconds before he shot up, shoved all the books and papers off his desk, and kicked the chair over on its side. He stood there awhile breathing heavy.

Finally he righted the chair and collected the papers and books from the floor. He organized them neatly back on his desk, shoving the drawing into his messenger bag.

He thought about going to bed. But he didn't feel tired anymore. He stretched, working the kinks out from the uncomfortable position he had fallen asleep in.

He sat back at his desk and fingered the rosary beads that were slung over a figurine of San Judas Tadeo. He picked the saint up, studying the staff he held at his side, a hatchet affixed to the top of it. He looked at the gold medallion around the saint's neck that bore the image of Jesus. Noah smiled wearily, thinking, patron saint of desperate times. He had brought it from home, but it reminded him of street shrines he had seen on many a corner in Mexico. It was believed that San Judas Tadeo heard the petitions of both the good and the bad and came to help in difficult situations.

"There are no better believers in the world than us Mexicans," his mother liked to say. "We're not always good Catholics, but we believe harder than anyone else." What she was talking about of course was the not always equally yoked but nonetheless passionate marriage of orthodox Catholicism and Mexican saint folklore. He had seen it rampant in the streets this summer, recognized saints like Judas Tadeo sharing reverence with scoundrels like Jesus Malverde, patron saint of drug trafficking, and Santa Muerte, the patron saint of death.

He set the figurine back down and removed the beads. He prayed the rosary on his knees and decided to take his run a little early. The cold air hit him hard as he ran through the darkness, but it was crisp and fresh and helped clear his mind. He came back, did a few sets of push-ups and sit-ups, then showered.

When it opened that morning, he got some coffee and a breakfast sandwich at the campus center café. He brought some homework down with him in his bag and took a few notes as the coffee kicked in and more students joined him at the surrounding tables.

His eye caught something on one of his class papers and he paused. The professor had given everyone a list of potential resources for a research project and included several libraries throughout Iowa with good Catholic archives that did inter-library loans with the college.

What Noah kept looking at was the phone number for one of the libraries: (319) 273-4419.

That area code. 319.

He wasn't familiar with it, though he knew he'd seen it before. He was used to 515, the area code Des Moines found itself in, as well as 641, Riggsboro's area code.

Still…319…

He pulled the drawing out of his bag and flipped it over to the back with the row of numbers.

319506773428

319. The first three numbers.

On his assignment sheet he circled the 319 area code and the town the library was located in, Cedar Falls. He knew it to be a couple of hours away, northeast of Des Moines.

He copied the row of numbers onto a clean piece of loose-leaf paper and put parentheses around 319, separating the other numbers.

The left-over digits were too many to constitute a phone number, nine instead of seven. And yet…

The next two numbers after the area code. 50. He underlined them. They were familiar, in the same way the area code was.

A zip code.

Des Moines's own zip code was 50312. Riggsboro's was 50122. If 319 was an Iowa area code, and 5 and 0 were the next two numbers, perhaps 50677 was an Iowa zip code.

That left four more numbers: 3428.

The plus-four. The four numbers tacked onto zip codes that give a more specific location, like a city block. He looked at his assignment sheet and saw the same thing for the Cedar Falls address. A zip code with the plus-four. He circled it.

Arranged this new way on his loose-leaf paper, the numbers on the back of the drawing made more sense.

(319) 50677-3428

An area code, followed by a full zip code.

He grabbed his coat and bag, tossed the breakfast wrappers and cup in the trash, and hurried out the campus center to the campus library.

In a room full of computer terminals, he signed onto one with his college net ID and got online. He ran a search for the numbers as he had separated them.

319 certainly was an Iowa area code, covering east-central and southeast Iowa. Then he typed in what he assumed was the zip code—50677—and pressed enter.

Waverly, Iowa.

He brought up a map of the state. The town of Waverly fell right in the region that the 319 area code covered. It was north of Cedar Falls.

Last he tacked on the next four digits of the zip code. He held his breath, watching the page load as the search engine ran.

50677-3428, it appeared, was the specific Waverly zip-code for Bremer County Community College.

Noah sat back in the seat and exhaled. He flipped over the original paper with the numbers and saw again the gory drawing of the little girl stabbed.

Sofia.

He said the name out loud.

He looked on the computer at a picture of the Waverly community college and nodded. "I'll find you," he said.

Father McCreary handed him a set of car keys. "It's the Cutlass Ciera in the faculty parking lot. Dark red. You can't miss it."

They stood in the long center aisle of the massive Church of the Blessed Sacrament. They were alone.

"I'll be back Monday for classes."

"Do what you need to do. I'm in walking distance from the school and an old man such as myself could use the exercise."

"Thank you, Father."

The priest hesitated. "You're looking for him, aren't you?"

A beat. "Yes."

Father McCreary nodded slowly. "Be careful, Noah. True evil is persistent. Relentless. Remember who you are and whose you are. Don't let the darkness you carry take you over. You are a laborer for the Lord's harvest. And the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. So take caution, because the devil will have his harvest too. But only death reaps what the devil harvests."

Noah nodded. "Yes, Father. Thank you again."

As he walked back down the aisle, his footsteps echoing in the spacious tabernacle, Father McCreary called to him. "And Noah?"

He turned around.

Father McCreary made the sign of the cross with his hand. "Go with God."

Noah put a fist to his heart. "Always."

He made the call to Lehman Investigations from a payphone close to the faculty parking lot. The messenger bag hung from his shoulder and he held a state map and car keys.

He told Detective Lehman about the numbers and that he was on his way to Waverly now. Lehman and her partner were themselves just minutes away from traveling to Des Moines to the mental hospital where Charlee's biological grandmother Diane Fischer was.

Afterward, he called the shipping and receiving company where he worked the loading dock and got the shifts covered that he needed. He hung up the phone, started walking.

He stopped, walked back. He called his mother and told her things were fine, normal. He told her he loved her.

Then he walked out into the parking lot and climbed into Father McCreary's red Cutlass. He glanced at the rosary dangling from the rearview mirror, said a quick prayer, and was on his way.

Waverly was about two and a half hours away. He took 35 going north for a while, then hit 20 going east. Then it was back up north, going past Cedar Falls on 27. He drove by picture-book countryside scenes, quaint small towns, and some small cities.

When he arrived in Waverly, he stopped at a filling station for some gas and a bathroom break. Not long after, he pulled into the sprawling Bremer County Community College campus. He drove around the outside road for a few minutes before finding the guest parking lot, quite a distance from the actual school buildings.

It was only one o'clock, but with how long he had already been up, it felt like much later. He stretched a little after getting out of the car and made sure he had all he needed in his jacket. He left the overnight bag in the car and locked up.

He started walking closer to the buildings, wondering where to start.

The expansive campus center was not unlike his own. He blended in, one of the many young people lingering about, grabbing a bite, heading off to class, talking to friends.

Stairwells led to an upper podium where the classrooms and lecture halls were situated. Students came up and down the stairs.

He looked at the strangers around him and wished that everyone had been assigned a name tag in life. That would make his own life a lot easier right now. But even if there were, there was a good chance there was more one than one Sofia enrolled here.

He walked past a stairwell and to a courtyard with picnic tables and a fountain in the center. He mingled in the to and fro of students for a few minutes and then sat on the side of the fountain. He watched the students pass by, all of them carrying books and bags. They were living out their lives, making plans for the night and plans for their future. As oblivious as Riggsboro had been to a girl being stalked.

His stomach growled and he walked to the opposite end of the campus center building that hugged the courtyard. He saw signs for a food court.

A girl rushed past him in the crowd. She was going to class apparently, either that or hurrying up to meet a friend.

She was tall, lithe, a bit too skinny for her own good—

Her hair was longer than the real Charlee's but the face was hers.

He turned around and by then the hallucination was gone.

But he wondered if the vision had been put there to lead him in the right direction. So he jogged into the crowd, looking for her. He hurried up the wide staircase ahead, darting politely in front of and around people, skipping one, two, three steps at a time, tripping once and pushing himself back up, lunging forward to the clearing above.

He stopped and tried to catch his breath. He looked at every student who passed by. Every student going into one of the buildings or walking across the podium.

She was gone. Another ghost back to the netherworld.

But she had been here—here—and maybe it really was a sign that he was on the right track, that Sofia was close and he would find her soon.

He returned down the stairs to the food court and ordered a couple of chicken sandwiches with chips and a juice. He sat for a while, watching the people. He bought a coffee to go.

In a hallway, he asked a professor where he could find the registrar's office and made his way across the podium to the neighboring administration building. He passed the financial aid office on the second floor before finding the area marked REGISTRAR.

There was the occasional bleating phone, the rumble of a fax machine or copier, the shuffle of papers. An attractive young red-head worked the reception desk, no doubt a work study student earning some extra cash. Her eyes were all flirt and false shyness.

He leaned over the desk with his best smile and told her what he needed. When she told him she really couldn't be giving out personal information, he showed her the Lehman-Daly business card and told her he was working with private investigators. She loved that.

She printed out a massive pile of perforated sheets that listed all the students currently enrolled at BC3, complete with student ID numbers, school e-mail addresses, and even intended majors pursuant to an associate's degree. He told her thanks, flashed another smile, and was out.

He crossed the podium to the campus library and went immediately downstairs to the basement.

It was quiet and it was dark, a spacious windowless floor lined with tight rows of bookshelves that could be moved by spinning dials. Most of the rows were hidden in thick pockets of darkness. As Noah walked along the rows, the lights would turn on. As more lights in front of him turned on, lights behind him turned off. No other areas of the floor seemed to be lit up. He was alone.

Along the wall were little study desks, each partitioned off for some privacy.

It was at one of those desks that he got settled in and went through the seemingly endless sheets of matriculated students.

The first Sofia appeared relatively early, in the D's. Dunn, Sofia Jacklyn was a freshman, ID # 00338897, e-mail address sjdunn , and business administration her intended major.

By the end he found five more Sofias. He circled and starred all of them, folding the corner of the pages they were each on. There was Sofia Anne Grady, Sofia June Markowitz, Sofia Elizabeth Ridenour, and Sofia Marie Sutherland. The sixth name was with an alternative spelling, Sophia Lynn Saewyc, but he circled it anyway.

He doubted the Sofia he needed would be a professor or administrator of some sort, but he decided to go online and search the BC3 website anyway. He moved to a nearby study nook equipped with a computer terminal, the light sensors tracking his presence as darkness nipped at his heels. As he sat down he realized he did not have a net ID here and could not log on.

Oh well. He had last names. He had e-mail addresses. He wasn't sure where to go from there. A random e-mail to each Sofia asking if they felt like they were being stalked? And what if none of them were the Sofia he needed? What if the Sofia he needed wasn't enrolled at BC3, but just worked on campus, maybe at one of the food outlets or the bookstore, maybe even right here at the library?

He wished he had something more to go on, a picture, something. Maybe he could go to the library in town later that day or even tomorrow, get a computer there and run a search on all the Sofias and see what came up. Maybe one of them had been in a newspaper once, something that could make it on the Internet or a local archive.

If Sofia was indeed a currently enrolled student, he wanted to know her class schedule and what buildings those classes were held in. He wanted to know if she even had class today. Wouldn't that be hilarious, he thought, if she only had class, say, two days a week and today was not one of them. Here he was on a Friday of all days and classes wouldn't start again until Monday.

He had sat in his seat without moving so long that suddenly the lights went off and the whole floor became immersed in darkness. He stood up and the lights around him flickered back to life.

He stretched and rubbed his eyes. As he did, suddenly the whole floor lit up—but there were no footsteps and no one around.

He paused. Waited. Nothing.

Until darkness slinked in. Moving down the rows like a growing storm cloud.

Descending.

Alive.

Light followed on its heels and Noah had to stare at it awhile before he realized it was not an optical illusion but the lighting system working in reverse. When it was him walking, the floor lit up and light followed him, illuminating his path. But now a patch of darkness was moving among the rows, a force all its own, removing any light in its way.

Like something was walking in the dark and banishing the light. No, not walking in the dark, creating the dark—

The dark itself.

From the pocket of his jacket he slowly removed the switchblade he had picked off the guy who tried to jump him in downtown Des Moines. He quietly turned the knife open, brandishing the blade.

He walked into the heart of the darkness.

Down a dark row.

The darkest.

Black.

For a few seconds he couldn't see anything. Only hear. And what he heard was breathing. Heavy. Muffled. Close.

Closer.

He drew the knife higher, put his other fist up, got into a stance.

Out of the silence there was an abrupt clattering, something falling to the ground. The darkness receded, moving again to the background, around him on all sides but now with the light back on him in bright fluorescence.

He scanned the area. No one was around.

He lowered the knife, folded it closed, pocketed it, looked at the ground.

A small book had fallen. A jacketless, nondescript library copy. He picked it up, looked for the thin sliver in the shelf where it could have fallen from. He found a space in the Dewey decimals, 615.98, 615.99.

616.00. The sticker was on the spine. He looked at the title: The Hollow Beyond the Hills.

He looked around for genre markers. Faded labels on the shelves told him he was in the local histories section.

He opened the book. Copyright 1946. He turned to the first page.

Chapter One.

Riggsboro, Iowa.

He closed the book, took another look around in the silence, opened the book again.

'The Hollow Beyond the Hills,' he discovered, was the translation for a long Meskwaki word, their name for the town that white men would eventually change to Riggsboro.

He stared off for a moment, recalling his old town, the nestled valley of homes surrounded by gentle rolling hills and a wide dark river. All it meant to him now was Charlee.

He looked back down. The borrowing card in the back of the book said it had not been checked out since the seventies. He flipped through the pages. A torn piece of yellow legal paper fell from inside. He bent to retrieve it. On it, in faded pencil, years old, decades old

SOFIA IS MINE

A barely controlled tremor went through his hand as he turned it over.

YOU WON'T SAVE HER

His mind raced, thinking old, too old, thinking decades. It seemed the walls were closing in.

It took him a moment before he heard the soft thunder of moving bookshelves to realize they actually were.

The row he was standing in was quickly becoming narrower and narrower. Someone was spinning the dial. He was in the middle of the row, each direction too far to run before he'd be crushed.

He quickly pocketed the book and note inside his jacket and tried to push against the tall metal shelves rattling their way toward him. They kept coming…

So he climbed. Gained footing on the first shelf. Grabbed hold of a higher one. Swung himself up. Kicked over books. Crawled into the tight space between shelves, his foot just barely clearing the coast before the opposite row of books crashed into his.

In the pitch black he pushed away more books in the other direction. He squirmed through three or four rows of mashed book shelves before another clear row opened up. He climbed out and dropped down, stifling a grunt as he landed on his side across a pile of hardcovers.

He crawled up and ran outside the row he was in. Down the side. Back around. The light following—barely keeping up with the dark on its heel, chasing, ready to devour.

On the other side—

Nothing.

No one at the dial. No one around at all.

He stopped. Looked around. Walked slow back to the desk where his papers lay. Untouched.

He collected them quickly and went back upstairs.

"Now before we proceed, there are certain matters about Diane Fischer that both of you should be made aware of…"

Dr. Dennis Noone. Psychiatrist. Capital Institute of Behavioral Health. Des Moines.

Eliza and Andrew listened as they followed the doctor, a short balding fat man, through a maze of hospital hallways.

"First off," he said, "I have no problems with you bringing up the murders, but be careful. She's not known to act out, but it's not unheard of."

"Are there any questions that would upset her?" Eliza asked.

"To be frank," Noone said, "in regards to the information you're looking for, she will probably not understand enough to even become upset."

"How so?"

"This is what both of you need to understand. I highly doubt that she will, or could, provide information of any value to you. What she says probably won't make much sense. This is not to suggest that she is in anyway slow or dumb. Quite the contrary, on an intellectual level she is highly intelligent. Her faculties have simply suffered from her mental illness. And sadly she has only regressed with each passing year."

"And what is her mental illness?"

"Schizophrenia. Of an extreme sort. The reality you and I live in is not the reality she lives in."

"What does that mean?" Andrew said.

"Diane Fischer has constructed a fantasy world that she believes she is actually living in. She's placed all of us in her fantasy. To her, it's not doctors and patients and orderlies she's seeing every day. It's the postman, neighbors, cashiers at the grocery store. She's been living in this delusion that has only gotten worse through the years. Everyday I'm something different to her. She doesn't remember me or know I'm her doctor."

"Wow."

"Her world is stuck somewhere around 1978 or '79. Prior to the murders. She still introduces herself as Mrs. Collins. The breakdown she suffered upon discovering her daughter's mutilated body caused her not only to be in denial about the event itself and anything that happened afterwards, but over time she has come to claim that she never had a daughter."

"But how does someone not realize they're in a hospital?"

"With some patients, when something so traumatic has happened, they deal with the truth by eradicating it completely. They invent artificial worlds they rely so desperately on that it causes them to lose touch with any concept of reality as we know it, fracturing their identity, altering it completely, perhaps irreparably, though a man of my profession should never admit that. Diane Fischer had been seeing doctors even before the murders. She was being treated for depression, and showing signs of mental illness then. The day she found her daughter…that was her breaking point."

Noone rounded a corner. Eliza and Andrew exchanged glances and followed him.

They met Diane Fischer in a large common area that was painted a calming sea-foam green. Other patients watched television quietly, played games, read books. Diane Fischer sat alone at a corner table looking out the window. As they approached with Noone, she rose to meet them with a smile and stepped around the table. She did not match the mental images either Eliza or Andrew had conjured up in their minds.

Diane Fischer was tall and quite attractive, confidence in her step and sharp eye contact that coupled with a firm handshake made the hospital gown she was wearing seem horrifically out of place. Her long blonde hair was just beginning to gray, and its split ends and frizz was the only part of her that looked the least bit institutionalized.

"Diane Collins," she said, as Dr. Noone took a seat on a nearby couch. "And you two, you're Mr. and Mrs…"

"Oh, we're not…" Eliza tapered off, wishing they had planned this, brought in the fake wedding bands.

"We're colleagues," Andrew said. "I'm Andrew Daly. This is my partner, Eliza Lehman."

The three sat on either side of the corner table.

"What kind of work do you do?" Diane asked.

"Private investigation," Andrew said.

"Ah."

Eliza said, "We'd like to thank you for meeting up with us, Ms.…Mrs. Collins."

"Of course. Any way we can be of help."

"We?" Andrew asked.

"Excuse me?"

"You said how we can be of help."

"Oh, my husband, of course. He's just not home yet. He has crazy hours."

"Yes, of course," Eliza said. "David, is it?"

"Oh, you must know. You haven't met him?"

"No."

"We haven't had the…pleasure yet," Andrew said.

"Well, when you do meet him, just know he can be an intimidating man. Don't let him scare you. He's big-time in our town. In our county."

"For what, if I may ask?" Eliza asked.

"He's a developer," Diane said. "His father and grandfather built this town."

"Riggsboro," Andrew said.

Diane nodded. "Yes. It's a quiet town. We're not used to…private detectives. Did you two have a safe drive here? Are you familiar with Riggsboro?"

"No," Eliza said. "First time."

"Lovely town," Andrew said.

"Where are you from?" Diane asked, smiling like this was all idle chitchat with a couple of strangers at a coffee shop.

"We're from Illinois," Andrew said.

"Smith's Grove," Eliza added.

Suddenly Diane's smile was gone. She frowned deeply, then swallowed. She looked over at Dr. Noone and then leaned forward, looking down at the table, eyes moving fast.

"Mrs. Collins?" Andrew said.

"Never mind, never mind. Please. Continue. I'm sorry."

Eliza and Andrew shared a quick glance, looked at Noone. Noone shrugged.

"Mrs. Collins," Eliza said, "do you have any children?"

"Children? Heavens no."

"Never?" Eliza asked.

"No, David and I, we talked about having children at the beginning, about having a son to keep his legacy going, but the truth is we like the life we have to ourselves. It's not perfect. Like any marriage, we have our problems. But we compromise. It's made for a comfortable arrangement."

"Arrangement?" Andrew said.

Diane shrugged. "It was harder when we were young, the arrangement. When you're that age, you say you won't settle for anything but true love. Movie love. But then you get older. You realize that kind of love isn't real anyway. So you settle. And you do what you have to do."

"So no children?" Eliza got back to it.

"Correct. Well, I do look after Abby and Jo. They're basically my kids."

"Abby and Jo?"

"Yeah, I babysit them. They're just babies, but God, they're adorable. Twins, wouldn't you know. Hold on, they're right here." And suddenly Diane was lifting up two invisible babies in her arms, giving them kisses.

So far she had seemed fairly normal. Eliza and Andrew kept their composure.

"This one's Abby," Diane said. "And this is Jo over here."

Eliza got back to it. Again. "Mrs. Collins, I wanted to, um, mention a few things. A few names. And I want you to tell me if any of them ring a bell."

"Okay, hold on just a sec, I'm sorry." And Diane carefully let her invisible twin baby girls down to the floor. "Be good, girls. All right, I'm ready."

"Dylan Phelan," Eliza said. "Does this name mean anything to you?"

Diane seemed to think hard. She shook her head. "No."

"How about Melissa?"

"Melissa who?"

"Any Melissa you can think of that you might know."

She seemed once again to think very hard. "I know a few Melissas from back in the day. Like high school."

"Okay. That's good." Eliza looked at Andrew, gave him a look, where do I go from here?

"Mrs. Collins," Andrew said, leaning forward. "We'd like to show you something." He looked at Eliza. "Go ahead."

As Eliza took the envelope and the drawing out of a file she had placed on the table, Andrew said, "We received a rather disturbing drawing at our office. Well, actually, your husband received it. Apparently my partner and I were listed as the return address. So he called us up a bit confused about that. He doesn't know what it means. But we would like to hear your thoughts."

"I thought you said you didn't know my husband," Diane said.

"We didn't," Andrew said quickly. "Not until he called."

Eliza slid the drawing in front of Diane Fischer. The patient stared with a blank expression at it, analyzing the five stick figures and the question mark at the bottom. There was no indication that it was stirring up any emotions or sense of recognition anywhere in Diane's synapses.

"Are these supposed to be my husband and I?" Diane asked, pointing to the two stick figures at the top of the page labeled DAVID and DIANE.

"That's what we gathered, yes," Eliza said.

"And the next two," Diane said, "Dylan and Melissa? That's who you were asking me about."

"Yes. They still aren't familiar at all?"

"No. Should they be?" She looked at both Eliza and Andrew, remarkably disingenuous. "Why are they crossed out?"

"We believe that's because they passed away," Andrew said.

"Oh my. How?"

"They were, uh, they were killed. A long time ago."

"And this girl, Abigail…" Diane pointed to the last stick figure at the bottom. "She was killed too?"

Andrew looked like he was about to answer. Eliza touched his wrist to give him pause. If they said yes, and Diane truly did remember Melissa and Dylan's death, then this would be the first she would hear of her biological granddaughter's murder. So Eliza approached with caution. "She was Melissa's and Dylan's daughter. Abigail Phelan. Does that name ring a bell at all?"

Diane sighed. Her frustration seemed to stem from the fact that she couldn't offer any help, not that they were digging up repressed memories. She said, "No. I'm sorry."

"How about Charlee McCool?" Andrew asked.

"Who's that?" Diane asked. "Is he supposed to be the question mark?"

"No. Actually, it's a girl's name. Abigail's name was changed when she was young after her parents were killed. She was adopted into a foster family."

"I'm confused," Diane said. "So...she's dead too? That's why she's crossed out?"

Andrew looked at Eliza. Eliza looked at Diane. "Yes, she is."

"Killed also?"

Eliza nodded. "Possibly by the same person who killed her parents."

"Well, have they found him?"

"No."

"That's why we're here," Andrew said. "We believe he's behind this drawing."

"Oh goodness," Diane said. "And why am I circled?" She pointed at her own stick figure, circled several times. "That…that doesn't mean…I'm next, does it? Is someone after me? Oh God, oh—it's him, isn't it?"

"Who?" Andrew said.

"The man in black." Diane hunched over the table again and lowered her voice to a whisper: "The beast."

Eliza and Andrew looked at each other, back at Diane. Diane looked at Dr. Noone and around the room.

"They all think I'm crazy," she said, "but I've seen him. Around town. Watching me. But more than see him, I…feel him. I just know he's there. He's in my dreams, my nightmares. God, they're horrible…" She drifted off before scowling at Noone, telling him, "I told you he's real."

"Mrs. Collins," Eliza said, "we don't believe you're in any danger. Someone else we know also received a drawing, and it seems to indicate that the next victim may be a girl named Sofia."

"Does that name mean anything to you?" Andrew asked.

"No." She took a closer look at the drawing, then pointed to the bold question mark. "That could be her though."

"Who?" Eliza asked.

"Sofia," Diane said. "If that's the next victim, maybe she's the question mark. That other drawing you mentioned? Maybe that provides the answer. Maybe I'm just circled because…I don't know…I was supposed to tell you that. How this guy knows that, I couldn't tell you."

Eliza and Andrew looked at each other. They raised their eyebrows. Vague, but a good point.

"Now think carefully," Eliza said. "Is there anything else about this drawing, or anything else we talked to you about, that you could tell us? Even the smallest thing that you remember might be a great help."

Diane sighed and studied the drawing for what seemed like a full minute.

Finally she shook her head. "Nothing. I'm sorry, I…who's that?"

Eliza followed her eyes. Diane was looking down to the file on the table. A photograph was peeking out of it, a senior year school portrait of Charlee McCool. Eliza slid the photo out completely and thought she saw something akin to recognition in Diane's gaze.

"This is Charlee McCool," Eliza said. "The victim we mentioned."

"She's dead?" Diane said. "But I…she…" She chuckled, as if she had just realized a big joke that had been played on her.

"Mrs. Collins, do you recognize this girl?" It was impossible. Diane had been committed all of Charlee's life. Unless: "The news maybe, the papers?"

"No, no. I saw her when I was young. She came to visit. She must have traveled through time."

Eliza nodded with a soft smile and put the photo away. She and Andrew gave her the consideration of polite nods and stood up.

"Thank you, Mrs. Collins," Andrew said.

Eliza said, "Yes, thank you."

"I'm really sorry I didn't know more," Diane said. "I feel like I was no help at all."

"You were," Eliza said, "don't worry.

Diane shook both of their hands again. Dr. Noone rose from the couch and came over.

"This is my driver, Mr…" Diane looked at her doctor, embarrassed she couldn't remember his name.

"Noone," he said.

"Ah, yes," she said. "My chauffer, Mr. Noone. Is the limo parked out front?"

"Right this way."

"Wait, wait, my babies!" Diane said, turning around and hunching to the ground with her arms wide. "Abby! Jo! Come here, come to me, come to me, babies, yes, that's it, up we go!" She stood up as if literally carrying the load of two infant children in her arms. "Have a good day, Detectives," she said.

"You see what I mean," Noone said as he walked Eliza and Andrew back to the elevator, holding Diane Fischer's file.

"Is it bad," Eliza said, "to entertain her delusions?"

"That was my thought at first," Noone said. "We had many failed experiments, trying to bring her back to reality, tell her she was really in a hospital and the truth about her daughter and her divorce, but she won't have any of it. And she gets aggressive and temperamental when we try to assert it, tells us we're the crazy ones. It's sad, really. But perhaps entertaining her fantasy is the only semblance of happiness she has left."

"That stuff with the babies was creepy," Andrew said.

"She's been imagining them for years," Noone explained. "Every now and then she mentions a new name, someone she claimed came to visit her or she says she has plans to see. Sometimes we can trace it back to an old friend or acquaintance. Sometimes we never figure out who exactly. She mentions, and always with a tone of derision, a harlot named Katherine every now and then."

"Katherine Nash," Eliza said. "David Collins's second wife."

"Naturally."

"And how about her nightmares?" Andrew said. "This man in black she sees?"

"I'm surprised she brought that up," Noone said. "It's been years since she's mentioned him or nightmares in any of our sessions. The dreams, they were always abstract, I could never make anything out of them. I attribute them to a latent manifestation of her daughter's killer. A shadowy reminder in her subconscious, if you will."

"Very Jungian," Eliza said.

Noone smiled, nodded at her. "Exactly."

They reached the elevator. Noone called for it, but then jerked up Diane's file like he just remembered something. "Ah. It's probably unhelpful to you, but it's something interesting about Ms. Fischer. Look at this." He opened the file and rustled through papers. "Years back I found this sheet of paper in her room. She said she didn't remember writing it and didn't know what it meant, but it was in her handwriting."

Eliza and Andrew looked at the slightly aged sheet of paper. A perfect series of equilateral triangles with numbers inside of them spiraled inward on the sheet, getting progressively smaller until they stopped in the middle.

"Years went by and I forgot about it," Noone said, "until last year a colleague showed me an article in a mathematical journal, an article that delved into that exact series of numbers with that exact spiral of equilateral triangles." He paused for effect. "It's the Padovan sequence. In number theory."

Andrew looked blank. He shrugged. Eliza said, "So maybe, she knew it? Remembered it from school somehow?"

"No," Noone said, as the elevator doors opened and Eliza and Andrew walked in. "That's the thing. Diane Fischer wrote this in the late eighties. The Padovan sequence wasn't discovered until 1994."

Noah had gotten nowhere.

He sat on a bench next to one of the BC3 school buildings as dusk approached. He gazed at the picnic tables outside campus center and the fields beyond. He watched the horizon become aglow in a fitting jack-o'-lantern orange.

Save for a few night classes, the day was over. Most students left to the parking lot for their commute home.

After going over the registrar's list and fleeing the library, he had staked out academic buildings on the podium that matched up with the list of majors each of the Sofias intended to pursue. Three of the Sofias were listed for business administration, so he spent some time at the building of the same name. Another Sofia was Spanish, so he scoped out the Languages building as well. The remaining Sofia and the "p-h" Sophia were undecided in their choice of major. So he simply wandered around inside the two buildings, hoping to overhear a friend in the hallway or a professor behind the door of a classroom mention the name Sofia.

Of course nothing of the sort happened.

It was fine. He'd call Lehman-Daly tonight, see if they could help, maybe run a trace on the e-mail addresses he had, possibly get a picture or an address and he could go from there tomorrow. He trusted in the Lord. He had come here for a reason.

He thought about the library. The evil was already here. And that meant Sofia was here. He was in the right place.

Earlier he had taken a break, read a bit from The Hollow Beyond the Hills. The novella, set in Riggsboro in the late 1800s, was about a coal miner's son who falls in love with a Meskwaki girl. The boy's father finds out about their affair and also that she has become pregnant. He drowns her in the Lost River, only to then be killed himself by the Indian girl's father. The newly incorporated town, having already decimated the Indian population in the Hollow Hills massacre decades earlier, runs out those that are left and kills those they can't. Sometime later the boy drowns himself in the Lost River. His younger brother, witness to all these events from a distance, chronicles them in a hidden diary. He goes on to make smart investments in coal stock and abandons the writing. Noah noted his last name—Fischer. A cryptic note by the author claimed this story was a fictionalized account of true events. Pictures in an appendix depicted coal mining families and the tiny camp shacks where they lived—where Noah had visited with Charlee.

All of this, Noah knew, was telling him that he was in the right place now.

He prayed. Leaning forward on the bench, he closed his eyes, put his hands together, and asked the Lord for guidance and direction.

When he was finished, he looked up into the sunset and felt it was a sign. He felt that sharper sense of clarity that always came from a good rest of the eyes and prayer session.

He got up and headed for the parking lot.

And that was when he saw Charlee again.

He stopped. She was sitting at one of the picnic tables with two other girls, their bags and some schoolwork in front of them.

It was the same vision he had seen earlier, the long-haired Charlee.

He began walking toward her. She was so clear. He wondered if the other girls were other victims, other ghosts. Or were they real people unaware of the hallucination sitting next to them?

He blinked and breathed several times and still the image of Charlee stayed there as he approached her.

She made eye contact with him. He trembled.

He waited for her to dissipate as she always did, but this time she stayed right there and kept looking at him. The two girls noticed her stare and turned around to look at him.

He reached the table and stopped.

Charlee smiled, and it was a friendly kind of smile, a can-I-help-you-are-you-lost smile. She showed no tinge of recognition at all.

"Um, hi," she said.

"Is it really you?" Noah said.

"Uh, me who?" Charlee and her friends cracked up.

"You. Charlee."

"Charlee?" Her eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Yes."

When he closed his eyes this time, he counted to three and said a silent prayer that she would still be there when he opened them.

It hit Eliza on the way out of Des Moines like a kick in the proverbial nuts.

"Son of a bitch."

Andrew looked at her. "What."

"Neil Gerety lied to us."

"Who?

"Neil Gerety. Riggsboro's ex-police chief. We interviewed him that one time?"

"Right, right." Andrew remembered standing in the old chief's house, the man looking in his safe for the documents that told of Abigail Phelan's secret adoption. "What did he lie about? He gave us the file telling us that Abigail Phelan was Charlee McCool."

"There was another file he didn't show us."

"What?"

"Remember. You asked him about it. Before he closed his safe, he looked at another file, a different file than Charlee's. He told you it was nothing."

"Your memory scares me, boss. What about it?"

"Two years ago, the first time we visited the old Phelan house, you remember, right?"

"Yeah."

"In the master bedroom there were two names carved into the floor."

It slowly came back to Andrew. He remembered searching the abandoned house with Eliza. At one point he had squatted on the dirty wooden floor of the master bedroom, looking at two words carved into the wood. They were sloppy as if a child had written them. Eliza had brushed away some dirt. The top word was too far gone, dulled by the years and illegible. But the bottom word—it had been someone's name.

"Right," he said. "I remember. The first name we couldn't read, but underneath that name there was one we could. What was it?"

"Joanna."

"That's it." The name crystallized clearly in his memory now, carved crudely on the master bedroom floor. "What are you getting at?"

"Abby and Jo," Eliza said. "The twin babies that Diane Fischer imagines. Abby is short for Abigail. Jo is short for Joanna."

Andrew's eyes widened. "Abigail was Charlee McCool's birth name. That was the first name carved on the floor. The one we couldn't read."

"Yep."

Andrew continued: "And then Joanna was the second name. That means there was another…"

Eliza nodded. "The Phelans didn't just have one baby. They had twins."

Noah opened his eyes.

Charlee, the ghost, was still sitting at the picnic table with the two other girls. She was staring at him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "What's your name?"

"It's me…Noah."

"Noah. Hi. I'm Sofia."

"You're…who…?"

"Sofia. Sofia Sutherland. Are you okay? Are you looking for someone?"

He had been.

And he had found her.

Sofia.

Charlee's twin sister.

TWENTY-SIX

On the night of the same day that Sofia met a strange guy named Noah, she went to work at the strip club and didn't notice the figure in the car that had been waiting outside for her, or that the same car followed her all the way home.

"Emma called," her mother said. She sat on the couch in the living room nursing a tall glass of red wine, the bottle on the coffee table in front of her. "I left a message for you. It's on the kitchen table."

"Thanks, Mom. Hi, Dad."

"How was work." Her father sat in a recliner on the opposite side of the room from his wife, holding a beer, a couple empty cans already on the stand next to him. His eyes never moved from the television.

"Fine." She hadn't worked at the mall tonight but her parents didn't know that. She glanced at the television. A preview of the coming eleven o'clock news showed a meteorologist talking about a massive hurricane building up in the Atlantic, pointing at an ominous swelling of digital clouds on the map.

"Your sister also called," her mother said. "She's still in Japan, doing well, says hi."

Ruth. Her older sister. International lawyer. Golden Child.

She grabbed the message in the kitchen. Emma wanted her to come to a party tonight. No thanks. Sofia was exhausted. She heated up some tofu and steamed vegetables and went back out to the living room, sat on the other end of the couch from her mother and ate.

"Emma wants you to go out?" Mom said.

"You wrote the note."

"You think you'll go?"

"I don't know. It's late."

"That's true. But if you do, be careful."

"I always am, Mom."

"Is Brittany going too? I like when she goes because I know she'll watch you."

"Probably."

"And Ethan? Have you heard from him since you two broke up?"

"No."

"I liked him. He was such a nice boy."

"That was kind of the problem."

"Now how's that a problem?"

Dad cut in from across the room. "You go out a lot, Sofia. Don't you have homework?"

"It gets done."

"Mmm."

"And be careful with those guys out there," Mom said.

"Oh Mom."

"I'm serious. Remember—no glove, no love."

"Mom!"

"Jesus," Dad said. He swung back the last of his beer, popped another one.

Mom rolled her eyes, finished her glass of wine, decided it looked lonely, poured some more, topped it.

It was so fucking depressing Sofia finished her dinner quickly, washed her plate, and went upstairs to call Brittany, see if she was going out.

"No, I've got an early shift at the diner tomorrow, I'm calling it a night." Brittany yawned.

But Sofia hadn't been home an hour and already she wanted out of the house. She checked herself in the bathroom mirror. She was already dolled up from dancing so with a quick touch-up she left.

It was a house party at a friend of Emma's not too far away. At the door she paid three bucks to get in and was given the obligatory red plastic cup. The usual suspects milled about inside. A few people bumped to the loud music from the stereo, raising their cups and cheering. A few couples grinded on each other. Others just drank and talked at the edges of rooms or picked at the bowls of chips and pretzels in the kitchen. Still others lay inebriated on couches or on the floor, drunk or high or both. The entire house had that sickly smell of rye and smoke and vomit.

Emma came downstairs re-adjusting a low-cut shirt. A dopey-looking kid came jogging down behind her, a slap-happy grin on his face. He ran on ahead of them.

Sofia shook her head. "Robbing the cradle, are we?"

"What, he's a freshman."

"A high school freshman."

"Semantics."

"Oh Emma."

"Come on, he was cute. And sweet. First-timers always are. They're so grateful."

They hung out by the keg and put down a few drinks. Someone brought out the Jello shots and they did a little more damage. A couple guys came up to flirt with them. Had the popped collars on too-tight polos, jeans with dangling BC3 lanyards. Hair either gelled to the sky or covered with a flat-brimmed baseball cap. Talking like 'What's good?' Calling each other 'bruh.' A third friend came up and joined them, this joker with a t-shirt on that boasted, BC3 BEER PONG CHAMPION 1996. They were all right and Sofia even flirted back a little.

For some reason the guy from earlier crossed her mind, that Noah guy. She even found herself hoping he would show up. She had never seen him before, didn't know if he went to BC3 or was new in town or what.

"Hey," she said to Emma, "you got any…" She put a thumb and forefinger to her lips.

"Yeah, I got a little. You want to sit, chill a bit?"

"Yeah, let's go."

She wanted a little high to top off a nice buzz and then call it a night. In an adjacent room, they lit up on the couch and giggled incessantly as a couple of stoners played a video game. And when the laughs subsided, the world went away and it felt good.

The feeling even lingered when she left and risked the drive home. She stuck her head out the window as she cruised slowly around the neighborhood, feeling the cool night air against her skin.

It lingered even as she ran a hot shower and climbed into some pajamas and then into bed. After that, sleep came along and took its turn to save her from sobriety.

She dreaded the morning when it would be gone.

After Brittany's shift at the diner ended the next day, the three friends met at the Halloween shop that came to town every September. They walked through aisles of typical fright-fest décor, masks, and costumes, and passed by all that into the more playful section.

"So Sofia," Emma said, holding up a skimpy French maid's outfit to herself and checking the look out in a mirror. "I forgot to ask you last night. What was up with that guy yesterday?"

"Who?" Sofia asked, checking the price tag of a naughty female cop costume.

"You know, that guy. Came up to us yesterday by the picnic tables."

"Oh yeah, I don't know what that was about." She tried to make it sound like she hadn't given the guy any thought since it happened.

"He was fuckin' hot," Emma said.

"Really?"

"Please," Brittany piped in. "That boy was fine. He came right over to you, Sof. You didn't know him?"

"Never seen him before."

"Weird. Hey, can someone explain this to me?" Brittany pulled down a candy striper outfit in a bag, the model on the front showing generous cleavage and thigh in the short costume. "My goodness."

"What?" Emma said. "Halloween's the one day we can dress like skanks and get away with it."

"So what's your excuse for the rest of the year, Em?"

"Fuck you, bitch." Emma pulled down a zombie mask from the opposite shelf and jumped in front of Brittany with an insane screech.

Brittany laughed and so did Emma. She pulled off the mask and hugged Brittany tight.

"Ladies, ladies," Sofia said. They hugged her too and soon they were all laughing.

"Do we even know where we're going for Halloween?" Brittany asked.

"The better question," Sofia said, "is where is Emma going to drag us to?"

"Just no weird house parties," Brittany said, "please."

"They all gonna be chill, don't worry," Emma said. "I know Harry Jeter's having a costume party. Mickey Halloran too. I don't know. I know we'll all go to Mooner's first, decide from there. Maybe hop around to a couple." She pulled a costume bag down and showed it to Brittany. "Hey girl, how about this for you?" It was a knock-off Foxy Brown costume, complete with 70s bell bottoms and a large soul afro.

"Right," Brittany said, "so the black girl gotta be Foxy Brown, huh?"

"Huh? No, I just—"

"Mm-hmm. Plus, I been hanging out with you white bitches so long I'm probably turning white myself."

"Your parents tried that already by naming you Brittany."

"What?"

"Brittany's a white girl name."

"Oh, so now my name gotta be Latonya or Shanelle or Tashika before I'm really black, huh?"

"Uh, no, no, I just mean—"

Meanwhile Sofia was trying unsuccessfully to hold back laughter.

"Friends like y'all," Brittany said, "who needs enemies?"

"Hey," Sofia said, "I didn't say a word."

"Mm-hmm."

"All I'm saying," Emma said.

"All you're saying, what," Brittany said. "I also got a cousin named Brittany. Is she not black either?"

"All right, all right, I'm sorry," Emma said. She looked finished before she added with a furtive smile, "I bet she's got a sister named Jennifer or Emily or Helen—"

Brittany slapped Emma's arm several times. "You need to shut your mouth."

"All right, all right, I'll stop, I'm sorry."

Brittany looked at the new costume Emma was holding and said, "You are not wearing that." The bag Emma held consisted of nothing more than a few pieces of imitation leather.

"You like? It's a dominatrix."

"It'll go well with my Playboy bunny costume," Sofia said, holding up her own bag. "Or this." Another bag held a scantily clad devil costume.

Brittany shook her head. "Yeah. Ain't nothing but the devil. Sin and a shame and a shame and a pity. Y'all need to be saved. Nasty."

They left sometime later, empty-handed but with some ideas in mind. Sofia smiled at her friends as they exited the store. They continued to laugh.

They laughed a long time.

Noah watched the three girls from across the street. He sat in the parked Cutlass and started it up once they made it some distance down the sidewalk. He drove slowly around the corner where they continued to walk and talk.

He had been following Sofia since last night. Most of the time he felt in a trance. If he didn't know better he would say that this was Charlee. The two were identical. If Charlee had grown her hair out long and dressed in typical teenage girl fashion, there would be no difference whatsoever in appearance.

Their auras were another matter. Charlee had carried herself with an awkwardness that suited her personality, a collection of gangly limbs that seemed to hang off her tall figure like she didn't know what to do with them. One could easily mistake it for shyness, that is until you spoke with her, saw the fire burning in her eyes, eyes taking in the world at every glance, studying people and things with the critical wonder of a creative soul, too busy to be concerned how her body looked while doing it.

But it seemed Sofia's only concern was how her body looked, not in a vain or even self-conscious way, but in a way that reflected total ownership over all she had and all she did. She owned every inch of her tallness, owned the graceful fluidity of her movements, owned the walk that swelled with confidence. The world was her runway. She kept her eyes forward at all times, as if on a prize that was ever beyond her athletic stride. She didn't need to waste her time watching anyone else, because she knew everyone else was watching her.

Last night Noah had called Detective Lehman's home number from a pay phone outside the Ooh-La-La gentleman's club in Waterloo. She and her partner had found out through their interview with Diane Fischer what Noah had come face to face with. Charlee indeed had a twin and it was Sofia, birth name Joanna Phelan.

He slept in the car. Parked it by a cornfield on the outskirts of town.

Early morning he drove to a rest stop filling station back a few miles down the highway. There he showered and brushed and changed clothes.

He watched Sofia now as she separated from her friends and climbed into her car. He pulled over and waited for her to start up. He let her gain some ground and then peeled slowly away from the curb.

Later he found himself on the off-ramp for an exit that led to a large shopping mall. He parked some distance away from Sofia and watched which entrance she went into. When she was inside he hopped out of the car and jogged to the same entrance.

She was rounding a corner when he came in. He followed her, mixing in with the crowd of Saturday shoppers. In the food court, she stood in line for a small salad, sat at a table, and ate quickly. Noah bought a coffee and sipped at it as he followed her further into the mall. He walked past Sears, Walden Books, Sam Goody, Montgomery Ward, Fay's, Claire's, Kay Bee Toys, Value City, Von Maur, and then Forever 21, The Limited, American Eagle Outfitters, The Gap, and several other clothing stores. Sofia went into Abercrombie and Fitch.

He watched from the display window, past mannequins wearing ripped jeans and matching ripped jackets, as she clocked in on one of the registers and went into a back room,

He continued walking past the store and came back a half-hour later. She was out on the floor folding a set of sweaters on one of the tables in the middle of the room.

He walked in, caught suddenly in a barrage of loud music and cologne. He kept moving, not trying to hide anymore.

Sofia walked away from the table when she was done to put a shirt in a nearby cubby. Noah supposed he stepped up a bit too close to her because she jumped when she turned around and saw him.

"Holy shit!"

"I'm sorry." His throat was dry. He was surprised he could speak.

"Oh crap, I…I'm sorry."

"No, I…my fault."

"Wait, you're, I know you."

"Yeah, I'm, yesterday…"

"Noah, right?"

"Yeah. Sofia?"

"Yeah."

"I, I was just, I came to the mall, I saw you worked here. I wanted to apologize for yesterday."

"Apologize for what?"

"I know I must have seemed strange. Anyway, I wanted to start over." He held out his hand. "I'm Noah Faison."

"Sofia Sutherland." She smiled and shook his hand.

She had a weak handshake, offering only her fingers and with no firmness in her grip. Still he lingered on it, Charlee's hand, the long boney fingers and soft white skin, the fingers that used to interlock with his, caress the back of his neck, run along his cheek or across his chest, stroke his penis.

He took his hand back, the palms sweaty in both. He wiped discreetly on the back of his jeans.

"So," Sofia said, "do you go to BC3?"

"Me, no."

"You go somewhere though?"

"Blessed Trinity College. It's in Des Moines."

"Oh. What brought you to this shithole?"

"Uh…work. Sort of. Yesterday when I saw you, I thought, I thought you were someone else."

"What kind of work do you do?"

"Uh…private investigation."

"Really. That's cool."

"Yeah."

"So…"

"So."

"So you're, uh, what year are you, in college?"

"Freshman," Noah said.

"Me too."

"How, um, how long are you in town?"

"The weekend. For now at least. I'll probably have to make some trips back here."

Sofia was nodding.

Noah said, "Um, listen, I, uh, I know that, that we don't know each other—well, I don't really know the town in general—but, I don't know, I didn't know if maybe…if you…"

She had a waiting expression but he could tell that she was starting to understand what he was asking. He couldn't tell if she was caught off guard, repulsed—both?

"Oh," she said, eyes slightly wide. "Like…like, go out?"

"Yeah. Well, no…I mean, it'd be like, as friends, or, whatever. I'm sorry, this is very forward of me. I don't mean to be weird."

She laughed. "No, no, sure, I, actually, my friends and I—you met them too, sort of—we're getting together tonight. We watch our shows. I taped Melrose Place. You know that show?"

"No."

"Well, we missed it last Tuesday. We're meeting tonight. Maybe you'd want to come over earlier…and…hang out?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. I'd like that. I'm sorry again, I know this is odd…some random guy…coming up to you…"

She laughed again. "No. It's…it's nice. It's funny."

He smiled. "So uh, what time is good tonight?" He was almost ready to walk away without asking where she lived because of course he already knew.

"I'm off at five, uh…six-thirty sound good? You have dinner plans?"

"No."

"It's settled then. Come here." She led him up to the registers at the check-out counter where she tore off a blank piece of receipt paper. She wrote down her address and phone number, put the paper in his hand.

He pocketed it. "It was nice to officially meet you," he said.

"You too."

She spent a lot of time in front of the mirror before he came over.

She applied some make-up, a soft blush, and a smoky eye shadow. She wasn't trying to overdo it, enough to be alluring yet still tasteful. She curled her hair a bit, trying to make it look effortless. Then she walked around her room in her bra and underwear, trying on numerous outfits. She chose some skin-tight jeans that made her ass look good despite scrawny chicken legs. And she ended up rocking those with a strapless top and a number of necklaces. Wondering if she had put too many on, she remembered what Coco Chanel said: 'When accessorizing, always take off the last thing you put on.' So she did just that and the outfit was done. She did her nails, sprayed some perfume, and she was ready.

In all the excitement, she stopped for a second to wonder what the chances were that this Noah guy just happened to be at the mall when she was working today. She thought about how lately it felt like she was being watched and she wondered if it was him.

And she had given him her address and phone number.

She shook it off. He didn't give off a creepy vibe whatsoever. Plus he was far too good-looking to be a stalker.

She gave herself a last once-over in the mirror, then looked at the picture of Coco taped to the side and said out loud another one of the designer's lines: "A girl should be two things—classy and fabulous."

Noah arrived at six-thirty exactly.

He rang the doorbell and shook the hand of Sofia's father, a curt and reserved man who seemed less than interested in him or much of anything. Her mother actually gave him a hug. He smelled wine on her breath. She kept smiling, telling him to make himself at home, and oh, you won't mind having this for dinner, would you, it's a recipe from, oh, I don't remember, and oh, you have to leave room for dessert, and oh, you just seem like such a nice boy, not like some of the other boys that Sofia brings—Mom!—well, we'll just keep that between us.

Sofia broke it up and ushered him upstairs, her mother reminding them that dinner was soon.

"Sorry, my mom will talk your ear off," she said when they were behind the closed door of her bedroom.

"Oh, it's perfectly fine," he said, looking around. Her bedroom looked right out of an interior designing catalogue. There were no posters or personal décor, nothing except some pictures and magazine cut-outs tacked to the mirror on the vanity. "This is a nice room."

"Thanks."

"Was it always like this?"

"My fourteenth birthday present."

"A remodel?"

"Kind of. I put together the design. I knew what I wanted. But I had help."

"You like interior design?"

She nodded. "Interior design. Fashion. Love it."

He nodded absently. There was a long, awkward pause. Sofia nodded too. Suddenly the absurdity of all this, him being there in her room, a total stranger she had just officially met today, seemed to dawn upon both of them.

"Uh, well," Sofia said.

"Yeah…"

"So…"

They were saved by Sofia's mother calling them for dinner.

"That was fast," Noah said.

"Whatever you eat, tell her it was great."

Sofia convinced her mother to leave them alone and brought their dinner plates up to her room. They didn't talk much as they ate. Noah got full off an overcooked chicken, lumpy mashed potatoes, and raw Brussels sprouts. Sofia had tofu instead with her vegetables.

"You don't eat meat?"

She shook her head.

"How about chicken?"

"Sometimes. Usually not. Has to be organic and free-range if I do."

"What made you want to give up all meat?"

"You ever read about the hormones they pump that shit up with? It gets inside your system and never leaves. And if I go into fashion I have to do everything I can to take care of myself. And never mind meat alone, you ever look at the ingredients on the back of processed foods?"

"Not really."

"It's all chemicals. Hydrogenated oils, partially hydrogenated oils, nitrates—it's all garbage."

"So you eat a lot of light and diet stuff?"

"Nope. That stuff is chemicals too. Your artificial sweeteners, they're basically legalized poisons. It's not like this in other countries. You gotta read the labels."

"Oh."

"The trick is small portions of real, homemade food. And moderation. And well, I could go on, but I don't want to bore you."

"Not at all."

"I suppose for all my talk, I shouldn't drink, but I still party. You party?"

"No."

"Well, I don't party a lot, but, well, I'll shut up, sorry." She didn't know why she was so nervous. She talked a lot when she was nervous. Like her mother.

It was awkward again for a little while. They looked around a lot. Exchanged pleasantries.

"You look really nice, by the way," Noah said. He didn't mean it as a flirtation, just as a compliment and to make conversation. But by the way she flushed, he got the impression he was giving her the wrong idea.

She said, "Oh, thanks. I just…threw this on. You look good too."

He looked down at his drab self—jeans, a plain black long-sleeved shirt, his rosary beads hanging from his neck. On top of that he was unshaven. He must have raised his eyebrows because Sofia laughed and said, "The look suits you. It's rugged. Very GQ."

"I'm not sure what that means, but…"

"It's a good thing."

"Well, thank you."

"So."

"So…"

"You want to go downstairs, watch TV?"

"Whatever you want."

"Where did you say you go again, for school?"

"Blessed Trinity. In Des Moines."

"What's your major?"

"Theology."

"Oh. What do you want to do with that when you're older?"

"I'm going into seminary. Training to become a priest."

"Oh. Wow. I noticed the little pocket Bible in your coat pocket when I hung it up downstairs. Are you like, one of those Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons or something?"

"No. Roman Catholic."

"Oh."

"You?"

"Huh?"

"What are you studying?"

"Uh, well, business. Right now at least. It's something general enough."

"What do you want to do? You said something with fashion?"

"I'd like to transfer to a fashion school after I'm done at BC3. Somewhere in New York hopefully. Go into modeling, maybe designing. That kind of thing."

"Nice. You look like you'd do well." More unintentional flirting. He covered up by adding, "Or nutrition. By your clear knowledge in that field as well."

She laughed. "My dad would like that. He told me to look into something like nutrition or public health. Doesn't exactly see my career ambitions as all that practical. No, pragmatic. That was the word he used. Pragmatic."

"Oh."

More silence.

Eventually Sofia said, "So…you're really religious?"

"Yeah."

More silence.

"My friend, Brittany, she's like that too. Goes to church, like, every week."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

More silence.

"So…how'd you wind up being a, what is it, private investigator?"

"Uh, well, I'm sort of working for these private investigators. I'm not technically one myself."

"Well, it sounds like fun. Maybe you can help me with my stalker."

"What?" He tried not to look too obvious.

"I'm kidding."

"Oh."

She laughed. "No. No stalker. Not right now. I don't think."

"You don't think?"

"Well, it's, there's…it's nothing."

"You think someone could be stalking you?"

"No, well, you just ever get that feeling…like someone's watching you?"

"Sure."

"It's just, I've had that feeling for months. It's probably nothing."

He nodded, hoping she'd say more.

She did. "I got a note one time. And then this other time there was this name written on the mirror at school. I was at the gym alone, at least I thought I was, but it felt like someone else was there. Watching me shower of all things. I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"What did the note say?"

"Uh, hold on actually, I'll get it." She got up and rooted around some school papers on her desk and then in her bag. "Shit, I think it went through the wash. It was in a pair of jeans." She looked in the closet and pulled out a wilted piece of paper from a pocket. "Yep, here it is. What's left of it."

HELLO SOFIA. Noah tried not to show any reaction when he saw it, since he had received a letter with a drawing by someone who had the exact same handwriting. He said, "And then he wrote your name on a mirror too?"

"Not my name."

"Whose was it?"

"It started with a J…um…"

Joanna, he thought. Definitely Joanna.

"Judith," she finally said. "Definitely Judith."

Or maybe not.

"Well," he said, "while I'm here, I'll try to protect you." He was smiling to be friendly, but Sofia's smile in return was all flirt.

"What about when you leave?" she asked.

"Well, what about your boyfriend?"

"I, uh," she started, biting her bottom lip in a telling manner, "don't have one."

"Oh."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

"No."

A pause.

"You're very mysterious, Noah."

"Not really."

"You are."

"Complicated, maybe. But not mysterious."

"Well, tell me about yourself."

"Like what?"

"Start at the beginning."

"Well, my parents loved each other very much…"

She hit him playfully on the shoulder. He smiled. He was enjoying her company and actually having a good time. It had been so long since he had sat down and had a conversation with someone his own age. They were sitting on the bed now, their movements restrained and fidgety, like him and Charlee when they were just friends.

"Not much to tell," he said. "I'm a very boring guy."

"Tell me about it."

He gave her a look.

She laughed. "I mean, I didn't mean it like that, I mean, literally, tell me."

"Well, I uh…I grew up in Missouri. I'm an only child. My parents are both teachers. My mother's Mexican. My father met her in Mexico on a church trip. They got married and he took her back to the states. He taught Religion at a Catholic school in Missouri until it shut down. Then we moved here to Iowa, to Riggsboro."

"Riggsboro, that's near, like, Grinnell and Montezuma?"

"Yeah. Poweshiek County. So…when we moved, my father retired. He just works a lot in the church now. My mother teaches Spanish at the middle school and sometimes at Grinnell College. I spent my last two years in high school in Riggsboro. Well, I moved to Jasper County for a little bit with my grandparents, then spent the summer doing some work with my mother's family in Mexico, and then I went off to college in Des Moines. And here I am."

"Mmm, well that's all very…technical. Tell me about yourself though. Like, I don't know, favorite food. Favorite movie or show or book, what you like to do."

"Um, I don't really watch TV or movies. My favorite book—non-fiction, that is—would be anything C.S. Lewis. Fiction would be One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez."

"Uh…yeah, see, I don't really know any of that, but…thanks."

"Your turn."

"Okay. Well, Clueless is my favorite movie. I don't read really, but I like TV. I like Friends. That could be my favorite show. Oh! Music. That's one I forgot. I like the Dave Matthews Band, Everclear, Foo Fighters. You know them?"

"No."

"No? What do you mean, no? You haven't heard of any of them?"

"I mean, they sound kind of familiar, I guess."

"Well, what do you like then? And please, please don't say like, Catholic hymns."

He spread out his arms.

"You're not serious."

"Told you I was predictable."

"Really."

"No, I'm kidding. I like classical music, jazz, smooth jazz."

"Like elevator music?"

"That's one way of putting it."

She laughed. "You know who you'll like? Hold on. I'll put him on."

She got up and put on a CD in the mini-stereo that sat on her shelf. "You might have heard of him. Duncan Sheik? He's real nice. Relaxing. Deep. I think you would definitely like him. I've been really feelin' him lately."

They sat and listened to the first track. Noah liked it. Sofia swayed and got into it, closing her eyes and eventually singing along. With her eyes closed Noah could stare at her all he wanted, see Charlee in every part of her, the same thin Irish features, the same dark chestnut hair, the same pale skin with just the lightest spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

With her head hung back, he longed to kiss that open neck, the hollow in her throat. He wondered what it would taste like, if she would taste like Charlee. Her singing voice was Charlee's, meaning there were certainly no Grammys in her future, but to him it was the singing of an angel.

And she says, Ooh darlin', don't you know

The darkness comes and the darkness goes

She says, Ooh, babe why don't you let it go

Happiness ain't never how you think it should be so

She runs away…

He composed himself by the time she opened her eyes again. She giggled as she stretched a note. "He's totally good, right?"

"Yeah, he is."

She turned down the volume a bit and let the CD run.

They continued for about an hour. Learning each other. Noah could look at Sofia and with each passing minute see someone clearly different than Charlee. If he closed his eyes he could hear the differences in speech pattern, and Sofia's voice, while very similar to Charlee's, was a touch higher.

They were having so much fun it was disappointing when Brittany and Emma showed up some time later.

Sofia took him downstairs to meet them. Everyone settled in the living room with a bowl of popcorn as Sofia fiddled with tapes on top of the VCR. She put in the recorded Melrose Place and attempted to rewind to the right spot on the tape.

"There's something exotic about you," Emma told Noah as he sat on the couch with her and Brittany. "Don't you think so, Brit? A little, like, dusky. Are you foreign at all, Noah? Hispanic?"

"I'm half-Mexican."

"That explains it," Emma said. "Can you speak Spanish?"

"Yeah." He hoped she wouldn't make him speak it.

"Say something."

"Oh my gosh," Brittany said, rolling her eyes. "Leave the poor boy alone."

"No, come on, please."

"Pobrecito," Noah said.

"What does that mean?" Emma asked.

"Poor boy."

Brittany laughed.

"Can you roll your 'r's?" Emma asked. "Do it, please."

Noah did.

"Ooh. God, that's sexy."

"Emma," Sofia scolded from over at the television. "What did Brittany just say?"

"Hey," Emma said, lowering her voice but muttering so everyone could hear: "All I'm saying is he must be good with his tongue…"

"Emma!"

"What? So do you have a girlfriend, Noah?"

"I will fucking kill you when I get over there, Emma," Sofia said. "I swear to God."

"Don't swear to God," Brittany said.

"All right, all right," Emma said, "I'm sorry. I was just asking. Is that a crime?"

"It's fine," Noah said. "No, no girlfriend."

Sofia tried to regain control. "You'll love Noah, Brit. He's religious like you."

"You're a Christian?" Brittany said.

He nodded. "Catholic."

"But born again?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Praise the Lord. I'm Pentecostal myself. Saved, sanctified, Holy Ghost rollin'. Well, how nice. If you're looking for a church to—"

Emma cut back in. "Does that mean you're a virgin too?"

Brittany hit Emma on the arm, and a once-again mortified Sofia, still rewinding to find the right spot on the video, yelled, "Jesus Christ! I mean, shit, Emma, fuck. Oh God, I'm so sorry, Noah. For Emma's behavior and how she makes me curse."

"It's okay," he said with a soft laugh.

"I'm sorry," Emma said, placing a rather tender hand on his arm. "You don't have to answer that."

"That's right, he doesn't," Brittany said.

But when a sudden silence settled over them, Noah knew they all expected him to answer anyway. "It's okay. I've been with one girl."

"Aww," Emma said, "she was your first?"

"My only," he said.

"That's adorable. I've never met someone our age that's only been with one person."

Brittany cleared her throat.

Emma said, "Well, a guy, at least." She asked Noah, "So you're not with her anymore?"

"Okay!" Brittany said. "We're done grilling poor Noah."

"Okay, I'm sorry." Emma put up her hands.

"Anyway, Noah," Brittany said. "As I was about to ask before we were so rudely interrupted, do you have a church here you're planning to go to tomorrow?"

"Not yet."

"Well, you're more than welcome to come to mine. We don't do any of that Mary the Mother of Jesus stuff, but we're Bible-based and full of the spirit."

"I appreciate that. I'll be there." He had brought along some church clothes for just such an occasion. He hated missing daily mass, much less a Sunday service.

"It's at ten o'clock. Waverly COGIC on Church Street. And don't be late. I don't rock that C.P. time foolishness. Black folk who act like damn fools strolling into the service whenever they please. My family shows up on time and I expect my friends to do the same."

"Yes, ma'am," Noah said.

Sofia crossed the room with the remotes for the TV and VCR. "Brit here has been trying to drag me to church ever since we met at orientation."
"You should come too," Noah said.

Sofia felt warm all over.

"I've been barking up that tree for months," Brittany said.

"Hey, I'll go tomorrow," Sofia said, sitting down on the couch with the rest of them.

"You'll what?" Brittany's eyes went wide.

"I'll go."

"Well, praise Jesus, hallelujah."

"Hello!" Emma said. "What about me? I'll go too."

Brittany laughed. "You? Girl, you walk into a church, the whole thing likely to be struck by lightning, and I don't want my ass anywhere near you when it happens."

"You said God loves everyone."

"Yeah, but God don't like ugly."

Everyone laughed. Even Noah. A little.

"Everyone shut up," Sofia said, holding the remote up, "let's do what we came here for." And she turned on the show.

Noah was the last to leave that night. He stood outside on the porch with his jacket on.

"Thanks for coming," Sofia said. She lingered in the doorway, trying not to be too obvious in the gentle way she swayed her hips. "Sorry about Emma. No shame."

"Oh no, she was a riot. You have great friends."

"I do."

As she drifted off, Noah got lost in her eyes, her smile—both Charlee's—her features glistening silver, ethereal in the light of the waxing moon.

"Thanks for inviting me," he said. "So I'll, uh, see you at Brittany's church tomorrow?"

"Yeah. She gave you good directions?"

"I think so."

"Where are you staying?"

"Uh…I'm kind of…staying in my car."

"Your car? What? You can't do that. Come back in here. Stay here. My parents won't mind."

"No, it's—"

"Please. It's cold."

"It's, really, I'm fine."

"It's no trouble, really. Come on, we'll have fun. I mean, you can stay in my room? My parents won't care. Or the couch downstairs? Whatever. Wherever you're comfortable."

"It's, no, thank you…I…I have some things to do. With the case."

"Oh, your investigation. That's right."

"Yeah. I appreciate it, but…"

"Well, okay. If you're sure."

"I am. Thank you though. Really. You have a good night."

"You too. Bye, Noah." Her soft voice, the tinge of longing behind it, the way her gaze rested on him—it was intoxicating. It was the way Charlee used to look at him. And seeing only Charlee's face didn't help. He wanted to kiss her, badly, and he could tell by her signals that she wouldn't push him away. That scared him. Because he wanted to make her his Charlee, if just for the night, just for a moment. He stared at her and remembered Charlee's hands on him, her fingers in his hair as he went down on her, her nails clawing into his back as he entered her. He remembered grabbing her, running his hands down over her thighs and clutching her buttocks, covering her body with kisses, moving deep inside of her, the two of them screaming, crying, singing—singing a love song, their love song.

He shook himself out of it.

After staring at each other for a long time, they finally turned their separate ways and resisted the itch to look back.

After he left, he parked the Cutlass on the other side of the block and walked back. He staked out Sofia's yard for about an hour, front and back, hiding in the bushes, behind trees and hedges, looking for anyone else that might be watching.

Under the cover of shadows and night, he looked more than once at her silhouette in the bedroom window. For a few minutes she was on the phone, then she was undressing, then leaving to shower, then returning and redressing.

Outside, with Noah, there was no one.

He left for the cornfield, praying that in his absence the evil would not return.

The next morning, Sofia and Brittany were already there, standing behind a pew at the Waverly Church of God in Christ. The modest old country church sat at the edge of town and its congregation was predominately black. Though there were little more than a dozen members, there was a whole lot of life and a whole lot of style.

Even in his shirt and tie Noah felt underdressed. The men were all dapper in three-piece pin-striped suits and the women were all pretty and colorful, wearing big old hats and waving fans.

He sat with the girls and met Brittany's parents. They were big and gregarious and just about tore him in half with hugs.

He could hardly introduce himself over the sounds of a shaking tambourine and the slow, rhythmic clapping and stomping that rocked the house. The praise team was in full force, the congregation joining in.

Satan, we're gonna tear your kingdom down

Satan, we're gonna tear your kingdom down

You've been building your kingdom, all over this land

Satan, we're gonna tear your kingdom down

After praise and worship, the pastor, a handsome older black man in glasses and an immaculately trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee, came down from his seat in the pulpit. He looked around the room with a wide grin, nodding passionately.

"Praise the Lord!" he said.

"Praise the Lord!" the congregation called back.

"Yes indeed. God is good!"

"All the time!"

"And all the time..."

"God is good!"

"Praise the Lord. I look around, hallelujah, and I see some new faces."

There was clapping and more shouting. Sofia and Noah both nodded and smiled, waving dainty to the enthusiastic congregation.

"I praise God for new faces. Because how many people know that God wants to build his church? That he wants to save the lost?"

"Yes, Lord!"

"Friends, I don't know if you're here visiting from another church or new to church in general. I don't know if y'all are saved or not and we're not out to embarrass you. We just praise God that you're here on today."

"Mm-hmm! All right now!"

"How many people know that as a church we want to reach out to the lost?"

"Yes!"

"Some brothers and sisters, oh yes, they great church folk. Mm-hmm. Sisters got they hats, their hair did. You know. Brothers in their three-piece and pinstripes. Alligator shoes. Come on. Everybody come out praising the Lord in they Sunday best, stompin and dancin', yes Lord, but come Monday, mm-mmm, they back out in the ways of the world. Can I get an amen?"

"Amen! Yes, Lord!"

"I'm not talking about you, just someone on your row."

There was lots of laughter.

"But how many people know, hallelujah, that the Lord ain't looking for church folk?"

"Oh no!"

"I tell you the Lord is looking for kingdom folk! Can I get a witness?"

"Yes!"

"You say, 'Pastor, what are you talking about?' I'll tell you what I'm talking about, I'm talking about Jesus!"

"Thank you, Jesus! Yes!"

"Amen. Praise the Lord. Because what does it mean to be truly saved, or truly lost for that matter? Most people want to talk about being saved or being lost in terms of physical death. But through the lens of eternity, how many know that we need to be worried about spiritual death?"

"Tell it. Tell it!"

"For the Bible says it clear! 'Fear not them which are able to kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.'"

"Yes, Jesus! Yes!"

"So I just thank God on today for new faces. And beloved, it's that season. That time of year when the Lord reminds us just what our great commission is here in our earthly lives. That we are called to bring lost souls to Jesus. The Lord shows us this in our own backyards. It's harvest time, beloved. Somebody say harvest."

"Harvest!"

"Look at your neighbor and say 'Neighbor—!'"

"Neighbor!"

"It's harvest time!"

"It's harvest time!"

"It's time for a harvest of souls, church!"

"Yes!"

"A harvest of souls for Jesus!"

"All right! All right!"

"Now the Bible tells us that we must be shrewd as a serpent, but innocent as a dove. Because how many know that the devil wants a harvest of souls too?"

"Mm-hmm! That's right!"

"And when the enemy of our souls comes in for the harvest—he comes in like a flood!"

"Mm-mm-mm…"

"He comes to what? To steal…to kill…"

"…and to destroy."

"I wish I had some believers out there…"

"Yes!"

"Because how many know that every knee shall bow..."

"Oh yes!"

"And every tongue confess..."

"All right now!"

"That Jesus Christ is Lord! Can I get a witness?"

"Mm-hmm! Yes, Lord!"

"Yes, Lord. And how many know that on the Day of Judgment, amen, that our Good Shepherd will separate the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the chaff?"

"Yes!"

"That the winnowing fork is in his hand—and he will clear the threshing floor!"

"Oh yes!"

"And then what? What will he do? Come on. He will 'gather up his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire'!"

"Oh yes!"

"And how many people, amen, on that terrible and glorious day, amen, want to be right with God?"

"Yes! All right now! That's all right!"

"Praise the Lord, thank you Jesus. Let's give Him some praise! Let's lift up the name of Jesus in this place!"

The small church became of cacophony of praise.

"How many people know that He inhabits the praises of His people?"

"Yes!"

"Amen, amen. Beloved, I can feel the spirit of the Lord in this place on today."

"Thank you! Thank you, Jesus!"

"And we invite Him in to dwell in this place. If you'll bow your heads with me, beloved. Heavenly Father, we come before you on today in humility. We give you the thanks, the honor, the glory, and the praise, Father God. Fill this place with your presence. Touch us all from the crown of our heads to the soles of our feet. We know you inhabit the praises of your people. Let them be worthy praises because you are a God worthy of praise! Let us come before your altar today in utter submission to your Son, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins on the cross. We know that there are none righteous, no, not one, and that all have sinned and fallen short of your glory. Lord, we thank you for the blood and ask you to forgive us for our sins, known and unknown, Lord, that we may be cleansed through the precious blood of Jesus, that we may come before your altar sanctified, that you may see us not through our sins but through the righteousness of Christ, who took our place at Calvary. Lord, we thank you for the awesome privilege that because of your sacrifice, we might come boldly to the throne of grace. Oh, thank you, Jesus. We thank you for the blood. Wash us in your blood and clothe us in your righteousness, for 'the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.' Lord, let us be the salt of the earth you intended us to be. Let the world see your light and stand in awe, Lord. Let us make bountiful the harvest of the Lord! And Lord, we pray all these things in the holy and precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen."

"Amen!"

"Amen, amen..."

He went on to deliver an impassioned word, a fiery sermon that ended with a call to the altar for anyone who needed prayer, needed healing, needed salvation.

As the pastor shouted, the organist piped in and the congregation went into a praise break. Some went up, kneeling in prayer or standing with arms wide open. Others stayed in the aisles dancing and moving about in the spirit. One of the choir members, a petite and frail old woman, stepped forward and began to sing, sing with a voice that did not seem possible coming from such a dainty frame. She wailed long and slow and with such longing and heartbreak, Noah was moved to tears.

Sinner, please don't let this harvest pass
Sinner, please don't let this harvest pass
Sinner, please don't let this harvest pass
And die and lose your soul at last

The choir joined in for the remaining verses.

Sofia watched the reaction of the congregation. She didn't understand, just stared at them, shifting uncomfortably.

Then she noticed Noah, tears streaming down his face as he made his way to the altar and fell before it on his knees. A deacon lay hands on him and began speaking vigorously in tongues.

The service lasted over two hours, lengthier than the usual hour-long mass Noah was used to. But he walked out of the sanctuary feeling revived.

In the lobby, Sofia went to the bathroom and Brittany pulled Noah aside.

"She really likes you."

"Who?"

"You're not too smart though."

"Oh."

"I shouldn't tell you, but she called me late last night. She likes you. A lot."

"Uh, well, I mean, we've only known each other a day."

"Look, I don't mean to embarrass you. I just need to tell you to be careful."

"Careful?"

"Sofia…she…she could use a guy like you. She's not used to them. And you'd be good for her. Her last boyfriend, Ethan, he was sort of like you, but she never called me about him like she did you. Usually, tell you the truth, she goes after all the wrong ones. Are you really single?"

Before he could give an answer, she added, "Because I see that ring on your finger and I know what it means, even though you said you didn't have a girlfriend. Now I'm not trying to get all up in your business. I'm just saying. Don't break her heart, Noah. And don't let her break yours, either. Sofia's great, but—and don't tell her I said this—dating is a game to her. She likes a challenge. Likes a first-timer like Ethan. Likes a bad boy. Likes pursuing guys that are already taken. Her old best friend, they were friends for years, junior high and high school—then senior year comes and Sofia steals her boyfriend. She used him until she got bored, then went on to Ethan. She can't stay with a guy for long before she cheats or breaks it off. Either way, my point is, Sofia's young and she's having fun right now. She likes the chase and the hard to get. And you being all mysterious and hard to peg, right now that guy is you."

"My intentions are not to—"

Brittany waved him off as if his intentions were irrelevant. "Look, listen, I don't know when you're leaving or if you're coming back, but…Sofia is my best friend. She's a lost soul, but... I love her. And right now she likes you. And I like you too, so don't screw this up. Or I'll come after your ass." Her eyes flared wide and she lowered her voice. "Oh, Lord forgive me, cussin' in church." She put two fingers to her eyes and pointed at Noah—I'm watching you—and then turned away, Sofia coming back out of the bathroom.

Noah smiled, shaking his head. They met back up with Sofia and left.

They all had brunch at the diner Brittany worked at. Sofia insisted on paying, her send-off to Noah.

"I'll be back next weekend," he said. "I still have work to do."

Brittany said, "Yeah, what is it with this whole P.I. thing you're doing?"

"He's being all super-secret about it," Sofia said. "Classified data and sensitive intel and all that."

Noah shrugged, looked at Brittany. "Something like that."

"Mmm. Mysterious. Like you."

Sofia laughed. "That's what I said."

Noah shook his head.

In the parking lot, Sofia and Brittany both gave him a hug. And unlike her initial handshake, Sofia's hug was tight, long, meaningful.

Neither wanted to let go.

In the car, Noah put the key in the ignition and stared at the yellow piece of paper on the passenger seat. The note that he had found in the BC3 library book.

You won't save her.

He started up the car and rolled out of the parking lot. He checked the rearview mirror. Sofia stood there, watching him drive away.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The ringing phone was not her office phone.

Eliza fished out the cellular from the bag next to her desk. Caller ID said PRIVATE.

A familiar voice. Confident. Like syrup. "Detective Lehman, always a pleasure."

"Mr. Collins. How can I help you?"

"You and your partner violated my trust, Detective. You went to see my ex-wife. What did she tell you?"

"Mr. Collins, I'm not at liberty to discuss—"

"I told you not to look into this. And not only did you look into it, you did so with your estranged partner. Very interesting."

"Mr. Collins, it's not you we're interested in. When someone sends you a letter with my office as the return address, I am inclined to want answers for my own sake."

"And was Diane able to help you?"

"No, she wasn't."

Collins sighed, chuckled. "Oh Detective, you disappoint me."

"How's that?"

"You continue to lie to me."

"Mr. Collins—"

"Spare me."

"Respectfully, Mr. Collins, don't interrupt me again. Now. Your ex-wife is delusional. You know this. You know the fantasy world she lives in. She was unable to offer anything of value."

"Hmm, okay, well, then please explain to me what Noah Faison was doing in Waverly, Iowa this past weekend."

"What, I…"

Eliza immediately began feeling under her desk. A mentor from her O'Dell & Pritchard days told her it was a smart expense to have professionals sweep her office for bugs every month. It had been a couple weeks since the last time they came through. And they always did a thorough job.

"Detective Lehman," Collins resumed, "I'm a powerful man. I can do many things. I can look up phone records, anyone's phone records, like your office's. I can see your correspondence."

Son of a bitch.

"Now," he said, "let's try this again. What business did Noah Faison have in Waverly?"

Eliza sighed. "Mr. Faison believes he was contacted by the same person who contacted you. He was also given a drawing. Wherever that might have led him, I do not know."

"Oh, but I think you do. You know about her now, don't you?"

"Who."

Another sigh. Another chuckle. "This is my final warning, Detective. If you keep snooping around, or if Noah Faison comes anywhere near Waverly again, I will make you and your partner's lives very…interesting."

He ended the call before she could say anything further.

Noah looked down the sights of the barrel, carefully aiming the Glock at the target before firing.

Detective Hagen stood next to him. He pushed a button and Noah watched the paper target of a human silhouette move down the belt from the back of the indoor gun range and come to a stop in front of him.

He took off the protective glasses for a better look. There was a close spattering of bullets, some on the black of the body, many outside in the white.

They each removed their ear protection.

"See what you did, Monk?" Hagen said. "That's pre-ignition push. You're anticipating the kick when you pull the trigger, bringing the aim down. Now your grouping is good. That shows me you got the trigger reset down. But un-fuck yourself. You're gripping the shit out of that thing and flinching whenever it goes off. Look at your knuckles."

Noah breathed. Tried to relax.

"Do it again. I'll be adjusting the distance. Anything over seven yards, have your rear and your front sights lined up. Anything under seven…"

"Target."

"Damn straight. All right. I got all night and we got a lot of work to do. Reloads, holstering, barriers. By the end of the night, you'll be drawing from the leather. Getting the feel down. The bad guys won't wait for you to get ready. You have to know what you're doing."

Later, when Noah was getting better, he told Hagen, "I appreciate all this. Thank you."

"I appreciate the information you gave me. You could make quite the C.I. Hell, you would make damn fine police. I know you want to be a preacher, but think on it."

"There's something I should say. About these lessons."

"Shoot."

Noah looked away for a second, looked back.

"Mmm," Hagen said. "That look. I saw it in your eyes the moment I met you. Square-john like you wouldn't ask for gun training unless he's got a good goddamn reason—excuse me, a good reason."

Noah nodded slowly.

"Whatever it is, Monk, be careful out there."

He called Sofia from the phone in his dorm hallway the next day after class.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Uh, I'm good." He could hear her smile. "You?"

"Good."

"I…didn't know if you'd call."

"I have to confess something."

"Yeah?" There was an eagerness in her voice.

"Remember how you told me you felt like you were being watched?"

"Um…yeah."

"Well, that's part of the reason I came to Waverly."

"You mean for your…investigation?"

"Yeah. The investigators I'm working for, the case we're looking into…it's this guy who's been stalking women. We think he might be in Waverly now."

"What? Are you serious?"

"We don't know anything for sure, but…"

"Who is it?"

"We don't know. There's a lot we don't know."

"Well, is it safe?"

"I think so. Yes. For now."

"What does that…what does that mean?"

"It's…you're okay. It could be nothing. Have you felt watched lately? Anymore, I mean."

"Um, no. I don't think so."

"I don't mean to scare you. Just be careful. And don't tell anyone about this, okay?"

"Okay. You're coming back this weekend, right?"

"Right."

"I'll feel safe when you're here."

The following night, he ran through a defensive tactics gauntlet at the boxing gym downtown. On a large mat, he punched and kicked and rolled his way through a group of trainers holding bags.

One of them, his coach and the gym's owner, hollered at him like a drill sergeant. "Are you getting tired, Faison? Are you fucking serious? You're fighting for your fucking life!"

By the time the gauntlet was over, he was ready to collapse and ready to vomit and ready to cry. It was then he had to square off one and one with his coach.

He punched and ducked and dodged and blocked his way over the course of three minutes in a performance that was, if not stellar, certainly above average.

"It's all about heart, Faison," his coach told him as they both breathed heavy afterward. "The training, the moves, the technique, it's all important. It's what you fall back on when a situation comes up. But it's the will to live and the heart to fight that will save you, that could save another. And you got heart."

Friday evening he bought a gun off a street kid in an alley in River Bend. Glock. Older model than what he practiced on but same basic design.

From separate stores in town, he bought a gun cleaning kit, a used shoulder holster, .40 caliber ammunition, and magazines. In his dorm room he took apart the weapon as Hagen had taught him, then cleaned and reassembled it. He got used to the feel of it with the stocked ammunition in the magazine holders, all nestled in the shoulder holster that fit comfortably and hid itself well under his jacket.

He thought briefly about possession of an unregistered loaded handgun and state prison time. He thought about being expelled. He thought about his parents' shame.

Then he thought about Charlee. He thought about Sofia.

He put the gun and all the supplies in a lock box buried under some notebooks in his bottom desk drawer.

He hit the road to Waverly before sunrise Saturday morning, popping a caffeine pill he took down with a protein shake. It was after nine when he pulled Father McCreary's Cutlass into Sofia's driveway. He popped the trunk, lifted the floor, and hid the holstered Glock and magazines into the spare wheel well.

"I don't wake up early on Saturdays for just anyone," Sofia said as she met him at the door, giving him a quick hug. Her scent made him dizzy. She smelled like sweet fall—brown sugar and toasted vanilla emanating in soft waves off her skin and hair.

She was beautiful: long hair curled loose so as to look natural, just a touch of make-up to accent her delicate features, and a sweater dress that flattered her skinny frame nicely with some black leggings and high-heeled boots.

"Please," Noah said, "you didn't have to get up early for me."

"I know you have to leave tomorrow so we don't have that much time. I'm up. I had my coffee. I'm ready for the day. So don't worry. Plus I have to work at three." In the foyer she took his jacket and said, "I have a whole itinerary planned out for us. That is, if you're not too busy working."

"It's mostly night work. I'm yours for the day."

Sofia told him to rest inside after driving for so long. They watched some television and talked a little more. Noah said hello to her father. Her mother was still sleeping. Around eleven Sofia told him to get in her car and they went on a ride.

She had the radio tuned to an indie rock station. It played something nice that sounded like sunshine and blue skies and a road trip to the beach with the windows down. Reminded him of soaring down an empty country road with Charlee screaming out the sky window. Nothing but their love and the open road.

Sofia looked over at him and smiled and the déjà vu was like you wouldn't believe.

She drove him to the farmland outside town, past the wind turbines whose blades spun against a brilliantly blue horizon. Whizzing by a pumpkin patch and apple orchard, he saw himself and Charlee just one year ago picking apples back in Riggsboro.

They stopped at a farm stand held by an old couple and Sofia bought a few good bagfuls of organic vegetables. Noah helped carry the bags back to the car, heavy with squash, eggplant, tomatoes, onions, corn.

"Organic is the only way to do it," Sofia said. "All that stuff in the grocery stores? Nothing but pesticides."

She drove them back into town, passing the sprawling BC3 and the small red-brick Wartburg College. Noah commented that the statue out front was of St. Francis. Sofia never knew that. Then she drove past Memorial Park, telling Noah how she used to swim at the pool as a kid.

"You'll have to go with me to Kohlmann Park if you ever come down in the winter. There's a sick skating rink there."

Noah could tell she was waiting for him to say something, say that he'd definitely be back in the winter. But he knew after all this was over he could never see Sofia again. It would be better that way.

She said, "Much as I want to escape this hellhole of a town, I'll miss it just a little bit, you know? Just because it's always been there, all I've ever known."

"Yeah."

Eventually she parked on the stretch of East Bremer Ave that was downtown Waverly.

"Lunch time," she said. As they got out and walked down the sidewalk, she added, "Oh shit."

"What?" Noah thought stalker. He thought killer.

"My ex, Ethan. Is he with a girl? Oh hell no, quick, hold my hand."

"What?"

"Just pretend you're my boyfriend." She grabbed his hand and interlocked fingers with him before he could argue.

He saw a guy their age walking toward them on the sidewalk. He was also hand-in-hand with a girl, a petite blonde. She was pretty but no Sofia.

Sofia noticed that Ethan looked nervous and awkward all of sudden.

"Ethan," she said as the four of them met, "hey."

"Sofia, uh, hi."

Awkward silence. The four exchanged looks.

"This is my boyfriend, Noah," Sofia finally said, leaning in close and squeezing Noah's hand.

Noah offered his hand. Ethan had as weak a handshake as Sofia had when they first met.

Ethan said, "This is April Mae, um, my…she's my girlfriend."

They all shook hands and exchanged small talk.

Sofia sighed in relief as they parted ways. "Oh God."

"Did you two break up recently?" Noah asked.

"A few weeks ago."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was for the best. But seriously—April Mae? Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Is that jealousy I detect?"

She laughed a bit too loudly. "No. No." She thought about it for real, and she really wasn't jealous. It was just the typical knee-jerk reaction to seeing your ex with someone new.

And right now the only guy on Sofia's mind was Noah. She was still holding his hand. She waited and tried to act like she hadn't noticed.

But Noah did. He slowly and politely removed his hand.

"Thanks for the help back there," she said.

He gave her a soft smile, not sure what to say.

Then they went to the diner Brittany worked at for lunch.

"Oh hell no," Brittany said as she came over to their table.

"Hey bestie!" Sofia sang.

"Hey Brittany," Noah said.

"Hello Noah, good to see you. Why did you have to bring this one over here? I have to put up with her skinny little ass every day."

"You love me," Sofia said.

"Love is such a strong word."

"I'm your best friend."

"Jesus is my best friend."

"Oh, come here." Sofia moved to the edge of her booth and hugged Brittany from the side.

"Y'all better tip me good," Brittany said. "Any by y'all I mean Sofia."

Noah ordered several club sandwiches and a basket of fries. Sofia had a bran muffin and a fruit bowl.

"My shift's just three to seven today," she said. "What are you going to do when I'm at the mall?"

"Look over case notes, see if there's any work I can get done now."

"Well, don't have too much fun without me."

Noah drove her to work, said he'd be back at seven.

Afterward he cased the mall and then drove back toward town. Coming down off the highway ramp he noticed something in his rearview mirror.

The trunk to the Cutlass was open, lapping slowly up and down.

He pulled over, got out, walked to the back of the car. He looked around. It was a lone stretch of country road heading into town. There was a truck stop gas station and a diner and that was all.

He gripped the trunk to slam it closed but then stopped. He opened it, looked inside.

Looked normal. Went to close it again.

Stopped.

He moved things around and took the floor apart, looked into the spare wheel compartment.

His weapon and holster still appeared secure. He took out the Glock. It felt light.

There was no magazine. The well was empty.

He looked around in the compartment. Two mags were still secure in the shoulder holster. The third he found, finally, loose inside the spare wheel.

No way he hadn't secured it fully in the weapon.

No way.

He checked the mags. Fifteen rounds each except for the one that had been taken from the gun. He racked the slide of the Glock and the fifteenth round came out. He put it back in the mag, drove the mag back into the gun, racked the slide again.

He pushed the thought out of his mind about what could have been in the car with them on the way to the mall. Or what could have sneaked out later as he was casing the place.

He took a long look around the flat countryside. He donned the shoulder holster and weapon and slammed the trunk closed, got back in the car.

He headed back toward the mall, checked on Sofia without her noticing, and waited until her shift was over.

At the house later, Sofia's mother had prepared them each dinner plates that only had to be heated up. Sofia chastised Noah as he nuked his meal in the microwave. She went on about the loss of nutrients and molecular structure, and let hers heat up in the oven.

"Where are your parents?" Noah asked as they waited.

"Who knows. Dad's probably in his study watching TV. Mom's probably doing the same upstairs."

"I mean, they ate already?"

"Uh, yeah. We don't exactly have family dinners all that often."

They ate, and Noah insisted on doing the dishes. Each parent showed up separately to say goodnight before retiring upstairs. Sofia and Noah sat lazily on the couch in the living room, watching television without really paying attention and talking long into the night. Over time the seating arrangement became borderline romantic, her legs resting over his as she lay toward one side of the couch.

Sofia thought about how badly she wanted him and how she was secretly hoping that was where the night was going to lead. She thought about how damn hard he was to read. She thought about how he was a straight-edge guy with a religious chip on his shoulder and wondered if he was too good for her. She wondered if a guy like him would even be with a girl like her. She wondered how it would even work if they did get together. She didn't believe in long distance, but with Noah she would do it, and she couldn't understand exactly why that was other than to say that Noah Faison was the most real guy she had ever met.

Noah Faison was the kind of guy a girl married.

She couldn't believe the thoughts going through her mind right now. She realized she was gazing off and that they had fallen into a lull in the conversation. Still it was comfortable, easy. She turned to Noah and noticed that he was staring at her.

He kept staring, even when he'd been found out.

"What is it?"

He swallowed. "There's something I have to tell you."

"Yeah?" Sofia swallowed now.

"I, um…" Noah had inadvertently let his hands travel like they used to with Charlee, and suddenly he found himself rubbing Sofia's feet over her thin socks.

"Ooh, God, yes," she moaned, then caught herself. She tensed her feet up and Noah removed his hands.

"Sorry," he said.

"No, I'm sorry. I have this…foot thing, it's…embarrassing…" She laughed.

He found himself staring at her too long again.

A foot thing. Like Charlee.

Finally he said, "I haven't been completely honest with you."

"What do you mean?"

"The private investigators I'm working with, they…well, the reason I'm here…there's more to it."

"Yeah, you told me over the phone. Something about a stalker."

"There's more."

"Okay."

"The truth is I've been looking for you."

"What?"

"The case I'm working on. I was looking for you specifically."

"Uh…why?"

"I believe you're in danger."

Sofia arched her eyebrows. "I thought you said it was safe. For now."

"There's just…there's some things I'd like to talk to you about. If we could, in public. I'd feel safer."

Sofia laughed like this was a joke, then frowned as Noah's expression remained grim. "For real?"

His stare said more than words.

"So…you want to go out tonight? Mooner's is a chill place. Lot of people. We'll pre-game here first. I have some—"

Noah shook his head. "Not for me."

"What, you don't drink?"

"No."

"Party, go out, anything?"

"No."

"Is that, like, a religious thing?"

"Yeah."

"So what do you do with your friends?"

"I don't have any friends."

"Then what do you do for fun?"

"I don't have fun."

Sofia chuckled.

"What's so funny?"

"So serious."

Noah shrugged.

"You're too hot to be so serious."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Oh shit, did I…really just say that out loud? I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"Anyway, awkward. Um, so…what would you like to do?"

"Let's get some coffee."

Daddy O's was a twenty-four-hour doughnut joint inside of a gas station on Main, not too far from BC3. This time of night, aside from the occasional gas pumper, Noah and Sofia were the only customers there.

They sat in a corner booth with cups of coffee, black for Noah, decaf with skim milk for Sofia. Sofia looked at Noah, then out onto the darkened street, the 'N' in the neon OPEN sign above them buzzing and flickering every so often.

"What's her name?" she asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"The girl."

"What girl?"

"The girl who screwed you up."

He smiled and looked down.

She jerked her chin to his left hand. "I see that ring you wear. I've seen those kind before and I know they're like promise rings or something. I know you mentioned a girl you were with once. But not anymore." She took a dainty sip.

"Not anymore," he said, gazing at the ring.

"Was it bad? I mean, if you don't mind my asking."

Noah ran his finger across the lid of his cup for a moment, then looked up into Sofia's face. "She died."

For a long moment Sofia didn't say anything. She just met his eyes. "Oh," she finally said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

He waved it off, no harm done.

"When did it happen?"

"Almost a year ago."

"I'm sorry." She paused. "How did she…"

"She was killed. They never found her killer."

"Holy shit."

Just to do something, Noah drank about half his cup.

"Oh God," Sofia said. "Well…that certainly explains…you."

He gave her a lazy smile. "You might've heard of her. Her name was Charlee McCool."

She furrowed her eyebrows and thought back. After a few seconds the slight recognition showed on her face. "Wait a sec, yeah. She was that, that girl killed last year. Oh, where was it? There was that huge manhunt. The police were pretty sure this guy killed another girl the year before."

Noah nodded. "Alison Brown. She and Charlee were best friends."

"Damn, and you were…Charlee's boyfriend?"

He smiled sadly again. "Her husband. That's what the ring means. We got married in secret. She was my first love and my only love. There was never anyone before her and I never want there to be anyone after. There was never supposed to be an after. It was supposed to be just us forever."

Sofia shook her head. "How long were you two together?"

"She was killed a few weeks before our one-year anniversary."

"God, I…I'm so sorry."

There was a long silence where the two just sat, spaced, and drank their coffee.

Finally Noah leaned forward and said. "The reason I'm here, in Waverly…it has to do with her killer."

"You're trying to find him."

"Yeah."

"Aren't you afraid? Is that dangerous?"

"He contacted me."

"Did you tell the police?"

"No."

"What? Noah—"

"It's not like that. The private investigators, the ones I told you about, I called them. I'm not really working for them. They know about this, but I'm here on my own. They were looking for the killer before Charlee was murdered."

"And what…you think…he's here?"

"He led me here. To you."

Sofia's eyes, at first wandering, suddenly locked onto his. "What the fuck…"

"It's like I said. You're in danger."

Her bottom lip trembled and then she laughed nervously. "No. No. Hold on. What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I need to ask you a question first."

"What."

"Were you adopted?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Were you?"

"Yeah…what about it?"

"Were you ever told about your birth parents?"

"Uh…no. My parents, they said it was a closed adoption. It was late, I was over a year old already, but they said they didn't know anything about my real parents or what happened to them. But…I'm confused, what are you talking about?"

"These investigators, they believe the killer was involved in several murders across the Midwest spanning over the last twenty years. Female victims mostly. In 1980, two people were killed in Riggsboro. A young husband and wife, Dylan and Melissa Phelan. Fifteen years later, a young girl, Alison Brown, is murdered in the same town. She's Charlee's best friend. Now the investigators find out that Charlee was adopted. And that Charlee's adopted parents hid it from her to protect her—because her real parents were Dylan and Melissa Phelan."

"Wait, so, this one couple is killed, but they had a kid. And that kid was Charlee. Your girlfriend, er, wife."

"Yes. She was only a year old at the time. After they were killed, she was adopted in secret. It was all covered up."

"So then, okay, years after this guy kills Charlee's parents, he comes back for her best friend, and then finally for her…"

"Yeah. But it doesn't end there." He took a breath. "Sofia…"

"Yeah?"

"I need to tell you something. And please, listen to me, okay?" He lightly cupped his hand over hers.

She loved the way his hand felt. She'd listen to anything he had to say. "Yeah," she said.

"Charlee wasn't the only baby that the Phelans had. They had two babies. Twin girls. The first day I saw you…"

"Wait…"

"At the picnic table. You thought I was looking for someone named Charlee."

"No…no…"

"Every now and then, I see her, ghosts of her, hallucinations. When I first saw you…I thought…"

"No."

"Charlee's birthday was May first, 1979."

"My…"

"Yes. Sofia, Charlee was your twin sister. Your name, your birth name, is Joanna Phelan. You and Charlee were separated a year after you were born because your parents were murdered. The killer came back for Charlee last year and got her. For weeks he's been playing a game with me. Leading me to you."

Sofia was almost shaking, her hands in her hair and her eyes darting around. "No. No. No. This…" She laughed. "This, this isn't even possible. I was adopted, but, but my parents said, they never said anything about…"

"That's because they never knew."

"This is crazy." She got up, grabbed her jacket.

"Please, Sofia, you'd said you listen."

As she headed for the door, he stood up. "Sofia."

She turned around. "I can't do this. This is fucked up. You're fucked up. Please, just, leave me alone."

The cashier wiping down the counter looked up. Sofia opened the door. A bell chimed. Noah called out, "You look just like her."

Sofia stopped. She looked down, then finally back at him standing by the booth.

"Identical," he said. "You and Charlee. Your eyes, your smile…your lips…all of you. It's so hard…looking at you and seeing her. I…let me…let me show you a picture. Can I do that?"

Sofia swallowed. She let the door close to the cold outside.

Noah walked up, pulling a photograph from his pocket. He showed it to her. It was vintage Charlee McCool, her short-cropped hair standing in all directions. She wore a black t-shirt with the Batman symbol and baggy pants with chains dangling from all the pockets. She was standing outside of Noah's house, smiling widely, the sun on her.

"Holy shit," Sofia said.

"I remember this day," Noah said. "It was spring of last year. We had just made love. And this day, we, we went to go hang outside. She was so beautiful. I told her…I had to go run in and grab the camera. I said I just had to keep a picture of her in this moment." He paused, and when he spoke again he whispered. "God, we were so happy. I never knew I could feel…so…" He sighed and shook his head, got his voice back. "Anyway…"

Sofia swallowed again. "I can't believe…she looks…just like me. I mean, different hair and fashion sense, clearly, but…holy shit."

"Yeah. Yeah, she was a, a rebel. Liked to be different, go against the grain. I loved that about her."

"This is just…too much. It can't be." She shook her head again, sighed, ran another hand through her hair.

"I've come here to help you," Noah said.

Sofia nodded slowly. "What do we do?"

"We put an end to this."

There was a dark figure standing behind the corner of the gas station, watching Noah and Sofia round the sidewalk to the parking lot. He watched them climb into Sofia's car and drive off into the night.

They didn't notice him. He was a remarkably nondescript man, wearing business clothes under a gray trench. He took a cellular phone out of his pocket and speed-dialed his boss.

"Mr. Collins…"

Monday morning at the office and Eliza got the call first thing.

She and Andrew were settling in at their desks, watching the news. The weather was the top story. An attractive meteorologist explained:

"…Hurricane Michelle has just been devastating the east coast, with gale force winds upwards of 160 miles per hour. Twenty-three are confirmed dead already, and several are among the missing. Winds will die down as Michelle moves inland, but will remain on a westward track. Storm chasers are calling for record flooding in the heartland later this week when the last fringes of Michelle collide with several active storm cells in the Midwest…"

"Hey boss," Andrew said, "why are most hurricanes named after women?"

"Don't know."

"'Cause when they arrive, they're wet and wild, and when they leave, they take your house and your car."

"Nice."

The phone rang. Eliza took it. Noah. She put him on speaker and he told them everything.

"Halloween's this Friday," he said. "I can take that off from school and so can Sofia. If this guy continues his pattern, that's when he'll strike. I want her safe. I'm thinking Riggsboro."

"Riggsboro," Eliza said.

"Get her out of Waverly where he knows she is, and out of Des Moines where he knows I am. You and your partner have been to Riggsboro before. And the cops there want nothing more than to get their hands on him, if he somehow figures out where we are and gets there."

Eliza waited a moment. "I'll be in touch."

She ended the call and looked at Andrew. "Makes good points," she said.

"It's a good idea," he said.

"David Collins is there."

"Good. He wants to call and make threats, let's get right up in his fucking face."

Eliza nodded slowly.

"I like this," Andrew said. "I've missed this. You, me, the whole thing."

Eliza shrugged.

"Admit it. You missed me. Little bit." He put his thumb and forefinger just a hair apart.

Eliza couldn't help the trace of a smile that formed on her lips.

The story she gave Brittany and Emma was that Noah was taking her to his home in Riggsboro.

Wednesday afternoon, sitting at the same BC3 picnic table where Noah first approached her, they ate lunch and Emma asked, "So did Noah, like, ask you out?"

"No, well, not exactly. It's complicated."

Brittany raised her eyebrows. "But you just met the boy and you're already going to his home, meeting his folks?"

"I don't know, we just really hit it off, I guess."

"Well, I trust Noah. He's good people. But you ain't. It's him I'm worried about. Don't you dare corrupt him."

"What did I do?"

"Mm-hmm. I know what you do."

Emma piped in. "I'd love to come with you and corrupt him. We could do it together. Little ménage action." She lashed her tongue provocatively.

Brittany laid hands on the both of them. "Oh sweet Jesus."

Sofia laughed and smiled and then just as suddenly her smile faded. In the moment between blinks, she thought she saw in the distance a tall dark figure along the line of trees on the edge of campus.

But another blink and it was gone.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Riggsboro.

The land was alive in harvest.

'Twas the eve of All Hallows Eve, and the sun waxed a fitting orange as it waned in the late afternoon sky, setting across the hill country and valley town.

Crops tall and bountiful shot up across the amber-waved countryside. Farmers on plows and tractors and tilling equipment began to wrap up a day's work, gleaning the crops, grazing the land of its corn and wheat and produce.

The reapers were out, armed with sickle and scythe and John Deere combine, chasing sunlight in days that grew short while the shadows grew long.

The autumn dusk turned into an unseasonably warm night that felt like Indian summer. As darkness descended and enveloped the land, the moon rose in the starry night sky full and bright.

Eliza and Noah stood behind the Hawkeye Motel on a desolate stretch of cracked pavement, the cracks sprouting weeds. Where the pavement ended, it faded into dirt that faded into fields upon fields of corn stalks sprawled over miles of lush farmland.

Far away, a scarecrow's silhouette rose ominously above the field in the moonlight. Behind that were the tiny images of a barn, farmhouse, silo.

Eliza had just returned from a gas run. Thankfully she'd taken enough cash with her for the trip because her credit card somehow got declined. She'd deal with that later. Back at the motel, Andrew had told her that Noah went around back for some air.

Meeting up with him, she said, "Both times Andrew and I came to Riggsboro, we stayed here. I never walked back here. It's nice."

"Yeah."

Eliza didn't want to look in Noah's eyes just yet. She kept making conversation, telling him, "There's a silly bar down the street we went to, Hank's I think it is. Horrific country-western place."

After a long silence, Noah said, "Road."

"What?"

"You said 'down the street.' The locals on the outskirts here? They never say 'street'. It's always the road." He said it like, "rud."

"Ah."

After a moment, Noah said, "I don't blame you."

Eliza looked back at him.

Noah said, "It's no one's fault, what happened to Charlee. No one saw it coming. Only she did. And even she thought he was coming after me. He tricked us all." He sighed, looked behind him a bit at the motel. "Charlee and I stayed here once too."

Eliza didn't ask any questions, allowing the boy his moment. She could see it in his eyes until it faded, lost back into the night, into the past.

She didn't say anything for awhile. When she finally spoke, it was to say, "Look at that moon."

"Yeah."

"A harvest moon, I suppose."

"You know I read once that there's actually a different name for each month's full moon. The harvest moon is actually the full moon for September."

"So what's October?"

Noah thought for a moment, then said, "Hunter's moon."

"Hmm."

Catching the tail end of their conversation, Andrew stepped out from the shadows on the side of the motel, puffing furiously on the end of a cigarette. In the smoky shadows, wearing his long tan trench coat and fedora, he seemed to have stepped right out of a dime novel. But he was also looking as pale as the ghost he had just seen.

"She's here," he said.

Eliza and Noah turned around.

Andrew crushed the cig with his boot. "Just pulled up in her car."

"Let's go then," Eliza said, and she and Noah started walking.

On the way back around to the front of the motel, Noah said, "There's another name for it, the October moon, other than Hunter."

"What's that?"

"Blood," he said. "Blood moon."

They got two adjacent rooms. Eliza and Sofia were in one. There was only a full bed, but they didn't mind. Andrew and Noah got a room with two twin beds.

They got settled and Andrew left for a dinner run, glad for the break to get his shit together around the Sutherland girl, seeing in her the fantasy he had created out of Charlee McCool.

Eliza and Sofia joined Noah in the double-bed room. Eliza made a quick call from the phone on the nightstand to the police department, confirming a meeting with the police chief for later.

Noah and Sofia sat on the other bed and Sofia looked at Noah as he looked out the window, looking lost. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's…it's the first time I've been back to Riggsboro in…in a long time."

"I'm sorry." She touched his knee. Briefly.

"We stayed in the room you're staying in," Noah said. "Charlee and I. On our wedding night."

"Oh." She didn't like the image of Noah in her motel room bed having sex with someone that wasn't her. She tried to stop thinking about it. She said, "I, uh…I brought you something." She reached in her overnight bag and pulled out a small, neatly wrapped package.

Noah said, "Uh, I didn't know we were…"

Sofia waved him away. "It's nothing. Open it."

He did.

Sofia said, "It's a mix tape I…made up for you."

Noah looked at her and she at him and he didn't know what to say. He gave her a shy smile and she did the same.

"Thanks," he said, looking at the track listing Sofia had written on the back of the cassette. "I haven't heard of any of these people."

"Yeah, me either." Sofia shrugged, then laughed. "I'm kidding. Trust me, you'll love it. Totally your speed, I promise. And Brit had me add on a few at the end there. Some gospel songs she said you needed to know, or something."

"Thank you, really." Noah met her eyes confidently this time. "I feel bad I don't have anything for you now."

"Please, it's nothing. I wanted to thank you somehow. I mean, you're like…protecting me."

He stared at her. "I really um…"

"Yeah?"

"You've just…become a really good friend."

A friend. Sofia tried not to let her disappointment show. How many times had she used that word on a guy to let him down gently?

She pushed it out of her mind and slapped Noah lightly on the knee. "I know what you can do, actually," she said.

"What."

"I showed you Waverly. You show me Riggsboro."

The thought of riding with her through town and seeing all the old places Charlee and him used to go filled him with only dread. He wouldn't tell Sofia that but he motioned toward Eliza, who was still on hold with the police, and he said, "I don't know if they'd let us be unsupervised."

"They can come. Or one of them. Whatever. I'll ask Detective…what's her name again?"

"Lehman."

"Yeah. I'll ask her when she gets off the phone."

"Okay," Noah said, because he had run out of excuses. "That could be fun."

"Fun? You?"

"I mean…that'll be…fine. Just fine." Noah kept a deadpan face and Sofia laughed.

Andrew came back with two large pizzas, some soda, and bottled water. For some reason his card was denied and he had to use cash. One pizza was half cheese, half meat lovers, and the other was half broccoli, half supreme, put on a whole wheat crust per Sofia's request.

He tried not to stare at her. There were moments she looked his way where he was convinced she was giving him some not-so-subtle once-overs. But it could have been nothing, and she was spending all her time attached to Noah's hip anyway.

Eliza told him that she would be leaving with the kids to meet up with the police chief at the station. And Sofia apparently wanted Noah to give her a tour of Riggsboro.

"I don't like the idea of being seen all over town," Eliza said, "but it's probably good for her not to stay cooped up here more than she has to."

"You want me to come with?" Andrew asked.

"No, you're good here. The chief's going home soon. It'll be quick."

"All right then."

Andrew knew she was keeping him on a short leash and that was fine. When they left, he got a stirring of the cocaine jangles and did a couple lines from the baggy he kept in his coat.

He clapped his hands once, rubbed them together, and dove into a box of case files they had brought along for the ride. Stuff from their own Riggsboro investigations along with the old stuff from Dr. Loomis. When they were gone he could at least be good for something.

"Stay here."

At the Riggsboro Police Station, Eliza had Noah and Sofia wait in the main lobby, a row of chairs set against the wall before the reception desk. A desk deputy buzzed Eliza through a secure door.

The police chief was rounding the corner just as Eliza was entering. Eliza offered her hand. "Chief. Eliza Lehman."

The chief took it. "Suzanne Graves." She was by no means a good-looking woman. She was on the bigger side but in a way that exuded authority instead of languidness. She looked to be somewhere in her early fifties. Her brown hair that was beginning to gray was pulled back in a tight bun and it matched a sour face that looked like it rarely offered a smile.

"I'd like to make this short," Graves said, turning her back and leading Eliza down a bright corridor past several offices. "That way we can get home. I'm keeping my deputy and a few others to cover things, but it's a quiet night for what it is."

"What is it?"

"Mischief night."

"I'm sorry?"

"Local tradition. The night before Halloween. Kids play pranks, fool around. But with kids getting murdered every year, it's keeping more of them off the street."

She led Eliza into a big room lined with desks, only two or three cops occupying them. "We got a few units on the street. Normally other than tonight and Halloween, we don't do a third shift, only some on-call officers. This is my deputy chief, James Alcott."

Alcott was walking out of a corner office. He came up to meet them.

"Jim Alcott." He was a big guy, into his fifties but bulky and in shape. He had a standard cop's crew cut, skull shaved around the back and edges with a rigid buzz on top. He had a handshake that practically took Eliza's hand off.

"Step into my office," Graves told her, opening the door to a corner office and allowing her in. "Keep your coat on. We won't make this long."

Graves didn't offer Eliza a seat either. She gave the room a once-over. It was bare, the walls lined with file cabinets. The only frames on the wall bore a plaque naming Graves as the police chief and another a photo of her at a considerably younger age, thinner and in her cadet's uniform.

Graves herself didn't take her own seat behind her desk. She just stood behind it, resting her palms on the dark oak and frowning at Eliza. "I don't like this," she said.

"Ma'am?"

"The unfinished business in my town. The ghosts coming back to haunt it. Don't take this personally, but I don't want you here."

Eliza kept her mouth shut.

"But," Graves said, "at the same time—and my predecessor in this office would agree—it's good community relations to show we're still being proactive into the investigations of Alison Brown and Charlee McCool." She sighed. "Now, this Sofia…"

"Sutherland."

"Sutherland. You believe her to be this killer's next target?"

Eliza nodded. "She's Charlee McCool's twin sister."

Chief Graves didn't let anything show on her face. And in the next two minutes, Eliza gave her an entire recap of the series of events that led them here.

Graves said, "David Collins never told me about two private investigators that he ran out of town."

"It's my hope," Eliza said, "to keep our presence quiet as far as he is concerned." That Graves talked about Collins like a regular acquaintance was disconcerting.

Graves nodded slowly. "Why did you feel the need to bring Sofia to Riggsboro? And why bring the ex-boyfriend of the McCool girl?"

"Noah is helping us. Of course he also has a personal stake in this. Plus he found Sofia before my partner and I did. And we thought we'd come here because we knew your department also has a personal stake in this, to see the killer brought in. End this where it all started."

"If he shows up. How would he know Sofia is here?"

"This guy has proved…resourceful in the past."

Graves pursed her lips and nodded slowly again. She examined Eliza closely, studied her for what felt like a full minute.

"We'll talk about this more tomorrow," Graves said, "but you can expect our full cooperation. When we spoke on the phone, you said it's likely if he'll strike at all, it'll be tomorrow?"

"That's correct."

"I'll call the county sheriff, and the staties, let them know what we're dealing with should we need their help."

"We don't want a panic."

"Not at all. I'll treat it with the utmost discretion and tell everyone, my own people included, to keep their mouths shut and their eyes open. The last thing we want is this getting out in the streets."

"And Collins?"

"My lips are sealed."

"This isn't an insult, Chief, but your department has had leaks in the past."

"Don't misunderstand me, Ms. Lehman. I know David Collins very well. My father, my grandfather—they were both cops with the county. They knew Collins's father and his grandfather. To be frank, I don't like him. I don't like the control he thinks he has over my department. And he's not exactly my biggest fan either."

"Yet you still managed to become police chief in the town that he runs."

Graves frowned. "I run Riggsboro. This is my town." She vigorously tapped the desk with her index finger. "He may have hand-picked the entire town board, but I slipped through his fingers."

"How's that?"

"Technicality. When Chief McDermott stepped down, I stepped up to fill the void, being deputy chief at the time, senior over Alcott who was also a deputy. I didn't get here by an election, so Collins didn't exactly endorse me. We're one of the only towns in the county to have its own local police. Collins made it so that we did. All the other towns are county sheriff or state jurisdiction. So when it comes to our department, Collins makes sure it runs like a tightly knit political machine."

"Ah."

"We have civil service requirements for our officers, so he can't always get around that, but those recruits he likes who can't pass an exam or get by a psych screening or a background check, he hires them himself. You may have seen the armed thugs he has on his payroll for his so-called security firm."

"Yes, my partner and I have…run into a couple of them."

"One more thing, Ms. Lehman. Then we're out of here. The kids. Charlee McCool's boyfriend, and Sofia—they're both eighteen?"

"Yes."

The chief's solemn face said everything.

Eliza knew what she was thinking. "I know. They're adults, technically, here of their own volition, but they're still kids. They want to keep this from their parents, but…"

"You're wondering," Graves said, "if something happens to them, are all of our asses going to be covered? I don't blame you, especially since we're essentially using the Sutherland girl as bait." She shrugged. "At this point I think it's irrelevant. I'm making it my top priority to avoid even getting to the point where anything might happen tomorrow. We'll have people checking the motel you guys are staying at and additional manpower on the streets. You have my word, Ms. Lehman. Every street, every house, every backyard."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. Things might be getting difficult already. Word is a state of emergency is going to be declared tomorrow. Flooding. All this Hurricane Michelle business. And Riggsboro always gets the worst of these storms since we're lower in elevation than the rest of this flat state. This town has a lot to handle on its own without some psycho killer on the loose. And maybe the flood will be deterrent enough to keep him away."

"Maybe," Eliza said.

Noah and Sofia sat in the back seat of Eliza's car and Noah showed the way as they hit the town for a tour. He pointed out parts of the legendary floodwall and the massive Lost River as they drove over the bridge, the water below dark and wide like forever. They circled back into town and he pointed out Collins Park and Collins Mall, then Charlee's house and his old house. He wondered what his parents were doing, but still he had them pass by quickly.

Lastly he had them stop at the cemetery where he could see Charlee. Eliza stayed behind, leaning against the car as she watched Noah and Sofia walk down a path lined with the occasional bench and then cross a few rows of grave plots. She rested her hand on the butt of her .38 snub nose in the small holster clipped to her belt.

Noah knelt down before Charlee's grave and from inside his coat pulled out a figurine of the female skeleton La Catrina, placing it against her headstone. Sofia stared at it and opened her mouth to ask a question but didn't. She watched him touch the rosary dangling from his neck and whisper a prayer. Even after that he stayed there a long time.

Sofia waited awhile before she thought it was appropriate to approach him and touch his shoulder. She wasn't good at this kind of stuff, but it felt all right. Eventually Noah sighed and looked at her, smiled softly, touched her hand.

He pulled out his wallet and took out a ten-dollar bill, stared at the headstone. He told Sofia, "Charlee was no flowers and chocolate type of girl. She told me once that if I ever got the urge, to just give her the cash instead." He chuckled sadly and Sofia gave a soft smile.

Noah put the cash back in his wallet. "She'd also roll over in her grave if I even thought about leaving money here." He stood up, looked at Sofia.

She hugged him. Her heart was pounding and she knew she had ulterior motives beyond it being a consoling gesture, but she couldn't help herself. When she grabbed him he grabbed her just as tight and they hugged a long time. It felt good.

When they finally released each other, they walked down the row of graves toward the benches and Sofia wished he would hold her hand. Somehow it seemed fitting. But he didn't.

"I have a confession to make," he said eventually.

"The last time you said something like that, it was pretty heavy."

"It's nothing like that. Least I hope not."

"Okay."

"It's…the first day we met. I had been looking for you. That night, after you went home, I followed you. Trying to see if anyone else was watching you. And I…followed you to where you work."

"But you know where I work."

"I don't mean the mall."

They sat down on one of the wooden benches as Sofia's confusion turned into mortification. "Oh, that night, you mean…"

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I never meant to…I didn't mean to invade your privacy."

"Did you go inside?" Sofia buried her face in her hands because she knew she was turning red. She shook her head, imagining him in Ooh-La-La, watching her work the pole.

He said, "No. You have to be twenty-one to get in."

She lifted her face back out of her hands. "Oh right, I forgot. You don't have to be twenty-one to work there, I'll tell you that." She sighed.

"I should have told you sooner."

"No, it's, don't be ridiculous. You were, like I said, you were protecting me, looking out. It's just, oh God, what you must think of me."

"No."

"It, it's just for a little extra cash. I have a small fortune saved up already. That's my money for New York. Money for a new life." She couldn't look at him.

"Sofia."

"Yeah."

Noah waited until she looked at him. "I'm not judging you. You know me by now."

She smiled softly after a little pause. "Yeah. You're real cool, you know that, Noah?"

"No. That would definitely be the first time I ever heard that."

She laughed. "You and Brittany are the only ones who know about my, uh, other job. That makes you, like, my second best friend."

He smiled.

"So rare," Sofia said.

"What?"

"Your smile. You should do it more. Don't they say it actually tricks your body, makes you feel better or something like that? Laughing too. And you…you're handsome when you smile. More handsome than you already are, I mean."

"Thank you."

"Can I, uh, ask you something personal? You know, on account of you knowing something about me now."

"Of course."

"You said you and Charlee had sex, but, aren't you, like, really religious? Isn't that against the rules?"

"Charlee and I," Noah said, "we were married. Maybe not legally or before the state, but we made our vows to each other and before God."

Sofia thought about that. She said, "If I could go back, I'd wait. I…I lost my virginity when I was fourteen." She paused, eyes glazed over in memory. "He was eighteen. I regretted it soon after it happened, but, it was exciting at the same time. It just opened a door and I…it doesn't matter."

Noah stared at her.

She went on, feeling the need to explain herself: "I'm not ashamed of where I work. Not proud of it, but…there are things in my past that I regret, things that I am ashamed of." She thought of the guys whose feelings she had played with over the years, she thought of her abortion, she thought of one of the best friends she ever had who now wouldn't talk to her, all over a guy Sofia stole from her just because she could. And for what.

"Whatever mistakes are in your past," Noah said, "God forgives, wipes the slate clean if you ask Him to." He met her eyes and she kept hers locked on his for a long time.

He knew what was going to happen next. She inched closer to him, raised her hand to place on his cheek, and tilted her face with her eyes closed to kiss him.

He pulled away. "I can't."

Sofia opened her eyes and lowered her hand. But she didn't pull back.

"I'm sorry," Noah said. "Charlee and I…what we shared I never want with anyone else. We belonged to each other, only each other. And I made a promise to her and God that there would never be another."

"It's just a kiss," Sofia said.

How many times in her life had she thought that? That a kiss was just a kiss. That sex was just sex. But when she looked at Noah she suddenly knew it wouldn't be just a kiss. Not with him. It would mean something. For the first time in her life it would mean something.

"I can't," he repeated.

Sofia searched his eyes. No one had ever turned her down before and she didn't know what to do with herself. Finally she inched away slowly and looked down, told him, "The way you loved Charlee, no one has ever loved me like that. Not even close. I didn't think that kind of love actually existed. I never had the time for it either." She looked back up at him and he smiled sadly.

She thought about what Brittany had told her once, sex being about making love, about a spiritual over physical experience, about conjoining hearts and souls. And looking at Noah now, she finally understood. She wanted him in a way that went beyond lust, in a way that was much deeper and hurt like hell. She needed him to kiss her now, to be inside of her now, to make love to her now. She wanted him to look into her eyes when they got off together, the way he would have looked into Charlee's. She wanted to feel what it was like to be loved that way.

She had to look away for a moment just to breathe. Finally she said, "I've never loved anyone like that, but if I did, I don't know if I could go on like you do. How did you find the strength?"

"My strength," Noah said, "is Jesus Christ."

She saw in his eyes a firm conviction in a faith she had never allowed herself to trust in, in a God she never really believed in.

"There's an eternity beyond this world," he said, "of everlasting peace. I'm not scared to die because I know where I'll go. And I know who I'll see." He touched Sofia's knee and gave it a squeeze. "Believe in Him. Have faith. And this peace will come to you too."

"I don't want to die," she said. "There's still…so much I want to do."

"You're not going to die," he said. "I'm going to protect you the way I failed to protect Charlee. We're going to get him. I'm going to kill him."

Sofia nodded, believing it.

"I don't even believe in killing," Noah said, "but here I am with this." He showed Sofia the holstered weapon under his jacket. He had kept it in the car when they were at the police station.

"I didn't know you carried," she said, eyes a bit wide.

"I never did. I don't like guns. I don't like violence. Abortion, capital punishment, none of it. And I know I'm supposed to forgive, that it's my Christian duty. But this…this guy, he…he's not human."

"What is he?"

"Evil."

Sofia felt the chill in his whisper. She didn't know what to say to that, was not even sure the kind of answer she was looking for or if it was the correct question when she asked, "Why?"

Noah took a moment, looked up at the moon, looked back at her.

"People," he said, "humans, are flawed. We're inherently sinful by our fallen nature. We do evil things because we're selfish or because we believe we're working towards some greater good. But true evil is just evil for the sake of evil."

He paused and looked Sofia square in the eyes. "There are demons that walk the earth. Everything you're afraid of, every nightmare you've ever had, it all coalesces into one…shape. That's this guy. I feel it in my bones. And he belongs in hell. I'm going to send him there."

Sofia didn't know about any of this. About demons, evil, hell, if any of it was true or just religious bullshit. Noah was telling her to start believing now. And maybe she should.

"But how…if he's not human, how do you plan on killing him?"

Noah shook his head slowly. "I don't know."

For a few more minutes they sat under the glow of a blood moon that bathed the cemetery in a muted gothic light. They heard crickets and cicadas and tree frogs and barking dogs and the distant howling of a coyote in pursuit of its prey.

Noah stood up and took Sofia's hand for just a moment to help her up. They walked back to the car as around them all the creatures that owned the night claimed the land as theirs.

The hunters were out.

TWENTY-NINE

Andrew awoke with a start. He sat up in the motel bed, looked over at the clock on the nightstand. 3:08 in the morning.

Officially Halloween.

He had been half-dreaming, half-remembering. Two years ago. Walking through the old Phelan house with Eliza. Finding the name 'Joanna' on the floor of the master bedroom. The attic stairway suddenly falling from the ceiling in the closet. Going up those steps to the attic, seeing something lying far across the floor, an object he couldn't make out…

He hadn't given it one thought since that day. Now suddenly it came to mind.

Maybe it was nothing. Or maybe it was very important.

He wasn't sleeping well anyway and it was something to do.

Noah lay sleeping heavily on the twin bed next to his. He was careful not to wake him up as he crossed to the bathroom. He splashed some hot water in his face and got dressed, slipping his boots on, recalling the muddy terrain down in the valley depths of Sleepy Hollow Drive. Lastly he clipped the gun holster on his belt that already had the Glock secured inside.

Eliza had by chance left her keys in his room when she stopped in on her way back from the police station with the kids. But as he grabbed them off the table he realized how peculiar that was. Eliza didn't do things by chance. And she didn't make mistakes. It was almost like a force greater than them knew he would be needing the keys at this time.

He took the baggy out of his trench coat, did a quick hit, then left quietly.

The headlights of Eliza's car passed over the trees off the abandoned section of road on Sleepy Hollow. He stopped when the lights hit the Phelan house. He got out of the car and locked it, pulling out a small flashlight.

He shone the light on fresh bouquets of flowers that surrounded a makeshift cross, a memorial set up to Charlee McCool. Her picture was taped to the middle of the cross, a junior year class picture Andrew also had in his collection. He knew this was the very spot that she had been killed.

He entered through the window beside the front door like before, keeping a straight route down the hallway to the master bedroom. He wanted in and out, feeling the same uneasiness he had the last time. Like he was being watched.

Standing before the door of the master bedroom, he heard a sound from across the house, something from the bowels, groaning. He stopped, spun, shone the flashlight down the hallway. The beam was eaten alive by the darkness. He heard nothing more, saw nothing.

He drew the Glock out of his holster and turned around, stepped into the bedroom. He swept the room with his gun and flashlight and paused for a moment over the busted window. He then made his way over to the closet, shining the light on the steps he had climbed once before, the bottom one still broken, his doing from two years ago.

Cautiously he climbed up the stairs once more.

He reached the top and poked his head through the hole in the ceiling. Moonlight came through the attic window against the far wall. His flashlight illuminated the rest. The attic was barren, insulation torn up between rotting beams.

He rested his light on the same object he had noticed two years ago. It was lying far across the floor, close to the window. Small, barely peeking out of the insulation between two beams. Anyone could have missed it.

The light still gave off no telling features about the object. He ascended the last of the steps and crawled across the attic, the space teeming with spider webs. He was careful to stay on the support beams. They creaked as his weight moved across them. He touched the puffy pink insulation between the beams, coarse and weathered from water damage.

The object was buried under layers of insulation, only a fraction of it showing. He guessed that when the house was in use seventeen years ago, the object had been hidden there on purpose. Now, years of flooding and wear on the insulation had brought it up.

He touched it. It looked like the corner of a hardcover book. Slow and careful so as not to break it, he pulled out the remainder.

Dust arose, caked with mildew. He turned and coughed, waving away the particles, shining the flashlight on his find.

It was indeed a book—a big leather-bound journal. Its good quality had allowed it to survive almost two decades up here. It was plain brown with a fancy border and an immaculate trimming and binding job. He slowly turned back the still-durable cover.

On the inside page, a label:

THIS JOURNAL BELONGS TO

Melissa Collins-Phelan

The 'Phelan' had been tacked on to her name with a different color pen.

Andrew got as comfortable as he could and journeyed into the young girl's journal, this find that had eluded everyone for years.

He had to be careful with the pages. They were easily torn and some ready to disintegrate. But all the writing had held up.

It started off like the diary of any teenage girl, dating back as early as 1975 when Melissa was thirteen. He read by flashlight, flipping through the many entries that got fewer and farer between as the years went on. She talked about birthday parties, friends at school, drama, the occasional boy who had a crush on her or whom she had a crush on, and eventually meeting her beau-to-be, Dylan Phelan.

There was random scribbling on later pages, notes and paragraphs like she was writing a story. She was a good writer. He remembered that Charlee had been into writing as well.

He came upon several blank pages and thought that was the end.

But then a very long entry came up, a few pages worth.

There were cross-outs and markings all over the paper, but most of it was fluid:

I'm going to write about something now that I have never told anyone. I'm not sure if anyone will ever get the chance to read this, but here it is.

It's about the love affair I had with my father, David Collins III.

It started happening when I was twelve. I don't remember exactly how it began. Slow at first. A touch here and there, a good night kiss on the lips, awkward questions like if I ever touched myself.

One night he touched my developing breasts and asked if it felt good. It felt weird, it felt wrong, but in a way I liked it. Nights went by like this and soon he started kissing my nipples. I felt hot and guilty and ashamed, but I liked it.

Bear with me if you're ready to stop reading. Please understand, this might have felt more wrong to me if I had had a normal relationship with my father to begin with. See, my parents were hardly ever around. My father has always been a busy man and my mother has always been far too wrapped up in herself to notice anyone else. I was closer to the many housekeepers we had than I was to my parents. I saw my father as more of this mysterious businessman who sometimes visited me than a conventional "dad."

When I was thirteen, he started kissing me. He was my first kiss and I loved it. I loved kissing him. If you know my father, you know how incredibly attractive he is. He is a simply beautiful man. Even as he ages he stays looking young and boyishly handsome. And that helped matters too, as he looked like he was only in his twenties. After a while it wasn't even that weird for me anymore. It was around then that he made it clear to me several times that the minute I told him this all had to stop, he would stop.

He'd tell me how beautiful I was. That he loved me more than I could ever know. I began to love him that way too. And I was so attracted to him, so utterly taken, I practically begged for more each night, for him to take it to the next level. I was never the first to speak, but I never resisted.

I was fourteen when he first went down on me. I got off in seconds. I returned the favor and for a few weeks that was our relationship.

Sleeping together was inevitable. We both wanted it. And when we started making love…God, it was always quick but ever so passionate. We couldn't be connected for more than a few minutes before it was more than we could take.

There is no passion like a doomed passion, no love like a forbidden love.

It was a sick and delirious infatuation we had with each other that was nevertheless love. And we did it for years. Before Dylan, there was never another man in my life besides my father.

I feel bad because I have never come near the level of pleasure with Dylan that I had with my father. I will also admit some indiscretions on my part when I was with Dylan. I tried so hard not to cheat, really I did. But more than once I fell victim to the arms of my father.

I knew all this was wrong. I did. I'm not going to lie and say how much of a victim I felt, how helpless I was to tell anyone or fight back. I wanted it. I consented to it. I know I was nowhere close to being of age and of no rational mind to give consent, but I did. I never felt violated by him. I never once felt that my father was taking advantage of me. Maybe because I was taking advantage of him too.

The only time I felt bad was when I thought of my mother. She's a very delicate woman. She's from money and used to being pampered. I don't think she's ever worked a day in her life. And it's made her soft-spoken, introverted, and weak. She covers it up with an air of entitlement and snobbery, living the life of a spoiled socialite, going to her fancy restaurants and charity balls and the like. She's always seemed so dead inside, but I can tell she hides a lot of pain.

One night when I was sixteen, she caught my father and I in bed. She didn't do anything. She walked away like nothing happened and the next morning she made me breakfast and kissed me before I headed off to school.

I told my father that we should stop. I could see it hurt him, but he honored my request like he said he would. My mother started talking to me less and less. The knowledge in her eyes turned to pain and I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to move out.

It was around this time that I developed a crush on a boy at school, Dylan Phelan. I thought that with him I could change, be a better person, be a normal person. And for a while I thought I was. We fell in love and had normal teenage sex and when he asked me to marry him after only six months, I accepted.

My father tried to hide his jealousy. He didn't accept Dylan at first and made up reason after reason as to how he wasn't good enough for me. I told him I couldn't take this anymore. I wanted to get out of the house and move in with Dylan. But my father was having none of it.

So I got pregnant on purpose. I stopped taking my birth control and Dylan knocked me up. That provided my out. Maybe I'm a terrible person. But I did what I had to do.

We ended up having twins. Girls, Abby and Jo.

And now here we are, in a house my father paid for that my husband and I and our children live out our lives in.

I'm a wife now. A mother. My two baby girls mean more to me than anything else in this world. They're almost a year old now and they're so beautiful. My mother looks after them when Dylan or I work. It's the only time I see her happy anymore, when she's with them.

I don't intend for any of this to come out until long after I am dead, both my father and I. That is why I bury this journal up in the attic. This house could have many owners before it is ever found.

Whoever you are, know that I am truly sorry for the way I betrayed my mother and my husband. I pray to God, with whom my relationship has been messy over the years, to forgive me. I do call what my father and I had together love, but I do believe also that it was wrong.

"Son of a bitch," Andrew said.

He turned the pages. More blank paper. Until:

Someone's been watching me.

I know it.

Blank pages, then:

He's in my dreams.

He's everywhere.

The man in black.

THE BEAST.

On the next page, a sequence of numbers: 12 16 21 28 37 49 65 86 114 151 200 265 351 465 616 816 1081 1432 1897 2513 3329 4410 5842 7739… It went on. But the number 616 was bolder than the others, circled and underlined several times. And on the next page it had been scrawled over and over in various sizes, 616 over and over and over again. He continued flipping. Spirals. Dizzying yet precise spirals that started from the edges of the pages and ended in a dark, perfect middle.

The rest of the pages were completely blank until the very last one.

Andrew read it and his hands shook and his heart pounded and he started sweating.

Hello Detective Daly.

It was Melissa's handwriting…

…impossible…

…but he stared at it a long time, the faded pen on the yellowed paper, and knew it could not have been written any time later than 1980 or by anyone other than Melissa Phelan herself. How had she known…what had possessed her…who had possessed her…

No one could know…no man…

This was a trap.

He needed to leave.

He moved and suddenly his foot slipped between beams and broke insulation and wood, busting through the floor.

He fell forward, his foot sticking out of the new hole in the downstairs ceiling. He caught a beam in front of him and as he tried to twist his leg out, his entire body lost leverage and fell to the side, crashing between beams.

The floor gave, the room spun, and suddenly he was falling backwards head first into the downstairs bedroom.

He braced himself for the impact that never came. His foot remained stuck in the attic floor and it caught him. His body swung like a pendulum in the room below.

"Fuck." Blood rushed to his head as he dangled. Light danced around the empty room from the fallen flashlight, spinning to a rest on the floor.

Instinct told him to go for the gun, but as he did it slid from the holster and hit the floor below.

He reached for it, straining with the effort. His hand couldn't get to it.

He tried to heft his body up, see if he could grab onto the ceiling somehow, get himself right side up.

The ceiling groaned and suddenly his foot dislodged.

He fell and his body hit the floor hard. At least it was his back and not his head. For a couple seconds he couldn't breathe. Eventually he was able to turn and let out a cough and things got back to normal.

He got on his knees, grabbed the flashlight and the Glock, and stood up. He raised the weapon and the flashlight at the bedroom door, to the darkness in the hallway outside.

Someone was out there waiting for him.

He stood there a full minute.

A shape fell from the attic behind him.

He spun around and it was just several pieces of wood with insulation wrapped around them. Dust and fibers floated down from the massive hole in the ceiling.

On the floor with it all was Melissa's journal.

He bent down and grabbed it. When he left the room, he trained the gun out in the hallway, swept left, swept right.

No one was there.

He fled.

Bolted from the house like it was on fire, holstering his gun and pocketing the flashlight, journal gripped under his arm. He started up the car and tossed the book in the front seat.

The tires spun and kicked up dirt as he raced out of the yard, up the abandoned road, and away from Sleepy Hollow Drive.

At the motel he burned three cigarettes outside before going back into the room. Noah was still asleep. He undressed, got back in his bedclothes, climbed into bed, and it was an hour before he got back to sleep.

When he finally did, in his dream he was making love to Melissa Phelan. He reached orgasm before she did and afterward she patted his head as if to tell him it was a nice try. David Collins suddenly opened the door to the room they were in and he snickered.

"You're just like me, Detective," he said.

When he woke up his drawers felt wet and he realized it had been a wet dream. Jesus. He cleaned himself up in the bathroom and looked at his reflection in the mirror for a long time.

He went back to bed but didn't get back to sleep this time. He stared out the slits in the window blinds and watched the day break even as it seemed to stay dark. The sky was a heavy gray overcast.

Dark clouds opened up and the rain started, slow at first before turning steady and sure. Constant.

He thought of his daughter and something she used to say as a little girl. When it rained she used to tug his arm and bring him over to the closest window and point. "Look, Daddy, look," she'd say. "He's sad."

"Who's sad, baby?"

"God. When it rains, it means God is crying."

Andrew never believed that. To him it was only rain.

THIRTY

She awoke with the feeling of a lingering dream. Kind of dream you can't remember for the life of you but still follows you around all day. Something about Noah.

It was after nine in the morning. Halloween morning. In her old life, her life up until a few days ago, she'd be calling Brittany and Emma, going over plans for the Halloween party that night. She wondered what they would be up to and wished suddenly that she could go back.

Detective Lehman was already up and dressed, going over some paperwork on the desk in the corner. Sofia sat up in bed and ran a hand through sleep-messy hair.

The detective turned and they greeted each other. Sofia showered, dressed, and did her make-up for the day in the bathroom. When she was done, Lehman had them move over to the other room where the guys were also up.

Noah smiled his soft smile at Sofia when she came in. He was putting on his shirt as he came out of the bathroom. She caught a glimpse of his chest and arms. It was hard to look away, and yesterday's almost-kiss was already tormenting her.

But if she couldn't have Noah she wasn't going to whine about it. She liked being around Detective Daly. He was fine as hell and she always got an extra thrill from older guys. Even if they were all here on serious business he was at least a pretty face to look at, a distraction from rejection, a distraction from the boy she worried she may have fallen in love with.

"I have to talk to you," Daly said to his partner soon after she entered.

That left Sofia alone with Noah again. It was as if all the strides made in their friendship had disappeared. The conversation went back to the stiff formalities and awkwardness from their early encounters.

They sat at a small round corner table and were silent for a while. Noah sipped at some bad coffee from a Styrofoam cup and finished a breakfast protein bar.

"How are you holding up?" he asked her eventually. "Sleep okay?"

She smiled and nodded, searching to make conversation in the newfound tension. "You know," she said, "you should be careful with all that protein."

"I thought it was good for you."

"It is. But excessive amounts of protein bars and mixes can have a laxative effect. Not great for the kidneys either. And that motel non-dairy creamer in your coffee? Nothing but cancer."

Noah shook his head.

"Just saying."

"If I knew being friends with you would get me in trouble with the food police all the time…"

Sofia smiled softly at him until it faded and she just stared at him. This act, trying to pretend what happened—what almost happened—never did, was excruciating. She'd had enough, so she grabbed her chair and slid in close to him.

He tensed up.

"Relax," she said. "I just want you to look at me. I know this is weird, but…just for a minute could we pretend? Can we do that? Pretend with me."

She leaned in closer and stared at him, into him. He looked at her and didn't move.

"No," she said. "You're holding back. Really look at me. Look at me as if you were looking at her. Just for a minute. Please."

It took a second but Noah let himself relax and let himself pretend and it was a bad decision. All the old vulnerability came back and suddenly he was lost in her. They stared at each other with the melancholic gazes of the unattainable and the unrequited, drunk with longing.

Noah wasn't in control when his hand moved up and touched Sofia's cheek. She shuddered as her face fell into his palm and a warm tingle traveled between them, electric.

Her eyes, briefly closed, opened and gazed into his. Her mouth parted with a sharp sigh. Noah placed a strand of hair behind her ear and let his fingers run through her hair.

They were in their own world sitting at the table so close, oblivious to the detectives who in their heated and hushed conversation weren't paying any attention to them anyway.

Sofia breathed heavy, biting her lip. And Noah slowly, painfully, brought his hand back. Sofia closed her eyes, took a breath, and whispered to herself, "Enough."

When she opened her eyes again and smiled at him, it was a sweet smile as if she was thanking a good friend for something, a smile as if the moment they had just shared never happened.

It was enough.

"He knew I was going to be there," Andrew told Eliza. "Seventeen years ago and he knew I was going to be there."

"Who," Eliza said, not really listening, the content of Melissa's journal entry running through her mind.

"This guy, whoever the fuck he is. He knew I would be there." He flipped back the pages to the last one to show Eliza the note. "Look at it, look, that's Melissa's handwriting. She didn't know who I was, but something told her to write it, someone who knew I would be there last night."

"That's crazy."

"I know how it sounds. But the point is I was meant to find this." He flipped back to Melissa's entry about her father, tapped the pages. "This explains Diane Fischer. If she was already unstable to begin with like her doctor said, imagine finding your husband in bed with your daughter. And then not long after that, finding that daughter hacked to pieces. Diane was a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the right thing to push her into a nuthouse."

Eliza nodded absently.

Andrew went on: "What if this, all of this, has been someone with a vendetta against Collins? Going after his daughter, her husband, then his adopted granddaughters? What if this is all a way to try to get him exposed? Or to get back at him somehow for some wrong he did."

"I don't know. Sounds like a lot of trouble to go through."

"Collins is a symbol," Andrew said. "He is Riggsboro. Going after his family, his secrets, it's all some kind of message."

"But why not just kill him?"

"Because this is much better. This hurts him more. Maybe that could be the final plan, killing him, I don't know. But this, slowly going after him through his family for almost twenty years?"

"What about his current wife?" Eliza asked. "His current daughter? Why not them instead of his secret grandchildren?"

"Because this exposes his secrets. I even wonder if this…if this all could have been her somehow."

"Who."

"Diane Fischer. What if she is behind all this? Finding Collins in bed with Melissa puts her into a rage. She blames her daughter and kills her. Far as I know she was never held back in 1980, or gave the police an alibi. They all just assumed it wasn't her because she found them and had a nervous breakdown."

"Exactly, them, she found them. Why not kill Melissa and Collins instead of Melissa and Dylan?"

"You got me. She still loved Collins? Couldn't bear to kill him so she directed her anger elsewhere, at the daughter that drove them apart?"

"Even if she killed them," Eliza said, "she couldn't have killed Alison Brown or Charlee McCool. She's never left the hospital."

"Someone to do her dirty work, then? It'd have to be a man to have the strength to steal that scarecrow's cross, crucify Charlee on it."

"Agreed. But a hit man working for Diane Fischer? I doubt it."

"I don't know. All I know is this goes deep. Someone's been fucking with us since the beginning. Someone who knows us and our business, knows more than anyone should know. Knew long ago that I would be there last night in that attic!"

Eliza shook her head. Disbelief. She sighed and stood up for a moment to clear her head. She walked past Noah and Sofia, who both talked quietly at the small round table, and stood by the window looking out at the pouring rain. Andrew just watched her.

Eliza stood there a long time, looking out into the gray morning of a rain-swept land.

Some time later she stepped out of the room and called the credit card company on her cell phone to ask them what the hell was going on. She stayed under the awning as she was on hold, the rain beating down incessantly.

"Ms. Lehman, we have it here that you maxed out. You've gone beyond your credit limit and have been flagged for nonpayment."

"That's not possible. I make regular payments from my checking account. I made one a few days ago."

"Yes, yes, we have that here. Your check was also denied, Ms. Lehman."

"There's some mistake then, there's no w—" She cut herself off and hung up the phone.

She was thinking, that son of a bitch, as she called the customer service line for her bank back in Illinois.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Lehman," the representative said. "You have an overdraft charge on your checking account. Your balance is negative. I have here—"

"What about my savings?"

"That also has a negative balance. As you know, your savings requires a minimum balance of two-hundred dollars, so naturally fees were applied—"

"When?"

"Ma'am?"

"When did this happen? Can you pull up the statements on my checking and savings accounts?"

She was put on hold before finding out that all the money from her accounts had been transferred to a private account only two days ago. Along with all the money in her CDs and investments.

"But I never authorized that," Eliza said.

"But you had to of, Ms. Lehman. I apologize for the confusion, but our security only allows the account holder's permission for such a transfer."

"I'm telling you I didn't." Her life flashed before her eyes. Years of work. Years of jobs and paychecks and savings and interest. Gone. "I need to report fraud. I'm going to figure this out and call you back."

She ended the call and called Andrew out from the room. "Did you use your credit card yesterday?"

And it was then that Andrew remembered and told her how his card was denied while picking up dinner yesterday. He tried making the same calls Eliza had to his own bank and credit companies. He paced the length of the awning but his phone remained roaming no matter where he stood.

"I don't get any service out here in friggin' Hickville," he said.

"Here." Eliza gave him her phone, even though she was in no position to be sharing her minutes without a cent to her name now.

Andrew wandered off on her cell phone and when he returned, she saw it all in his face. "What the fuck is going on?" he said.

"Collins."

"Motherfucker."

Before they could speak more, two police cruisers rolled into the motel parking lot. They didn't have their sirens or lights on but moved with haste, sloshing through the puddles, parking up front before the awning.

From out of one came the police chief, Suzanne Graves, from the other a uniformed officer, a gruff man with already thin lips hiding under a bushy mustache, his face locked in what seemed a perpetual grimace. They hurried up out of the rain and under the awning.

"Detective Lehman," Graves said. "This is Officer Brad Uhl."

Lehman shook the man's hand. "This is my partner, Andrew Daly."

"Let's go inside," Graves said.

Noah and Sofia shook hands with Chief Graves and Officer Uhl as they entered the room with Eliza and Andrew.

Graves said, "Officer Uhl will be stationed out front in a radio car. He'll make regular rounds around the perimeter and check up with you guys every so often."

"Anything happens," Uhl said, his voice deep and rough, "you let me know."

Andrew asked Graves, "Have you heard anything?"

Graves said, "It's not even noon yet and already we're getting calls about suspicious individuals. We got calls as far north as Malcolm, Brooklyn, even Tama County, then over in Searsboro and Grinnell, not to mention all over town right here. Nothing of any real substance. Just people on high alert after what happened the last two years. Detective Daly, I told your partner too—this ends tonight. I have all my men on the streets right now. We'll all be looking for this bastard. If he shows up, he's ours. Am I to believe that you're both armed?"

Eliza nodded. "Yes."

"Good. We're keeping the streets clear. Curfew begins at six o'clock tonight. Halloween is officially suspended in Riggsboro. Anyone found on the streets will be arrested. Ms. Sutherland, your safety is our number one priority tonight."

"Thank you," Sofia said. She meant it, but the way Graves and Uhl stared at her made her uncomfortable. They were undoubtedly seeing Charlee and it made her feel like a goldfish.

Looking back at Eliza and Andrew, Graves said, "I'd like one of you to come down to the station, go over things, share information. Full disclosure."

"Of course," Eliza said. "I'll go." She looked at Andrew, motioning to Sofia. "You watch them."

Noah cut in: "I'm coming too."

"No."

"Please. I need to feel like I'm doing something. Your partner will be here and Officer Uhl will be out front." He looked Sofia's way. "If that's all right you, Sofia."

Sofia looked at him and then at Detective Daly. She shrugged. "Yeah, fine with me."

Uhl said, "Keep these in your rooms so we can stay in touch. They're fully charged, should last through the night." He had brought two radios in with clip-on mics. He turned them each on. They beeped once. He set them atop the armoire that held the television. "I'll go get situated."

Graves nodded. "Go ahead." Then to Eliza and Noah: "I'll be outside. Come meet me when you guys are ready." She left.

Eliza looked at Andrew. "I'll talk to Graves about Collins. She's on our side about him. I'll take the journal. I want to make some copies. Leverage."

"Good."

"I'll grab a bite with Noah. Why don't you order in again, make sure you and Sofia eat. You still have some cash on you?"

"Yeah."

Eliza said to Noah, "Let's go. I'm just gonna grab some materials from my room." She grabbed one of the radios and they left.

A half-hour after Eliza and Noah left, the food arrived. They had moved to the room Sofia and Eliza were staying in because Andrew wanted to keep her as comfortable as he could, keep her where all her packed belongings were.

After paying and tipping the delivery guy who got drenched from just a few seconds in the rain, Andrew glanced off to the side of the lot where Uhl's police cruiser was parked.

Back inside he put down the brown bag of food and cup holders full of coffee on the round table next to the bathroom. Sofia was sitting there, staring absently out the window.

The conversation between them had been nothing more than a few words, stilted and forced.

"Got some lunch," Andrew said, pulling out a couple breakfast sandwiches, along with some pears and bananas. "Well, a late breakfast anyway. Most important meal of the day. Sorry they didn't have anything organic. Some fruit though. And coffee. I had yours marked. Skim milk." He took the seat opposite Sofia.

"Thanks," she said, but all she took were a few nibbles of a pear and a sip of coffee. "I guess I'm not really that hungry."

Andrew wasn't so much either. He downed only half his ham-egg-and-cheese, then sat nursing his coffee, to which he added some Jameson from his flask to make it of the Irish variety. All while Sofia wasn't looking.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"Yeah." She was staring out the window again into the steady fall of the rain. A sudden gust of wind blew it horizontally at the window. She watched the streams form, weaving and connecting with drops that hit pitter-patter against the glass and the sill.

"Well, you're a bad liar," Andrew said. "But it was a stupid question anyway."

Sofia smiled softly. "Did you meet her?"

"Who?"

"Charlee."

"A couple times."

"What was she like?"

"Uh, well, I didn't get to know her real well. But she was…nice. A really interesting girl. I'm here because of her. Because I didn't see it the first time. I'll never know if we could have…saved her…somehow." He stopped there, before his obsession became too obvious.

Sofia frowned. All she needed was someone else in love with Charlee McCool.

Andrew sensed some tension and quickly continued talking. "You and Noah seem to be good friends already. It all had to be a big shock when he told you everything."

"Yeah, it was. But Noah, he…he's great." She still found herself drifting off dreamily at the thought of him.

Andrew frowned. All he needed was someone else in love with Noah Faison.

Sofia looked away from the window and stared at him. "What did you find last night? I heard that you went somewhere."

"Yeah. The old Phelan house. I found something...something of your mother's."

It took her a second to realize that he was talking about her biological mother.

"What was it?"

"A journal she kept."

"Could I look at it?"

"Partner took it. I'm sorry."

"Did she mention me in it?"

"You and Charlee. Of course you were Abby and Jo to her."

"Jo," she said, in a daze. "Joanna Phelan." She shook her head. "Do you know anything about her? My real mother."

Andrew shrugged. "Not a lot." He hoped it didn't show on his face that he knew more than he'd ever like to.

Sofia nodded absently again. She tried to fight it but the tear that fell down her face was uncontrollable, the contortion her face went into unstoppable.

"Oh shit," Andrew said, "I…"

"No, no, it's nothing." She quickly held back any more tears and wiped her reddening face. She couldn't say exactly why she was crying. Fear maybe. Or being thrown into all this when she was just starting to get her life together. Or maybe just because of Noah and that she was deliriously horny and frustrated.

Andrew took a napkin from the bag and gave it to her.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping her face some more.

"You're under a lot."

"I'm ruining my make-up. Hold on."

He watched her get up and disappear into the bathroom for a few minutes. She came out re-done and touched up. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"Hey, do what you gotta do."

She nodded and sighed, looked out the window at the rain again. "Noah and Charlee, they…are you…um…are you with someone? Like a wife, girlfriend?"

"No."

"Have you…you ever love someone like that?" She looked back at Andrew and met his eyes.

"I have a daughter," he said. "Chloe. I'd do anything for her. I've never loved anyone more."

"I don't mean like that. I mean…you know…a significant other."

Andrew looked away, down at a spot on the floor. "I was married once," he said. "I thought I loved her like that."

"I wish I could have the same love they did," Sofia said. "That Noah and Charlee had."

"Yeah." Andrew nodded slowly several times and sighed. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"So you knew what they had."

"You could see it," he said. "I saw it with Charlee. You still can see it with Noah."

"You believe it? Like, you think they would have lasted if she wasn't killed?"

"Yes. Normally I'd say no, kids so young. You barely know yourself yet at seventeen, eighteen, much less someone else. I know I didn't. People change, people make mistakes. You still have growing up to do, things to learn about yourself. So five, ten, fifteen years down the road, you may find out you're married to a different person. Can't blame them, at least you shouldn't, 'cause chances are you changed quite a bit too."

"Makes sense."

"But Charlee and Noah?" Andrew said. "With them, I could just tell it was different. I knew. They knew. They had found it."

"Yeah…"

They stared at each other a bit too long before looking away.

And there it was. They had spent a little over an hour together in the combined time since meeting last night, but suddenly they recognized the mysterious pain they both shared, the kind of pain that cuts through all the walls of getting to know someone, cuts deep and fast and makes you feel like you've known the other person forever.

And so all the forced pleasantries slipped away, like an invisible yet indelible wall that suddenly and swiftly crumbled.

Sofia got up and found the remote for the television. She sat down on the bed and slipped her shoes off. "You want to watch some TV? Looks like we both lost our appetites."

"Sure."

She rested against the pillows at the head of the bed and turned through some channels. Andrew sat in the recliner next to the bed and watched mindlessly.

After a few minutes she turned down the volume and sighed. She looked at him and rested her gaze comfortably on his in their newfound connection. "Would you mind," she said, "um, staying close to me?" She inched over on the bed, making some room. "It's silly, but…I'd feel better."

"Ms. Sutherland," he said.

"Oh Christ, Detective. Call me Sofia."

"Only if you call me Andrew."

She stared into his eyes. "Andrew." She turned off the television.

"Sofia."

He felt weak but still he stood up slowly. He was surprised he was even able to walk as he traced over to the bed and sat up against the pillows next to her.

"Thank you," she said, moving closer to him with a smile.

Andrew smiled back and he found himself staring too long. She held the look, glanced away only once and it was to look at his lips.

No, he told himself. Don't do this, you son of a bitch. She's eighteen fucking years old. You'll mess her up. You'll be as bad as everyone else. Don't. Fucking don't.

He swallowed. There was more beauty in that fresh young face than in any flower, more magic in her eyes than in all the secrets of the universe. Nirvana in her smile.

Okay, he thought. Only if she makes the first move.

She had only moved in an inch for the kiss before he followed up and locked his lips with hers. They shoved their tongues in each other's mouths with wild abandon.

They grabbed each other's faces and smothered each other, yearning sighs and longing breaths breaking up passionate kisses. Andrew spun Sofia below him with the graceful agility of a master. As he kissed her he unbuckled her tight jeans and slid his hand down, cupping her crotch and feeling the dampness of her panties. She arched her body upwards with a sharp moan.

Before she knew it, her shirt, her pants, her underwear—it was all off and so were his. And suddenly his head was between her legs and when he worked his tongue it hit all her spots. With his hands he groped her small breasts and rubbed her hard nipples with an amazing tenderness that drove her crazy. He ate pussy better than any other guy she'd been with. She was ready to orgasm now.

Before that could happen she yanked him up, telling him, begging him, "Get inside of me, now, right now." She felt his throbbing hard-on in her hand and guided him inside.

Their loud moans went in rhythm to the sway of their joined hips as they started slow and gentle but quickly got fast and rough. The bedpost slammed against the wall as they writhed violently.

They became Noah and Charlee together, making love as the husband and wife once did in the exact same bed a year-and-a-half ago on their wedding night.

"Oh my God!" Sofia squealed, as she held him so tight and tears came out of her eyes and her body convulsed. "It feels so good! Oh God, yes, I love you, I love you!"

"I love you too. Oh God, baby, I love you!"

"Oh my God, baby, I'm coming! I'm coming so much!"

They exploded in each other's arms, screaming and crying and speaking in tongues. Confessing their undying love and promises of forever.

"Oh Charlee," Andrew whispered in Sofia's ear as they finished, the two remaining desperately intertwined. "I love you."

"I love you, Noah," Sofia whimpered, breathless, "I love you..."

Afterward they basked in that post-sex drunkenness that feels like vertigo, that to ever leave the arms of your lover would be akin to falling into a dark abyss.

Sofia traced swirls across Andrew's nipples. Andrew kissed Sofia's forehead. They stayed close, wrapped in each other and the pleasant warmth of their nakedness.

"Does it get better?" Sofia asked.

"What."

"I don't know. Life?"

Andrew looked over at the beads of rain on the window. "No."

She turned so that she rested on his chest and could look into his face, his eyes. "What's it like?"

He looked back and met her gaze. "Disillusionment mostly."

She nodded and rested her chin on one of his pecks. "I thought so."

"But this is real nice," he said, running his hands through Sofia's hair, tucking locks behind her ears. He loved the way her face felt as it fit perfectly into the concave of his palm. "I could die right now with you and it'd be all right."

She smiled. "Me too. Every part of me just feels so…perfect. So relaxed."

They stared into each other's eyes and with that shared pain seemed to come a shared understanding, a telepathic conversation of the kind that only intense lovemaking allows. Their eyes seemed to tell each other that in another time and place it could have worked between them. Perhaps in an alternate universe the two of them were Noah and Charlee, living together and making each other very happy. But in this universe all they were allowed was a fleeting, insanely passionate afternoon. Hell, in this universe, even Noah and Charlee didn't last. Their love was so big that it threatened the very order of things. It had to end.

And that mere fact alone, when tacitly realized among Andrew and Sofia, caused a stirring in their hearts and loins yet again. That desperate need consumed them, to own each other if just once more before Eliza and Noah came back.

They did it knowing it would never be enough, that life was but a series of just-once-more situations that quelled an itch but never fully took away the ache—in fact, would only make it worse.

They had spent hours in a large conference room of the Riggsboro Police Station everyone dubbed the war room. Chief Graves stood up with a black marker by a long white board covered with years worth of information. It stretched from 1980 with the murder of Dylan and Melissa Phelan and went on to the present situation. Deputy Chief Jim Alcott sat in a chair close by. Each time the linebacker of a man would lean back, it seemed like he would break the chair.

Eliza and Noah sat at the other side of the large table, a tablecloth of paperwork spread out before them.

Noah sat there and took most of it in. The station brought him back places he did not want to go. Just a year ago he had sat in an interview room for hours, being treated like a suspect as he tried to get a statement out through his shock and hysteria.

"So where are we?" Deputy Alcott asked the group.

Graves said, "Back where we started. With no idea who, why, or where our killer is."

Eliza said, "We've examined every possible corollary that we can. But I think it's time I talk to you about David Collins."

"Did he contact you?"

"No, but he knows we're here. He threatened us a week ago to stay away from this case. And today I found out he emptied my bank accounts. Same thing with my partner."

"Can you prove this?"

"Of course not."

Graves sighed. "Okay. We'll talk to him tonight. You and me, after we drop Mr. Faison back at the motel. I'll see if I can talk some sense into Mr. Collins."

"I have dirt on him. We'll go in prepared."

"Really." Graves didn't try to hide the doubt from her voice.

"Really."

"We'll handle that tonight. But there's one more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Last year," Graves said, "after Ms. McCool was killed and we were working with the state police, we had forensic investigators looking at all angles into this. But the guy was like a ghost. No shred of evidence that led back to anything. It was such a hoopla the crew of Unsolved Mysteries showed up wanting to shoot a special about all the murders here. Mr. Collins, of course, would have no part in it and showed them the door. But the troopers ended up contacting the feds, the behavioral science unit in Quantico, in the hopes of getting at least some kind of psychological profile on our guy."

"What did they say?"

"It's all in a file here somewhere, but it said something to the effect that due to the nature of the killings—the large butcher knife as the murder weapon, not to mention the excessive stabbings—we should be looking for an extreme sexual deviant. A voyeur who has been stalking his victims for years. Someone extremely methodical and highly intelligent. Not necessarily educated, but very bright."

They walked out into the large squad room that was bustling with cops. A young officer approached Graves and Alcott.

"Chief, Deputy," the young cop—nametag giving him away as Sutton—said. "There's nothing. All due respect, we've been out all day. There's no one out in this weather and no sign of anything at all."

"Keep checking," Graves said.

"There's just no one there," Sutton said. "We covered the whole west end of town."

"Then cover the east. And after you're done? Cover the west again."

His mouth was tight but he nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

Graves marched down the center aisle of desks, "Listen up. It's going to be a hectic day and I need people doing what I say when I say it. I was doing this before most of your daddies busted the nut that got you here."

A middle-aged cop—Walsh—approached next. "Ma'am. Phones have been ringing but most are people calling about the storm. A couple lines are down in the Valley. A few blocks have already lost power."

"The Valley," Noah said.

"And we expect a lot more to lose power into the night," Alcott said.

"Gentlemen," Graves spoke up, "keep working. And keep the radio chatter down so the media hounds listening on their scanners don't pick up on anything else other than the flood." She turned back to Eliza and Noah, Alcott and Walsh, elaborating: "Last thing I need is a leak to the press, some journalist looking to get a Pulitzer off this case, maybe turn it into some true crime novel or TV movie."

Noah asked Officer Walsh, "Would Sleepy Hollow Drive be one of those streets that's already lost power?"

Walsh checked a small notepad and nodded. "Sure is."

Noah looked at Eliza. "The darkness," he said. "It's spreading. Starting where it all began."

On the way back to the motel, Eliza sat in the front seat of Graves's black-and-white as Graves drove and Noah sat in the backseat behind the gated screen. They seemed to be driving into the storm.

Graves worked the windshield wipers on their highest setting. They came close to hydroplaning more than once and had to take a few detours around some flooded sections of road.

Eliza heard her cell phone vibrate and took it out of her pocket. She didn't recognize the number but it was her same area code from back in Illinois.

"Hello, am I speaking to Ms. Eliza Lehman?"

"Yes."

"Of Lehman Investigations?"

"That's correct."

"Ms. Lehman, this is Sergeant Bell with the Smith's Grove Police Department. I'm very sorry to tell you this, but there was a fire. The building that houses your office, 215 Morgantown Road—it's burned down."

Disbelief first. Then calmly: "How bad? Completely—"

"Everything's gone, Miss. The building, it, it's a skeleton."

Her mouth was dry. "How did it happen?"

"Undetermined as of yet, but we have the fire department starting an investigation."

Eliza swallowed. "Your best guess?"

"It seems to have started in your office," Bell said. "It doesn't look like an accident. I'd like to meet up with you, ask you a few questions if you're available."

"I'm actually out of town on a case right now, if it can wait until I get back."

"That'll be fine."

"Thank you. Keep me updated."

She closed her phone and let nothing show in her face. Didn't give any tell that all her money and her business was gone. It was all in the pit of her stomach—and that was quite literal in her case: her ulcer began to flare up bad. The pain was sharp. She wanted to vomit.

Graves may have turned her head and asked Eliza if everything was ok. She wasn't sure. She kept staring out the windshield into the wind and rain and storm.

"I'm going to kill that motherfucker," Andrew said. "I'm coming with you."

They stood in the double-bed room. Andrew and Sofia had cleaned up the traces of their trysts in the other room and redressed themselves. Sofia even sprayed some of her body spray around and opened the window for a time to air out that sex smell.

"Listen," Eliza said, "I'm going with Chief Graves. She's outside calling Collins now and making a meeting with him. I need you to stay here."

"'Liza, I can handle the son of a bitch."

"I know how you'll react to this, especially after what you found in that journal. You're staying here and watching the kids."

"No."

"Andrew, I'm serious. You're on a short fucking leash with me already."

"Fuck that."

"Excuse me?"

"This is bullshit. I've been on this motel detail since last night. I need to get out there."

"You're staying here."

Andrew sighed.

"I'll have my phone," Eliza said. "I have any trouble, you're the first person I call and you can get Officer Uhl to come in and watch the kids. But for now I want you here watching them. I want as many people around Sofia as possible."

"Fine."

Eliza unpacked a lot of the case notes she had brought with her and Noah to the station. She took with her everything she had on Collins. She was going to need it.

There was no sunset to be seen but gradually the dark and cloudy sky got even darker as night swallowed the last vestiges of day.

Graves glided through the torrential downpour across town to Collins's office, Eliza in the front seat.

"You let me do the talking first when we get there," Graves said.

Eliza nodded.

The cruiser shot through the empty roads into the darkness of the rainy night.

David Collins III sat in his large office and waited. Behind his desk, wall-length windows gave sight to the stormy night. Black skies emptied out relentless rain. A flash of lightning illuminated him for a moment, sitting resolute and calm in his chair, an unmistakable gleam in his eyes. A clap of thunder followed.

The cell phone on his desk vibrated. It was the second time in recent memory he had received a call from his ex-wife's doctor.

"Dr. Noone," he said

"Mr. Collins, I'm very sorry to tell you this…"

"Is Diane all right?"

Noone sighed. "Just about an hour ago at dinner, Ms. Fischer wandered off to the kitchen. She grabbed a large butcher knife, went to a broom closet, and slit her wrists. By the time we found her she was gone. Mr. Collins, I am so sorry. For your ex-wife, and for our failure in adequate supervision."

Collins said nothing.

"Mr. Collins?"

"Doctor…was there anything to indicate that this might occur? In all her time there she's never tried…"

"I agree. Never once did she have suicidal tendencies. Even in the last couple of weeks when her behavior seemed off."

"Off?"

"She was quiet, more reserved. It was subtle, but in observing her behavior around the hospital and in our one-on-one sessions, I could detect a certain…distance. Nothing of the sort that would lead me to suspect suicide, however."

"Are you quite sure this was by her own hand?"

"Yes. There was no evidence of a struggle. And she left a note…of sorts."

"What did it say?"

"It was written in blood on the wall. It said, 'He's coming.'"

Collins leaned back in his chair for a moment and then leaned forward. From the bottom drawer of his desk, he took out a glass and a crystal decanter filled with the finest scotch. He helped himself to a healthy amount and took a swig.

He leaned back once more and his eyes caught the second drawer down.

"Mr. Collins, will you be all right?"

"I'll be fine."

"The hospital is prepared to take responsibility for this."

Collins reached forward and opened the second drawer. From there he took out his gun, a sleek six-shooter that had been his father's. .357 Magnum. He cleaned it every month but had never used it other than on the range.

Not until tonight.

"That won't be necessary," Collins said. "I know exactly who is responsible."

THIRTY-ONE

Lightning and thunder tore across the sky. Rain poured from the floodgates of the heavens like the wrath of God.

It was against this backdrop that Eliza saw the intimidating edifice of the Collins Development building. It was a high-tech fortress, sleek and cold against the expansive countryside of agrarian Iowa.

The massive office building was covered in black glass, several levels of tinted windows. In the center of the structure was a hive that branched out in four directions.

It was a long drive up the private road that led to the complex. Eliza put away her cellular. She had made a couple calls to her old contacts at O'Dell and Pritchard so they could start digging into how her and Andrew's bank accounts were tampered with and if anything could be traced.

"Many people in town work right here," Graves said. "Not even just the town, but the county. Surrounding counties too. David III here has done things his father and grandfather never dreamed of. This building here, it's all his. Incorporating all these subsidiaries, his idea. He's got an architectural firm, construction company, lawyers, publicists. He's into advertising, real estate, even private security—all working for him in there. He's planning a new road out here for all the commuter traffic. All this countryside? Soon it'll be residential homes, condominiums, apartment complexes. A couple more years and we'll be the biggest town in the county."

As they pulled into the sprawling and empty parking lot in front of the hive, Eliza saw a large sign listing all the subsidiary companies under the larger heading, COLLINS DEVELOPMENT.

Graves parked the cruiser out front in the fire lane. They got out and jogged through the rain up the sidewalk and wide granite steps that led to the front doors.

Under the shelter of an awning, Graves spoke through an intercom: "Chief Graves."

There was a buzzing sound and the doors unlocked. Graves led Eliza inside. A loud silence met them as the doors closed, shutting out the storm. They walked through a wide marble hallway toward the elevators, their shoes squeaking and echoing in the cavernous space.

They rode up in silence to the top floor, to Collins's luxurious corner office in a penthouse suite. The door was already open. Collins stood tall and imposing by the wall-length windows. Lightning flashed and in silhouette he looked like a menacing mob boss in a b-grade crime drama. He turned around upon their entering. At this late hour he had still made the trip out to his office in typical fashion—three-piece Armani suit and perfectly coiffed hair. He even had a fresh shave.

"Chief Graves, Detective Lehman, a pleasure," he said, sitting down behind his desk as Eliza and Graves fully entered the spacious office, lit by a corner lamp and a desk light. "Please sit." He indicated two chairs in front of his desk.

They didn't move.

"Let's get this over with, David," Graves said. "Detective Lehman has told me what you've done and I'm the only one in this town with enough balls to do anything about it."

Collins looked amused. He said to Eliza, pouring himself a drink from the decanter atop his desk, "Where is your partner tonight, Detective Lehman?"

"He and Noah are watching Sofia," she said.

"Mmm," he said. He leaned back in his executive's chair and smiled. He opened his hands. "Okay. All business, are we? Well, allow me a few pleasantries by at least offering you both a drink. Scotch?" He signaled the decanter.

Still no movement.

"Very well, then. Before you both come at me, let me come at you, Detective Lehman. Whatever grievances you may have with me, I have a far greater one with you."

"Pray tell, Mr. Collins."

"You killed my ex-wife," he said. "You and your partner."

"Pardon?"

"Diane took her own life tonight. I spoke with her doctor and I firmly believe it was triggered by the meeting she had with you both."

"Mr. Collins, we said nothing that could…"

"Spare me. You killed her."

"Mr. Collins," Eliza said, taking a step forward. "I know you, and frankly I think you could give less than two shits about what happened to your ex-wife. Regardless, I am sorry for your loss."

Collins stared at her. "All right, say what you have to say."

Eliza said, "I know about what you've done to mine and my partner's accounts. I know what you did to our building. Now I'm going to give you a chance to remedy those bad decisions, lest I release this." She held up a thick file.

"And what, might I ask, is that, Detective?"

She lowered the file. This was it—almost two years in the making. After Collins's failed attempt to buy them off way back when, she and Andrew had done some snooping around in Des Moines and Montezuma, the Poweshiek County seat, and picked up some dirt on him as leverage in case he ever tried to come after them.

"You've collected a lot of people in your pocket over the years, Mr. Collins. And your pockets run deep. But most hardly have an incentive to keep your secrets forever, especially when faced with potential litigation if I exposed their involvement."

Collins smiled, raised his eyebrows.

Eliza opened the folder and ruffled through the sheets. "Tax evasion. Bribery. Extortion. Fraud. Bid rigging. Political donations, I might add, to some prominent people in the state, the kind of contributions that don't mesh well with campaign finance laws. You cover up the majority of them with straw donors, mostly so you can secure zoning variances to acquire new land. Make Riggsboro the largest town in Poweshiek County. Expand your enterprise even if it means violating several easement laws. All so you become the richest man in the state. Give you power to grow your business even further, start a new line of Collins descendants, this time in politics. Maybe you get to Des Moines yourself. If you're still virile, give birth to a David IV who will continue your legacy."

Collins was listening but he was no longer smiling.

Eliza was smiling. She held up the folder again. "It's all here, Mr. Collins. Not to mention several sexual harassment cases you had settled, cases that conveniently never made it to the papers. Tip of the iceberg. Your friends in Des Moines and Montezuma are ready to give you up."

"Is that right?"

She lowered the folder and sighed. "You're done, Collins. That casino you want? It's over if I release this. You know that. But you're a businessman, so let's talk business. If my partner and I don't get what we want, which I'll make very clear, I'll make sure this information gets out not only to your enemies and your competition, but to the press. And on top of that, I'll take back my word and reveal the truth that Charlee McCool and Sofia Sutherland are your granddaughters."

Eliza held Collins's eyes as the man leaned forward on his desk and sighed. He rubbed his face and said, "Chief."

Eliza narrowed her eyes in confusion and then looked back at Graves. She came face to face with the woman's service weapon.

Eliza turned her head back around. Graves pressed the barrel right up against the back of her head.

Detective novels have perpetuated the myth of the smartass gumshoe, the wise-cracking P.I. who knows just what clever line to say to get himself out of a prickly situation. But it was all bullshit. Everything changes the minute you have a gun pressed to the back of your skull.

Graves used her free hand to un-holster Eliza's .38 revolver and pocket it herself. "I'm sorry about this, Detective. But he's far too important to this town to let you run amuck, rattling the cages. And this is an election year for me. I had to put on a show."

"You underestimate me, Detective," Collins said. "I'm a bit disappointed in you."

Eliza had to close her eyes and breathe carefully several times before she could speak. She raised her arms slowly. "So what now? Are you two going to kill me?"

"Drop the file," Graves said.

Eliza followed orders, a few papers falling out as it hit the floor.

"Burn it, Suzanne, after this is over," Collins said.

"You don't think I have back-ups?" Eliza said.

"Where, at your torched office?"

"I never told you exactly what happened to my office, Collins."

He just smiled and shrugged. "I believe, Detective, that you once met Chief Graves's brother-in-law. Ex brother-in-law, albeit."

Eliza again narrowed her eyes.

"Neil Gerety," he said. "Those were big words you were throwing around a minute ago. Like extortion. But I seem to remember you and your partner once doing the same to ex-police chief Gerety to elicit information. And while I certainly did not appreciate that, his sister-in-law right here also did not."

Eliza just sighed, feeling suddenly very tired.

"Let me tell you something about power, Detective," Collins said. "Your little folder of fun facts there? All I need to do is make a few phone calls to remind some misguided friends of mine about their own secrets. That's how I got here. I see who's coming up, get to know them, and soon they see that true influence is all in development, in real estate. I shoot a few campaign dollars their way, wine and dine them, and get to know them intimately. So do my own guys. Think of them as reverse fixers." He snickered. "Detective, you would not believe. I know who beats their wives, who uses call girls, who likes little boys. That is power.

"So. What do you have to compel me to follow any demands of yours now, Detective?"

It was weary, but Eliza still managed a smile. Smoking gun time. She said, "There was some information not destroyed by the fire. My partner discovered it just last night, here in Riggsboro. The copies are in the back of the file, if I may…" She lowered herself to grab them.

Graves kept the gun trained on her. "Slowly," she said.

A flash of lightning accompanied a clap of thunder and suddenly the lights went out. The room was in darkness.

"Don't fucking move!" Graves said, blind now, keeping the gun estimated as best she could on the kneeling Eliza. Eliza didn't move an inch.

There was silence in the pitch black, nothing but heavy breathing, and Eliza thought, now, now was her chance, spin around and get the gun out of Graves's hand.

Collins spoke: "Backup generators should be coming on about…now."

He seemed to speak muted backup lights into existence, once again illuminating the room. Eliza was too late.

The light in the office was much dimmer now. Eliza didn't move her head but moved her eyes to look up at Collins, hoping her scowl in the newly darkened room looked mean.

All he said was, "Continue, Detective."

She collected the duplicated pages of Melissa Phelan's diary from the back of the file. She felt the gun against her back the entire time she approached Collins's desk. She dropped the sheets in front of him.

"Now walk backwards," Graves said. "Slowly."

When Eliza reached the spot she had been standing before, she had time enough to register Collins's reaction as he read the first few lines. He did not have the light from his desk lamp anymore, but he slid to the corner of his desk where there was greater illumination from the generator lights that hummed softly from every corner of the ceiling. She saw the man swallow, and if she was not mistaken, even go pale.

"Suzanne," he said.

"Sir?" Graves said.

"Leave us."

"Mr. Collins?"

"Just stand in the hallway outside. I need a moment alone with the detective."

Graves hesitated a moment.

"Now," Collins said.

Graves lowered her weapon and left through the office doorway and back out through the suite.

Collins didn't even look at Eliza until they both heard the door outside close. But the look he gave her then was death.

"Where did you find this?"

"My partner found it."

"Fine, your partner, where—" He stopped, closed his eyes for a second, clenched a fist, unclenched it. When he opened his eyes, he shook his head furiously with an exasperated grin, like this was all some silly joke. "These things…this can…it's clearly a fake."

"Spare me, Collins. My partner and I have the original in a secure location. And it will come out if you refuse to comply with our demands."

He swallowed again and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He breathed slowly and she watched him for a few silent minutes as he read the whole of Melissa's journal entry. By the end he was shaking.

"Um," he said, and Eliza actually saw this stoic man wipe away the start of tears.

He eventually sat back with his jaw slightly agape, shaking his head. "Where did he find this journal?" he asked again, trying to regain his composure.

"In your daughter's old house. In the attic."

Collins nodded slowly. He shook his head and his eyes moved fast.

"You're done if this gets out," Eliza said. "But if you cooperate, you'll never see me or my partner again after this night, or hear wind of this journal."

"If I do what you say, will you give me the original?"

"No. It's never over with you, Collins. I need some leverage to make sure you'll stay away from us for good. For that, and your cooperation, you'll guarantee our silence."

"You've become quite a fucking bitch."

Eliza said nothing.

Collins looked down at the pages again. "I can only imagine what you must think of me."

"It helped me understand something," she said. "All this time I wondered what drove you to such lengths to keep your family secrets quiet. But it's been the journal all along. You had some idea that it existed and you were afraid that if there was enough digging, if some journalist or cop looked hard enough, it would be uncovered. So you took two twin girls, two babies, and you separated them after their parents' murder. Made sure their names were changed, giving them new lives. Not for their protection or their dignity, but so that every trace of the murders would be wiped clean from Riggsboro's memory. Leaving it as nothing more than town folklore. Those babies growing up here together, well, that would make sure the story stayed alive forever, and maybe one day, when they were old enough to ask questions, they might go snooping by the house and stumble upon it themselves. Well, it didn't happen like that, you made sure of it. But tonight, here we are. The day has still come, Collins. Your hour of reckoning."

Collins stared at her a long moment and got up from his desk. He stood by the window again, gazing out into the stormy darkness for a while before speaking.

"Melissa and I had a fight one day. I came over to her house while her…her husband…was at work. She told me she didn't want to cheat on him again. I told her I loved her, I needed her, that I knew she felt the same way. And then I showed her the reason I came over."

He turned around and met Eliza's gaze. "Paternity results," he said.

Eliza just stared at him.

"I had nursed a sneaking suspicion for a while," he said, "so I discreetly collected samples and sent far away for some testing where it could never be traced back to me. DNA testing was extremely new at the time, practically unheard of. But my suspicions were realized. Dylan Phelan was not Abigail and Joanna's father. I was."

Eliza started to speak, didn't have words.

"The funny part of it is," he said, "Melissa is not even my biological daughter."

Eliza's head was spinning now.

"I married my first wife young, Detective. There was an arrangement, so to say, and part of it was due to the fact that Diane was already pregnant. This was before I even met her. Don't ask me who the real father was. The list was long when it came to Diane. She was a spoiled little whore and she didn't even know.

"But the Fischer family, Diane's family, was well-known in Riggsboro. And they did not want to face the embarrassment. Diane had been trouble enough for them over the years. She had a history of behavioral problems and mental instability. When she was fourteen they sent her away under a different name to a hospital in Illinois. They had a summer program where she underwent psychiatric testing."

Eliza's widened eyes moved in revelation, even as she tried not to let it all show on her face. She recalled Diane Fischer's frown when she and Andrew mentioned being from Smith's Grove.

Because she had once been there. Only her name had been Celia Gannon.

Jesus.

Collins went on: "Diane was pawned off on me, heir to the Collins empire. We were married and her baby was ours and no one was the wiser.

"I was dreadfully unhappy in the beginning. I had many affairs during our marriage. There was one that lasted awhile, got pretty serious. I briefly entertained the idea of running away with her. She was very young at the time and she wanted to. She got pregnant to try to make up my mind for me. But I chose work. I chose my front of a marriage. So I forced her to have an abortion. I was making a lot of money by then. I was beginning to enjoy my life and my status. I inherited this job, but I worked and still work damn hard at it, make no mistake about that. I've earned all this. And I wasn't about to have my image tarnished by an extramarital affair, with a baby no less.

"Years later, when that girl got married, she had trouble trying to have children and found out from a doctor she never would. She hadn't spoken to me in years and hated my every fiber, but one day she contacted me and we met up. She had changed. After the abortion and our break-up, she returned to the Catholic faith she had strayed from during those rebellious teenage years she was with me. She had turned into a cold, pious woman. It seemed impossible this was the same young girl who had been in love with me. The woman I was talking to seemed incapable of that kind of love.

"Well, it was shortly after that when Melissa was murdered. And I found a way I could hide a baby and make amends at the same time."

"You mean…"

"Yes. Charlee McCool's mother. Adoptive mother. She had found herself a suitable husband and was looking to start a family. I arranged it so she could adopt Charlee without all the fees and hoopla. I also paid her a substantial sum of money." He shrugged. "Funny how life is. Sometimes I wonder how things would have worked out if she and I…I don't know…it doesn't matter. The truth is I never felt the kind of love in my marriage or with any of my lovers as I did when Melissa and I had our affair."

He shrugged, hands in his pockets. "For a while, knowing that Melissa wasn't actually my biological daughter helped me justify what we were doing. But I didn't tell her. Not until the day I showed her the paternity results. I told her then because I saw a way out for us. I told her that for her I would sell my shares in the company and retire. I told her for her I would run away. We could run away together, have money enough to hide or fake our deaths or change our names. However we would do it, no one would ever have to know. We could be happy.

"But Melissa did not take the news well. She attacked me, called me terrible things. She said she hated me for making her fall in love with me. That all she wanted was to start over and have her own life with Dylan. But the knowledge that Abby and Jo weren't really Dylan's, it left her hysterical. She said that I ruined her life, that…" For a moment, the chiseled statue of a handsome face that belonged to David Collins III showed some cracks in it. But with a heavy blink they were gone. "She told me she had written about us, that she had hidden the story away but that one day someone would find it. She knew me better than anyone. She knew the image I needed to maintain. I could never let anything destroy my reputation or the legacy of my father and grandfather. Of course, I knew she was saying all of this out of anger, but…I was never sure if such an account truly existed.

"And she died that night. October 31, 1980. Before I could ever ask her about it again." He had drifted his focus away, looking out the window again.

When he looked back at Eliza he read her glare. "You're judging me," he said. "You refuse to believe that I am anything less than a monster for what Melissa and I did together. You do not believe that it could actually have been a great love that we shared."

"You're right, I don't. She was a young girl and you warped her mind."

He nodded as if expecting that answer. "You're a symbol of the sexually repressed culture we live in, Detective. I know what the psychologists would say. That I ruined her. That molested young girls grow up to be promiscuous, maybe even molesters themselves. But it wasn't like that. Melissa and I were a couple. We loved each other. She was so beautiful, so young, so light in my arms. Making love to her was heaven. God forgive me, but I'd give anything to feel that again. Does that make me a sick pedophile or a child predator? In some cultures, in some countries, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It's a normal thing there."

"Then go live in one of those countries. Because here all it makes you is a sick bastard."

He sighed. "I can see I'm getting nowhere. Detective, you are a person of sound mind, given to only the most appropriate of human temptations, the kind society expects one to satisfy. Consider yourself blessed. Some of us are not. On top of that, you're a woman. You'll never understand. See, my daughter, she—she was one of those girls that from a young age has an effect on both boys and men. You see, beautiful girls, beautiful women—they're a dime a dozen. But there are a few that hold a certain power. The power to look at a man and convince him that one kiss will make all his wishes come true, that to make love to her would complete him, that he could die afterwards and it would be okay. My daughter was like that."

"Listen to yourself," Eliza said. "Your daughter. Pedophilia aside, the fact that she wasn't your biological daughter aside, she was still raised as your daughter."

"It was Melissa, only Melissa! She was the only woman I ever truly loved! It was real. I'll admit, young girls offer a thrill to me, but it's only ever been Melissa. I never laid a hand on my other daughter—on Chelsea. I sent her away to preparatory school just to ensure it. If the temptation is there, it is only because she reminds me of what I once had with Melissa. And what Melissa and I had belonged only to us. Sharing it with another young girl would be a betrayal."

"What about your marriage? You betrayed Diane. And I'm sure you weren't faithful with Katherine or Ilene either."

"My marriages, they've all been for show. A man like me needs a woman behind him. Ilene is taken care of. She doesn't love me. She loves what I give her. And that's fine." He sighed again. "But we digress. You didn't come here to argue sexual morality with me, did you, Detective?"

"No. But you do realize that all of this paints you as a suspect. Believing that Melissa had hidden incriminating information on your relationship, it might have made you take drastic measures. I wouldn't be surprised if you killed her, as you just had someone hold a gun on me."

"Kill Melissa? Never. I loved her. Even if I wanted to, I would never have wanted the kind of publicity that came out with her death. That was why those children of hers had to be buried, kept at distance from me and anything related to me. But you—you and your partner wouldn't stop digging."

"Because people were being killed."

Collins shook his head. "I gave you an out. You should have taken the money. But no, you kept meddling. All of this, Detective, all these deaths you speak about—they're entirely your fault. You dug up the past and resurrected my daughter's killer. You interfered in the affairs of my family and killed my ex-wife, used her for your case in her fragile condition."

"Collins, listen to me. You're missing the real villain here. There is a flesh and blood killer out there on your streets."

He sighed. "You know…for a while after it happened—Melissa's death, I mean—I thought it could have been Diane. She had motive and mental problems enough to make it plausible. Still, I knew my wife and it wasn't in her. So I looked. I looked into the investigation of my daughter's killer with Chief Gerety. This killer took from me the one person I loved more than anything else in this life, Detective. Whatever you make of our relationship, I frankly don't care. I loved her and I wanted the bastard who did this to her. Wanted to kill him with my bare hands. But there was nothing. And with my failure, I remembered my public image. I had to move on. I remarried to a wench of a woman who caused me almost as much trouble as you have, and then remarried again, even had a child again. I was given a chance to start over. Digging up the past got me nowhere. So I buried it. And I keep it buried, Detective. And when people like you and your partner threaten my livelihood, my good name—I have to take matters into my own hands."

"So you take my money and burn down my business."

"I, of course, know nothing of what you speak, Detective."

"None of it will ever be connected to you, I know that. There's too many goons on your payroll ready to do your bidding. Cleaners in your private security firm, lawyers who'd turn the tables and convince a jury I burned down my own building to collect on the insurance. But I have dirt on you, Collins. Both the journal and the file, dirt that makes the real estate scams your second wife uncovered look like child's play."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? If I say no, information like that released to the public could launch your career all over again. But would you realize what you've done? Do you know the good I've accomplished? You see a monster, but I'm a philanthropist, a figurehead, a symbol for good—my entire family. I gave this town its police department. I gave it its hospital. The closest one before that was in Grinnell, the only one in the county.

"You bring me down, you bring down senators, assemblymen—you bring down this state. Do you think you'll survive with that much blood on your hands? The people out there, they want someone they can look up to. Even if they know deep down these powerful people tell lies and have their skeletons. But people want lies. They thrive on them. They need delusions to survive. They need idols. Destroying me would be devastating. Everyone I pull down with me will drag you along for the ride. You'd be more done than you are now."

"Then don't let that happen," Eliza said. "It's up to you. You can spare both of us."

He swallowed. More cracks showed on his face. "What do you want?" It was an exasperated whisper now.

"I want my money. Mine and my partner's. I want you to let us finish our business in town tonight and then I want my office rebuilt. Plus some for everything that was lost. You do that, or all of this information gets out."

He nodded slowly and leaned forward on his desk. He took the last swig of his scotch. "Compelling offer, Detective. But I don't think so." That was when he took out his .357 magnum.

As she talked, Eliza could hardly take her eyes away from the impressive silver barrel on the massive hand cannon. "Collins. You have a chance to do the right thing. Your daughter's killer could be here in Riggsboro right now. We can catch him. That's what you truly want, what you've truly waited for. Right now you're only impeding that."

"I trust my police department to find him," he said. "And I trust them to keep their mouths shut when you disappear. When your partner disappears."

"And Noah and Sofia? You expect them to keep their mouths shut?"

"The story will read that you two were unfortunate victims of a serial killer who returned once again to Riggsboro. They'll be none the wiser."

Again Eliza felt it. Fear. Collins had planned all the angles out. He could get away with this. He knew it and Eliza knew it.

She stammered. "And if the killer doesn't return? Then you've got two bodies on your hands and a town famous for its murder rate. Have you thought about what that'll do to your property values?"

He shrugged. "Maybe I'll paint one of you as the killer. Or both of you. Or accomplices to the real killer, I don't know. Either way the town thinks we did them a favor."

"And then you're the hero."

At one time in the past, Eliza had felt sure that Collins was incapable of murder. But the truth is we're all capable of it deep down. And now—now Collins was a man pushed to the edge. Desperate.

"Why did you come back here?" he asked. "None of this had to happen. Your client is dead, so you alleged. You have no stake in this anymore."

Eliza sighed. "After Charlee McCool's death and when the killer made contact with that drawing he sent you, my partner and I felt an obligation to take the case on. We had failed to prevent Charlee's death. But now we have a chance to make up for that, as much as we can that is, by preventing someone else's."

"Noble, I suppose," Collins said. "Unfortunately no good deed and all that business. Especially when you intrude in the affairs of powerful men with big secrets. Now enough stalling." He picked up the gun and pulled the safety back. He arose from the desk and bent his arm, raising the weapon Eliza's way.

"You're making a big mistake," she said, the tremors in her voice betraying her.

Collins pushed his chair back and made his way around the desk, the gun trained on Eliza the whole time. She couldn't keep her focus away from the long barrel and the dark hole at the end. She thought about running. But she was cornered.

He stood in front of the desk, the barrel of the gun a few feet shy of Eliza's face. She stood her ground and swallowed.

"Remember the journal," she said, sweating bullets now and bluffing her ass off. "In the event of my disappearance, it will be released."

"You planned all that today, did you?" Collins said. "Please. I know only your partner would have it. And since he'll be disappearing too, I won't have to worry about it."

"But it will still be missing."

"It's been missing almost twenty years. A pebble in my shoe, true, but I trust it will stay missing. Without you and your partner, I could take care of it appropriately if it ever did come out."

"You're not a killer, Collins. You're not a killer."

"I never wanted to be…and that's the truth. But darling, you're not the first."

"Wha…who—?"

He smiled a little smile. "I've never told anyone this. But I suppose now is as appropriate a time as any. Detective, do you know why I even agreed to marry Diane? The other reason we married so young outside of justifying her pregnancy?"

Eliza waited, welcoming the distraction. Collins even bent his arm, lowering the gun again.

"The Fischer family," he said, "came from old money. The railroad, the coal mines. They still had a lot of power and connections in the county. Collins Development, in the late fifties, went through some heavy financial trouble because of my father's mishandling of the business. My grandfather died of a heart attack at a board meeting when it was told that the company he founded, the legacy he built from the ground up, was about to go under. So my father arranged for me to marry into the Fischer family at the ripe age of eighteen. It worked out perfectly. The Fischer family needed a suitor for their knocked-up daughter, and my family needed the financial backing necessary to return Collins Development to its former glory. Stocks went up overnight with the world none the wiser to the politics of it. Just a stray rumor here, some speculation there. Now at that time I was hardly the businessman my father and grandfather were. I wanted out of this town, out of the family business, maybe go abroad and spend some of my trust fund over there. But suddenly I was trapped. With a wife, a kid on the way. My father threatened to disown me, disinherit me if I didn't follow through. I had no choice. And I resented him for it. I didn't love Diane. She was a delicate, emotionally unstable, spoiled little bitch, and life with her was hardly a picnic. For all her whoredom, she bored easily and became quite frigid. Trying to have sex with her was like pulling teeth. She'd just lay there, no passion at all. So I had affairs. And I poured myself into work and I learned the trade. But my father's ways didn't change. His slipshod handling of company affairs continued to worry the board. They could tell I was becoming smarter than him. They wanted me to step in as president, even as a twenty-something young man. Well, Detective, my father liked to fish. He had a spot out by Hollow Hills, where the Lost River runs through. One day in late October of 1963, I went along with him. And there was a terrible accident. A tragedy, really. He tripped and hit his head on the boat, fell right into the river and drowned."

Eliza swallowed.

Collins smiled that little smile again. "Of course, he needed some help staying underwater after he fell in."

"You…"

"But you see, Detective, I hated him enough. And that plus my shrewd business sense, well, it was hardly easy, but I got over it. So now you make number two. But please do understand, I have no choice."

Eliza breathed a little heavier, a little faster, opening her mouth several times, trying to think of something, anything she could say—

"Please," she said eventually, again breaking shamus tradition by begging. "Don't, please." She shook her head and felt tears rising.

"Shh," he whispered, swallowing himself as he approached her. "You're a beautiful woman. Don't make this any harder than it already is. Look, look…"

Eliza cringed as Collins grabbed the back of her neck and turned her around to face the wall-length window, the storm raging over valley and hillsides of untapped land.

"Look at it," he whispered.

Eliza looked. She looked past the vast openness to the distant skeletal beginnings of new roads, new neighborhoods.

"Look at the greater good of a man like me," Collins said. "All that I plan to build. All the good it will do. Homes. Families. Jobs. Look at all the land I will incorporate into this town. This is the future, Detective Lehman. The future!" He tapped the gun barrel lightly one time against her temple. "Such a shame you won't be around to see it…"

Eliza closed her eyes and pursed her lips tight. A tear fell, salty on her lips. "My partner won't go like this," she said. "I told him he couldn't come tonight because he takes it very personally about child molesters. He'll kill—"

Collins yanked her hair back hard and she cried out.

"You shut up, bitch!" he said, gritting his teeth. "Melissa loved me! I loved her! Just look at you, you wouldn't know, you couldn't. I could tell, the first day, the first time I met you…you're just like Diane, a frigid fucking bitch." Breathing heavy, he released his grip on Eliza's hair and gently pushed back a lock of it behind her ear. She whimpered softly as he brushed his fingers softly against her cheek, whispering in her ear. "But you truly are ravishing underneath it all. I know girls like you, women like you, so beautiful no man is good enough to touch you, to fuck you. Oh, the things I could do to you…oh yes…you'd love it…despite what you think…you'd love it. They all do."

The gun aimed at her temple, Collins used his free hand to unbutton the top couple of buttons on Eliza's white blouse. He felt her skin underneath, ran his hand down from her throat to the arch where her breasts heaved from breathing so heavy.

"Your heart," he whispered. "It's beating so fast." He leaned in closer and kissed Eliza's neck. His free hand reached under her blouse, into her bra, cupping a breast. "Make love to me," he said breathlessly.

"What—"

She didn't even see any movement. One second she was staring blankly out the window and the next, all she saw was black, pistol-whipped into darkness.

When she came to, she felt herself pinned to the floor. Collins was naked and on top of her, inside of her. Everything was blurry, but slowly the pain registered, the ache where the gun had been smacked across the side of her head, the tearing between her legs—

It was all a dream. Though she felt pain, it was dulled somehow, as if she was only visiting this body, seeing it from somewhere else.

Collins kissed her open, bare breasts, her throat, her face. She was too weak to stop him. She tried to speak, yell or something—but she just lay there in shock.

Eventually he finished inside of her, red-faced and grunting. He lay on top of her for a long minute. Eliza thought, wished almost, that he would smother her to death and this would all be done.

But soon he rolled off of her, caught his breath, and put his clothes back on—slacks, button-up, vest, tie, and suit coat—actually sprucing himself up in front of the window that acted as his mirror.

Eliza managed to flop to her side and onto her stomach, muster enough energy to crawl. She dragged her pants that were down to her ankles, her torn shirt almost coming off.

Collins noticed her from the reflection in the window as he straightened his tie and matching pocket handkerchief. He chuckled. "I don't feel proud of this," he said. "I just couldn't pass it up being as you won't be around much longer. And whew, you were…even unconscious you were worth it all, Detective. Nothing gets me like putting an aggravating woman in her place."

Eliza continued to crawl. Collins walked back around the desk and toward her with the gun in his hand. He stood over her, gun outstretched. "I truly am sorry," he said. He breathed slowly and shook his head. Eliza closed her eyes.

And then came the distant clamor from outside the suite door. Eliza opened her eyes. Collins's attention was diverted from her toward the suite outside his office.

"Chief Graves?" he called.

It was her chance.

"Suzanne?" Louder.

No answer.

By the time Eliza decided to make her move it was too late. Collins grabbed her up off the floor, roughly, like a rag doll, buttoning her pants back up and throwing her jacket back over her torn blouse, all within a rushed few seconds. He dug the gun barrel into her side, dragging her out the door to the suite.

She cursed her slow thinking again, but the panic was paralyzing. She hadn't even tried to fight when he dressed her.

Collins opened the office door and they walked out into the long corridor, menacing in its darkness, lit only with the muted glow of the back-up lights.

It was empty. Graves was gone.

Collins's grip on Eliza's upper arm was like a vice, and the gun practically stabbed through her flesh into her kidneys.

"Where the fuck is she?" Collins said.

As he whipped his head around looking for Graves, Eliza saw her chance and darted to the side away from the gun. He hung on to her arm but she used that same one to ram her elbow back hard into his ribs.

"Ah, fuck—!" He hunched back, wind-knocked senseless. His grip loosened, Eliza freed herself, and she punched him so hard across the face her knuckles cried.

As he stumbled and grabbed his nose that was gushing blood, Eliza didn't waste any time. She ran for her life.

Behind her Collins spit blood and howled: "Fucking bitch!"

Part of the wall disappeared in front of her as he fired off a shot. She dove around the corner and kept running.

Footfalls behind her. Rushing. Picking up speed.

The pain between her legs and the throbbing in her skull flared but she ran through it, tore around another corner just as a bullet tore into the marble wall inches from her head. She slid around another corner and another, picking at random.

When she felt safe she ran some more.

Around another dark corridor, lit by nothing but the bluish backlighting of the generator, she leaned against the wall and slumped to the floor. It hurt to do so and when she touched herself, she pulled back her hand to see blood. She swallowed back a sudden swelling of tears and tried to catch her breath. She took out the cell phone Graves had neglected to take off of her.

She started to call Andrew when she heard more footfalls, frantic and heavy but distant across the hallways. She waited a few seconds and they faded.

That was when she dropped the phone. Her hand was shaking so much she couldn't help it. She cringed against the loud clattering it made on the floor and hurriedly picked it back up.

She closed her eyes tight and listened for rushing footsteps.

There were none.

She swiped a tickle at her face and realized she was crying. The tears were silent but they wouldn't stop. Suddenly she was breaking down on the floor with silent uncontrollable sobs. She hadn't cried in years, decades.

She stopped only when she swore she heard something else. A different set of footsteps. Much more regular, methodical. They got close and then faded.

Graves? she wondered. No. These steps, they were somehow…different.

She swallowed. She had to distance herself further from both sets of footsteps before calling Andrew.

She took off her shoes and picked them up, swiping her face clean of tears. There would be time for that later.

She scurried away across the floor in her socks. She rounded another corner into another hallway, getting lost further in the labyrinthine corridors and even deeper into the darkness.

THIRTY-TWO

Chief Graves saw the tall figure at the end of the long corridor, a silhouette in the muted blue light, and immediately went for her weapon. As she did she fumbled with her pocket flashlight that fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

"Shit." A whisper.

By the time she had her gun outstretched with one hand and the flashlight atop the gun with the other, the shape was gone.

She walked quickly, gun and flashlight trained on the corner of the hallway where the shape had disappeared.

She heard Collins's distant call: "Suzanne?"

She'd get back to him later.

Around the corner she found no one, only a long vacant hallway like all the others in the building. She started to walk slowly down this one, gun and torch out.

In the dim morgue-blue light of the darkened corridor, she heard only a silent background hush, a whoosh almost, like the whispers of the night.

She took a few more steps, the hallway lined with doors and spreading out in two directions at the far end where a conjoining hallway ran perpendicular. All the corners and crevices were shrouded in shadow.

When Graves heard a yell that followed by a gunshot, she spun around. She didn't hear the door opening behind her until it was too late.

The strong hand that grabbed her hair became a fist and yanked her head back. In a single second she was pulled into a pitch dark room and the door swung closed and she dropped the gun and flashlight.

She only felt the cool steel of the blade on her neck for a moment before it carved a deep and jagged jack-o'-lantern grin across her throat. Her hands clutched at the fountain of spurting blood as she slipped into an unconsciousness made fast by the paralysis of sudden shock.

She felt herself falling. Darkness swallowed her whole before she hit the floor.

At the motel, Andrew was lighting up a cigarette under the awning outside even as horizontal rain came pounding at him through the dark. Noah came out, said he needed some air.

"Good luck finding it," Andrew said. "She okay?"

"Yeah. Watching TV."

"Are you okay?"

Noah shrugged.

A sudden gust of wind soaked them both. Andrew still managed to keep his smoke going.

"The only useful thing my father ever taught me," he said.

"What's that?"

"How to light a cigarette in the rain." He took a drag. "He was in Vietnam. Rained all the fuckin' time over there, he said." He nodded and stared out into the night and the pouring rain. "My mother, she said that's when he turned into a mean son of a bitch, when he came back from the war. Started whoring himself around town, took up the bottle, beat my ass most days whether I deserved it or not. Then one day he left."

"I'm sorry."

Andrew shrugged, kept staring into the night. A couple of dim streetlights did their best to illuminate things in the darkness. He lost himself for a moment gazing at the gravelly parking lot covered in deep puddles being pounded by the rain. The loose sediment that was a pathetic attempt at pavement was all mud.

He turned and watched Noah pull something out of his pocket and play with it a bit. It was a switchblade. With a flick the blade flashed out of its handle. Noah looked at it and closed it again.

"Where'd you get that?

"From a guy who tried to jump me in Des Moines."

"Nice."

"Here." Noah handed it to Andrew. "You like it? Keep it. I don't like it."

Andrew shrugged and pocketed it in his trench coat.

A few minutes later Sofia joined them. She gave Andrew a flirtatious smile that made him feel like a teenager again. She had wrapped herself up in a windbreaker, scrunching her face against the wind and the misty rain that immediately sought her out.

"I wanted to give Brittany a call again, see what she's up to." She had called Brittany earlier, late in the afternoon after she and Andrew had made love a second time. The phones in the room charged for anything outside of local calls.

"Sure. We'll walk you down."

The three of them made their way down to the main lobby and offices of the Hawkeye Motel. The manager, a husky bearded man whose nameplate gave him away as D. Baker, sat behind the desk and bitched about long distance charges.

Both Noah and Andrew remembered him. Baker had twice given Eliza and Andrew a room when they posed as a married couple in the early days of their Riggsboro investigation. And Baker had looked the other way for an underage Noah and Charlee hoping to pay by the hour on their wedding night.

"Hey," Andrew said to Baker. "This is a police operation. The chief said she calls who she wants."

Baker rolled his eyes. "Bad enough I got the storm ruining my business. That eyesore of a police car out there doesn't help either. Now you want several long distance calls. Why don't you just take all of my goddamn money?"

"Just put it on my tab," Andrew said.

"You bet I will." Baker waved a finger at him. "I'm writing a strongly-worded letter to the police department about all of this."

"Are we the only people here?" Noah cut in to ask.

"Just you guys," Baker said.

"All right then," Andrew said. "You take your time, Sofia. Don't pay Mr. Baker any mind."

"Yeah, yeah." Baker practically shooed Andrew and Noah out.

Back under the awning outside, they checked once through the window to make sure Sofia was okay and Andrew said, "Shit is crazy, the storm."

Noah nodded. "Hurricane Michelle."

"What?" Andrew lost him in the rain.

"The hurricane," Noah repeated, louder.

"Yeah."

"What's it doing here?"

"Huh?"

"The hurricane. This late in the season. Moving this far inland. You ever hear of that?"

Andrew shrugged. "Global warming?"

"Maybe, maybe. It's just…today of all days."

"Yeah. Bad luck."

"No." Noah shook his head slow, staring at some fixed point far out in the storm. "Think about it. A freak hurricane that just so happens to meet up with some crazy weather patterns in the Midwest. And causing all this flooding here when we're not even close to flood season."

"Okay."

Noah looked at him. "I just can't help but wonder if he knew exactly what was going to happen. Or that he even fashioned it this way from the beginning."

"No man could do this," Andrew said. But then he remembered his name written in that journal and thought again.

Noah's gaze terrified Andrew. "This isn't a man."

A visible lightning bolt shot forth from the sky and hit the large transformer on top of a nearby telephone pole. Power lines tore and spiraled off all directions, sparks flying. A roar of thunder drowned out the sound of the transformer tipping over to its demise, taking the pole down with it.

"Oh shit," Andrew said.

The entire thing came crashing down across the road, bringing up a torrent of water.

Street lights went out. The neon letters for the HAWKEYE MOTEL and VACANCY signs went blank. Behind Noah and Andrew, any light in or outside the motel died. Everything around them became enveloped in darkness.

Andrew was momentarily marveled by the site of the fallen telephone pole and the newfound darkness to notice the cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out. Eliza. He had practically no bars but somehow the call was coming through.

"You get that," Noah said. "I'll check on Sofia."

Noah disappeared into the darkened lobby. Andrew answered his phone—"Yeah"—just as Officer Uhl left his parked police cruiser in the corner of the parking lot and came racing up to the motel with his shotgun.

Sofia had been on the phone with Emma when the lights and line went dead.

She hadn't been able to reach Brittany. Brittany's parents said she had left a couple hours ago to go to Emma's, not much later after Sofia had last called.

So she called Emma. Emma was on her way to a house party, pre-gaming with some of her sophomore friends at her own house. Pre-gaming for Emma meant she was already plastered out of her mind.

"Sofieeeeeee!" she shrieked. "Why aren't you here?" Whining.

"Emma, you know I'm gone. Listen, can I talk to Brit? She's there, right?"

"Brittany? That bitch! Is she with you? I haven't seen…ho shit!" Emma was distracted by something. There were cheers and jeers and swearing in the background.

"Emma. Emma!"

"Sofia. You should really come over. It's totally fun."

"Next year. So you don't know where Brittany is?"

"No. Tell that bitch, you tell her…" She slurred off into uncontrollable giggles.

"Okay, well, Emma, listen. Tell her to give me a call if you see her. I'll give you the number to the motel I'm at. Do you have a pen and paper?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Yeah, it's fucking totally awesome here. I miss you though. Brit too. She was supposed to be Catwoman and I'm Poison Ivy. I'm so hot, Sof, you'd be totally lesbo if you saw me right now. Anyway, yeah, Brit, I don't know, I think she's just meeting up with us later. I can't remember right now if she called me or not, I can't really remember anything actually…" More giggles.

"Whose party are you going to?"

"Oh, you know—"

And then she lost her, the line going dead with a click and the lights going out around her. She was alone in the dark.

"Hello, Em, hello—" She repeatedly clicked the button on the receiver and got nothing.

"Oh man." The voice was the manager's, Mr. Baker. She heard his footsteps as he rounded the corner from his office behind the reception desk. "You okay, Miss?"

"Fine, yeah."

She heard the swipe of a match as Mr. Baker lit some candles and placed them atop the desk. "Fuckin' great," he said. "Tops off this lovely evening."

Sofia turned around and made a wide-eyed face behind his back. Noah came in.

"You okay?" he said.

"I think so."

"How's Brittany?"

"I don't know, I couldn't reach her. I talked to Emma though."

"How's she?"

"She's…Emma."

Noah's smile made her feel a little better.

"Excuse me," he said, turning to the manager, "Are there anymore candles or flashlights we could borrow for our room?"

"Why not?" he said with a sigh.

"Come on," Noah said to Sofia once they had a bagful. "Let's get back to the room."

He ushered Sofia out where they saw Andrew talking on the phone under the awning. He was wide-eyed and pale, Uhl standing next to him. "Go," Andrew told them breathlessly. "I'll be right there."

"Holy shit," Sofia said, eyeing the downed telephone pole in the street.

Andrew watched her and Noah reenter the room a few doors down. He ended his call and turned to Uhl.

"You all right?" the officer asked, all bushy moustache and intense squinty eyes.

"I need to go," Andrew said. "Stand outside and watch the kids."

"I don't take orders—"

"Tell them I had to run. Call in backup if anything happens." He was already backing out into the parking lot, soaked after three or four steps.

"Where do you think you're going?" Uhl shouted.

Andrew was speeding away in Eliza's car a moment later, out of the parking lot with a detour around the neighboring gas station, avoiding the collapsed telephone pole and transformer, sloshing through deep puddles as he drove off into the rainy night.

Eliza closed a door behind her softly and found herself in a dark stairwell. She leaned over the railing and looked down the few flights of stairs below. She felt vertigo. The steps were spinning. She took the stairs in her socks, silently and slowly, and that was when she made the call to Andrew.

She told him Diane Fischer had killed herself earlier that night and that Collins blamed them for it. She told him Graves was missing and had been working for Collins all along. She told him not to trust any cops because they were all in Collins's pocket. And she told him Collins had raped her and tried to kill her. He didn't stay on the phone with her long after that.

She continued her descent to the ground floor. She'd get there and camp out somewhere safe near the entrance, let Andrew in quick when he arrived.

After that they would grab the kids and get a safe distance out of town, stop at a hospital where she'd get checked out with a rape kit and cleaned up. The clinic here in town was too close, probably even the regional medical center in Grinnell. But at some point they'd stop and get the state police involved. She'd tell her story and Collins would be arrested, if that was even possible.

She wasn't sure where she was in the building now, in the center hive or one of the four branches. She hadn't been looking for signs or giving thought to direction as she ran. But she worked her way down and arrived on the ground floor, exiting the stairwell and closing the door softly behind her.

Two long corridors stretched out in a right angle in front of her, dark hallways with that hue of a blue backlight. She heard once that when given the choice of right or left, most people chose right. So out of principle she chose left.

She walked silently down the empty corridor. She found a bathroom and hid the shoes in the garbage can. She could move better without carrying anything. She wanted to clean herself up while she was there but didn't want to risk making any noise with running water or paper towel dispensers.

She stared at her haggard reflection in the mirror and touched her bruised face—her purple cheek, the thin line of blood that ran from her temple to her chin. Even now she thought about the swelling, about scarring, about being uneven and disproportional.

Back in the hallway she stumbled a bit before regaining her footing. She felt numb, as if she had forgotten how to walk and was only floating now. She wondered briefly if she was dead.

She wondered briefly if she was a ghost.

David Collins burst into the security office on the ground floor, trudging past a row of desks and chairs to the closed-circuit television monitors against the far wall, dozens of camera views lit up, screens alternating angles of every square inch of the complex.

He rested his hands down on the table in front of the monitors and breathed heavy, his eyes scanning the screens.

She couldn't have gotten out, he thought. Not yet. And where the fuck was Graves?

On a panel on the table in front of him, he brought up angles of the front lobby in the center hive. It was empty, as were the hallways around it.

He continued his search through the rest of the building, all the floors and corridors and rooms. He set the console to flip through images of the building's interior in a rapid slideshow. Casting a glance at one monitor that canvassed a long hallway, he did a double take. Eliza. No. Graves? No. It was a dark shape, a tall figure bending over a doorway as if dragging something. But he couldn't tell where in the building it was and when he retraced the views to find it, there was nothing. It had to be either Eliza or Graves, maybe even a trick of the eyes.

But when he came upon the hallway that could have been the one he saw, he hit pause. There was an odd marking on the floor, a wide, thick, uneven line. A trail. As if something had been dragged and left behind a dark residue.

"What the…"

And suddenly there she was. Eliza. Ground floor. South corridor.

She disappeared off screen and he did another sweep of the front lobby and even the outside grounds, empty parking lots and driveways made hazy by furious rain and droplets on the lens.

He ran out of the room with his gun in hand, leaving the door open.

But as he rounded the corner, he heard a sound behind him, a door closing. Peering back at the hallway he just left, he saw that the door to his security office had been shut.

Maybe it had been moving as he left, building momentum to close on its own anyway. That was all. Either way he didn't have time to go look.

She peered right and left into another hallway. Both directions were clear but she instead backtracked a few feet to an open reception area. She walked past the desk and found herself in a spacious floor of offices. She made her way down a narrow carpeted corridor, lined with a glass wall and glass doors. Though it was dark she could see through the glass to the other side where there were rows of cubicles, a string of offices, a large conference room, and an open computer lab.

Everything seemed much quieter here, this closed-in set of offices silencing that pervasive echo of the open hallways.

She was hoping for a shortcut by cutting through the offices. In the hallways she was open and vulnerable. It had occurred to her moments ago to keep her eye out for the cameras. Knowing Collins, he had back-up power with the generators for them too.

There it was. At the end of the carpeted hall, she noticed the camera in the corner of the ceiling, a blinking red light moving with the lens, turning toward her. How many had she missed already?

She ducked into a nearby doorway opposite the glass wall, finding herself in another hallway, this one completely dark. There was a back-up light on over the doorway at the end of the hall that did little to illuminate anything.

It was the kind of dark passageway she could make her way down unnoticed.

But when she was halfway down she heard it—a soft clanking, metal hitting carpet.

She froze and listened close. No more sounds followed.

She hugged the wall, feeling doorframes and doorknobs and wallpaper.

Then she felt past a door that suddenly opened.

She fell back, swept into the total darkness of the room.

Careful not to scream, she let herself hit the rug and immediately went into the fetal position.

But no one came for her. Everything was fine. The door had been partially open, allowing her to fall through. That was it.

She waited before getting up, in case Collins or Graves had heard her and were coming around to look. But there was no one.

She returned to the hallway and continued making her way to the end.

She peered out at the end of the hall, found herself looking back out into one of the main hallways, a blessed sign on the wall with an arrow pointing to the front lobby.

She exhaled and checked the coast, clear, began walking. A camera on the ceiling above was tilted away from her but slowly inching back. She slithered along the wall quickly before it could spot her.

But she froze when Collins appeared at the very end of the long hall.

He didn't see her. His back was to her as he walked slowly and stiffly, leaving a room and crossing the hall, disappearing into an adjacent open area. The fucking main lobby—shit.

But something was off, something—

It wasn't Collins.

This man was taller, wearing all black, walking too calmly.

She approached slowly, careful not to make a sound. Seconds passed like minutes. Eventually she rounded the corner to the spacious lobby, those large front doors in the distance like the pearly gates, a beacon.

Behind her was the elevator she took up with Chief Graves when she first came in. It seemed a lifetime ago.

The lobby was empty. The static scuffling of her socks against the marble floor seemed to echo in the large space. But no other sounds could be heard, no echoing footfalls, nothing—

A footstep. Right behind her.

Frozen, she turned only her head. A sweaty and disheveled David Collins stood there, breathing heavy, the barrel of his pistol pointing directly at her face.

A flooded section of road caused Andrew to hit the brakes hard. The car spun and he looked out the windshield through the furiously whipping wipers to see that the country road just disappeared in front of him.

He wasn't going to risk going through it and getting stuck, so he backtracked, taking a side road, speeding through a residential neighborhood. They still had working lights over here—

Nope.

Suddenly all the lit-up houses and streetlamps went out.

He pictured normal suburban families behind those windows and walls, husbands and wives with their 2.5 kids. He had a sudden yearning to be one of them, working a nine to five, taking shelter now from the storm, lighting up some candles and playing board games. Waiting out this whole mess.

But here he was, out in the world, up to his eyeballs in this shit.

He hoped the town had their doors locked tonight, that the storm was at least keeping them inside. Because somewhere a killer was wandering these streets, watching from front yards and side yards and backyards, waiting in the shadows, peering through windows, seeing who was sleeping…seeing who was still awake…

Later Andrew found himself back in the more rural part of town, meeting back up with his old route.

He sped up, more than he should have in this weather.

Eliza. I'm coming.

He roared through the outskirts of town, past sprawling fields of open prairie and fenced-in farmland, past farmhouses with barns and silos and frantically spinning weathervanes, past fields upon fields of crops that stretched into a storm-swallowed horizon.

In one cornfield, a tall scarecrow towered over the crops, a silhouette against the stormy night, arms outstretched as if he was the conductor of this nightmare, unleashing his fury on the helpless rows of corn blown to and fro in the wind and rain.

The scarecrow stood bold in Andrew's rearview mirror. Menacing.

Unyielding.

"Don't move," Collins said.

Eliza disobeyed. She spun around. Collins fired, missed.

Eliza drove her fist down on his forearm, loosening his gun hand. He grunted sharply. With her other hand she went for his weapon, got it, and with sweet vengeance whipped it hard across his face. He bellowed. She slammed the sole of her foot into one of his knees. He yelped, hit the floor. She pointed the gun at his head.

He put his hands up. When he spoke his voice broke and his lips quivered. "Please, please, you're not a killer. You're not a killer."

"No," Eliza said. "I'm not. Not tonight. Get up."

Collins swallowed and hesitated.

"Get the fuck up."

"Okay, all right." He got up slowly, wincing. "I'll do whatever you want," he bleated. "Please."

"You stole from me tonight," Eliza said. "I'm going to take back what's mine."

"What do you want?"

"I trust that somewhere in this building you have a safe. You're going to take me to it."

Collins frowned, shifty eyes darting about. "You can't do this to me. This is my town. I have cameras here."

"Shut up. Turn around slowly. We're going on a walk."

Andrew raced up the winding driveway to the Collins Development building, hydroplaning to a stop behind Chief Graves's police cruiser in the massive front parking lot.

He had his Glock out when he left the car, running up the sidewalk and granite steps to the main doors, quickly becoming re-drenched in the rain. The doors were locked. And he didn't have to waste a bullet to know that the heavy glass and titanium-enforced lock were not going to provide any give. A panel on the side of the doors told him he was going to need permission to get in, either by swiping an employee key card or someone unlocking the doors from the inside.

He had to improvise. He slipped and stumbled along the grass that edged the building, the slopes like a marsh. But along the black wall-length windows there was nothing that could be opened.

There had to be something. Wasting precious minutes traveling the exterior of the complex, he finally arrived at a loading dock behind one of the building's off-shoots, a guardrail and stairwell leading down to a basement door marked EMPLOYEE'S ENTRANCE ONLY.

The door was locked but it was an older model than the sleek newer doors. With a few kicks at the doorknob and nudges to the door with his shoulder he was in.

He quickly closed the door to the rain. He dripped all over the linoleum floor.

He was in a darkened utility hallway. One end seemed to stretch forever before getting lost in the darkness. In the other direction there was a stairwell situated close to a freight elevator. One set of steps went down to what he assumed was a boiler room of some sort, judging from the distant mechanical hum. The other set of stairs went up.

His gun was still out and ready. He took the stairs.

On the wall in the landing above was a large arrow pointing further up the stairs—crudely drawn in a dark red liquid. Fresh. Wet.

Blood.

Eliza—

He lunged up the stairs as if they were crumbling beneath his feet.

Collins led Eliza to the back of the ground floor, near where she had exited the stairwell. At gunpoint, Collins walked nervously in front of her through another dark and spacious set of offices.

In a cubicle filled with office supplies, Eliza spied an empty black duffel bag on the desk. She grabbed it.

Around the corner at the end of the carpeted hallway, they arrived at a large vault door.

"How do we get in?" Eliza asked.

"I have the key," Collins said.

"Slowly." Eliza took a step back, the gun trained on Collins as he took out a set of keys from the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket.

He fumbled with them and had a time steadying the right key in the hole. He turned it and eventually a number pad popped up on a small computer console above the keyhole.

"If you pull anything cute," Eliza said, "and punch in some code that alerts your goons or the cops, I'll fucking kill you where you stand. Understood?"

Collins hesitated but did nod. Finally he typed in a code and the large hydraulic door opened with a hiss.

"Get in," she said, noting several sets of cameras all around, watching them, taping them. She'd deal with that later.

Two walls of the room were covered in bank-like safety deposit vaults. On another, a large safe was built in.

"Open it," Eliza said.

Collins spun the complex dial, lifted a lever, opened the safe. Piles upon piles of thick cash money stared back at them.

Hands in the air, Collins said, "This isn't just my money. It's the company's. The people's money."

"Repay them out of your fucking salary. You've got it to spare." She held out the duffel bag. "Now take this. Fill it up."

Collins took it and began dumping in the packs of money, sweeping his arm in and getting as much in as he could at a time. He swallowed and breathed heavy.

"One wrong move and you're dead," Eliza said. "I'll put a bullet right through your fucking skull."

Collins followed orders.

Andrew arrived at the landing for the top-most floor and exited the stairwell into the dark hallway. Gun at his side, he searched the halls briskly but smart. The bloody arrow in the stairwell had pointed up. But so far he heard nothing. No Eliza, Collins, Graves—no one.

Blood.

More of it. On the floor, leading off in a trail from under the door of a closed room marked STORAGE. Andrew inched closely with his gun drawn and kicked the door open. Inside it was dark, but he could still see the large pool of blood on the floor at the foot of the door. Whatever happened started here.

He left the room and saw that the trail continued far down the hallway in the opposite direction.

He followed it. Whoever had been dragged had bled for a long, long time. The blood hardly faded as the trail went on.

"Close the bag," Eliza said. "Turn around and walk back out slowly."

Collins left the bank vault room holding the zipped duffel bag full with cash, Eliza behind him with the gun trained at his back. Closing the heavy vault door behind her, Eliza walked in back of Collins around the corner to the carpeted hallway outside the suite of offices.

When they reached the end Eliza said, "Stop here."

Collins stopped.

"Drop the bag."

He dropped it.

"Turn around."

He turned around. He met the barrel of his gun

"That should rebuild my business," Eliza said, jerking her head to the bag. "More than enough. But it's not all I have to take from you tonight."

"No…Detective…please…"

"I am a killer," Eliza said, letting a smile creep on her lips. "It's in all of us. We just need the right devil to bring it out."

"Please," Collins said. "You can't get away with this. You know that. I'll give you more, I'll give you whatever you want—"

"The story will read that you were an unfortunate victim of a serial killer who returned once again to Riggsboro," Eliza said. "No one will be the wiser. I have your money and I'll destroy the security tapes. You're dead, Col—"

Exploding glass.

Behind them a tall dark figure busted through one of the glass walls, raining crystalline shards. The shadowy shape seemed to glide as it emerged at the end of the narrow corridor, moving toward them.

In the split second Eliza allowed herself to feel fear and confusion, Collins took his chance. He ran. She bolted after him.

Out in the main hallway, Collins fled around a corner before she could get a clear shot. She chased after him but he had gained too much on her. Around the next corner he was gone.

"Fuck." Eliza chanced a look back at the darkened office corridor they had just fled from. The shape was gone too.

She looked back in the direction Collins went and started running again.

Next time she'd shoot first.

The trail of thick fresh blood continued into one of the stairwells. Andrew followed it all the way down to the ground floor. Upon exiting the stairwell, he saw that it continued down another hallway and around another bend.

"Jesus."

He took that bend and saw the blood trail weave off and disappear underneath the doorway to a room marked SECURITY OFFICE. But it also came back out of the room and kept going down the hall. For whatever reason the body had been dragged temporarily into this specific room.

The heavy door was unlocked. He pushed it open. Inside he saw the blood trail circle around the room and back out again.

He looked up a moment upon noticing the security monitors against the far wall situated over a table, dozens of terminals giving him access to every corner and crevice of the complex.

For almost thirty seconds, he saw nothing. Until—

Eliza.

He saw her dart past one screen, her face bruised, gun in her hand. In another, Collins ran, looking back often, his face also bruised.

Andrew smiled. "That's my girl." He spun around quick to leave, to help.

He saw for only a moment the tall shadow on the floor of the hallway outside the door.

Then the door was slammed shut.

He lunged toward it and grabbed at the doorknob. It wouldn't budge. He was locked inside. He shouldered the door. Useless.

"Shit." He took out his gun again. It would make a lot of noise but he had to get to Eliza. Firing off a round, he took off the doorknob. Fingering the place where it used to be, it was hot to the touch. Fucking metal, a titanium security door. Whatever was holding him outside still had the door bolted shut.

He turned back hurriedly—had to be another way—when his eyes caught sight of something on the floor. Underneath the table with the security monitors, at the tip of the trail of blood that had circled the room, there was a trap door.

He shoved the chair in front of the table aside and felt the slits in the floor that made up the outline of the hidden hatch. He lifted up a tile and found an electronic panel underneath.

It was another way out of the room.

But he needed a password.

As he thought about it he saw on one of the monitors a tall dark shape with its back to the camera materialize out of a corner and walk down a hallway, the image gradually growing smaller.

On another screen he saw the end of that elusive trail of blood. The body sprawled out on the floor lay in a dark pool that grew by the second.

Andrew got up from the floor and tinkered with the controls on the console, zoomed in—

Chief Suzanne Graves.

Collins ran until he slipped. Rounding a corner into the next hallway, he lost his footing on something wet. He tumbled, tripping over the body on the floor. He found himself on his knees, fighting dizziness, the first clear image coming to him that of his hands covered in blood.

Before him was Chief Graves, lying in a growing pool of blood that spilled from her open throat, her face ghost-white.

His breath momentarily taken away, he looked up at Eliza as she raced around the corner and came to a stop in front of the body. He didn't even think about getting up to run.

"Oh shit," she panted.

"That was him," Collins said. "Back there, in the offices, coming after us. He did this, it's who you said was here. The man who killed my daughter."

There was a large butcher knife lying next to Graves's body, the blade covered in blood. Collins stared at it, awestruck.

Eliza looked at the knife and back at Graves. She had to get out of here, end all this. She allowed herself a fleeting moment, a fantasy to a world beyond this night. When she got out of here, after this was all over, she was going to have sex with Andrew again. Patch things up and reinstate him full-time. They'd rebuild everything with Collins's money and maybe even go on vacation together. She'd never once taken a vacation in all her adult life.

Collins looked up at her with something like compassion and shook his head. "Look, there are bigger things here than you and me. We have to call the police."

"We both know if the police come you'll—"

Eliza never finished her sentence. Collins sprang up with the bloody knife in his hand and plunged it under her rib cage.

Shock.

The gun fell.

She stumbled.

Stared at the knife handle sticking out of her, at the deep red spreading across her blouse.

Back up at Collins.

He stepped closer, grabbed her by the throat with one hand and ripped the knife out her flesh with the other.

"Fucking bitch," he said, gritting his teeth and stabbing her again, driving the blade into her gut, over and over, twisting it, carving up her insides until finally she spat blood in his face and slumped in his arms.

She looked up into his eyes with a blank stare. Then she snarled, blood coating her teeth. "Fuck you, Collins," she whispered.

He pushed her body to the floor.

Eliza watched the blood pouring out of her. So much blood. Such a mess. She wondered who would clean it up.

And then she was gone.

Collins stood over her body breathing heavy for several seconds. He gripped the knife so hard his hand hurt. He looked down at his clothes. He was drenched in blood.

The next few minutes felt like a dream. He walked to the bathroom where he cleaned himself up, washing his hands and face and then wiping the knife handle clean. He brought it back to the scene, holding it with a paper towel, and dropped it in the widening pool of blood that lay between the bodies of Eliza and Graves. He thought about taking his gun back, lying on the floor beside Eliza's body, but decided against it. Instead he went back to the office rooms and grabbed the duffel bag of his money. He'd put it back in the safe eventually but right now he needed to get to the security room. He began to feel a real panic and fear. A psycho killer was still on the loose in his building. He kept looking over his shoulder.

The success of his conquest with Eliza had worn off quick. He had never taken a woman with such force before—usually they eventually succumbed and always ended up enjoying it. But all the stress afterward had ruined the mood. Not until he killed Eliza did a perverse excitement return. He was waiting now to feel a normal human reaction, the one society said he should feel after taking a life. But just like when he killed his father, he felt nothing. In fact, this time, thrusting the knife into Eliza's stomach and watching her die—something about it was akin to sex.

But now he had to focus, get rid of the evidence. When he approached the door to the security office, eyeing the blood trail that went both in and out underneath the door, he saw the blown out doorknob and its remains on the floor. The hydraulic locks on the secure door were still in place.

He wondered if someone tried getting in or was trapped inside. Something had gotten inside although he had no idea how. A key card was the only way to open the door. He took his own card out, beeped it on the reader, and gripped the hole where the doorknob used to be to pull the door open. He was beginning to think he should have grabbed his gun.

But the office was empty. He walked over to the row of monitors and located the terminal that would have recorded him murdering Eliza. He pressed stop and eject and waited for the VCR-connect to release the tape. But no tape came out. He reached his fingers inside.

There was no tape.

He fingered the other VCR slots. They all had videos running. Why the fuck—

On one of the above monitors there was a fleeing man in a tan trench coat over a white button-up and loose tie: Detective Andrew Daly, video tape in hand, running through the tunnels in the underground garage where the company cars were stored.

No. Not possible. He couldn't have gotten down there, how—

It was the first time Collins noticed that the chair in front of the monitors had been pushed away. The trap door underneath the table was ajar, the tile lifted with the electronic panel access showing a screen with bright green letters:

PASSWORD: *******

ACCESS GRANTED

Daly had figured it out. 6354772. Each number corresponded to a letter as on phone pad, the password a name, one he never thought anyone might guess until tonight: Melissa.

And tonight, Daly had just witnessed his partner's slaying and was now running off with the proof that Collins did it.

No. No. He had to think. Even if the cops saw it, Eliza had a gun in her hand, his gun—it'd be self-defense. But the gun wasn't raised. He struck before she ever could. But there were other tapes showing her chasing him with the gun. Yet other tapes showed him pointing the gun at her—in fact the earliest tapes had him making the first move. At least he kept no cameras in his office.

He grit his teeth and flipped over a desk that brought down many security binders and video cassettes and cases. "Fuck!"

On one of the other basement monitors, Daly climbed into one of the company cars, a nondescript black SUV that belonged to his security firm. He started it up and was on his way.

Each car had a garage door opener. He knew that Daly would escape out the back garage before he could ever reach him. He had parked down there earlier with his own SUV.

Collins rushed to the generator control panel on the wall next to the computer monitors, swung open the metal door and disabled the power to the garage doors.

But Daly improvised. On one exterior monitor surveying the grounds behind the building, Collins watched a roaring black SUV smash through a garage door and out into the rain, speeding up a ramp onto the driveway, shrugging off the debris of broken metal and glass.

Collins wasted no more time, hurrying down the hatch under the table, nearly tripping on the stairs down and into the darkened tunnels below.

He pulled out his cell phone as he reached the warehouse-sized garage lined with rows of black SUVs. He made the most important call of his life as he hurried over to the car for which he had the keys.

"This is Deputy Chief Jim Alcott," the voice on the other end answered. It was scratchy but Collins at least had a cellular provider that gave him service down in these tunnels.

"Jim. David Collins. Listen to me very carefully. I've nearly been killed. Chief Graves is dead. So is Detective Eliza Lehman. There are two killers, I saw them. Jim, one of them—one of them is Lehman's partner, Andrew Daly."

"Holy Christ. Mr. Collins, where are you?"

"I'm leaving my building now. Deputy, listen. He escaped in one of my SUVs, you know the ones. He's after me, so I'm coming to the station. I have a feeling Daly's going to know I'm headed there and will be coming there shortly. He's extremely dangerous, Jim. If you see him…" Collins waited, a theatrical pause. "Shoot to kill."

THIRTY-THREE

The candlelit motel room had the look of a romantic scene. Both Noah and Sofia did not miss the irony as they sat on the queen-sized bed and thought of their lovemaking experiences in this very room. Now here they were, awkward friends waiting out the night in a repeat love den.

After Andrew's abrupt departure, they had become bored and restless, cooked up in the room alone with all the action going on outside. They sat watching sluices of rain stream down the window, listened to the muffled pitter-patter of the downpour against the motel, made mindless conversation.

They were almost thankful for the sudden intrusion of Officer Uhl. He barged in without knocking.

"Everything okay in here?" he asked, equipped again with his shotgun. Noah and Sofia both sprung up from the bed.

"Fine," Noah said. "What's up?"

Uhl frowned. "Detective Lehman and Chief Graves have been killed."

"What!" Sofia said.

"Where?" Noah asked.

"At David Collins's office. Mr. Collins himself barely escaped. We just got the call."

"Where's Detective Daly?" Noah asked.

Uhl frowned. "Mr. Collins said he saw two killers. The details aren't clear at this point, but he said Daly was one of them."

Noah narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that Detective Daly is one of the killers. Everyone out on the street is looking for him."

"What!"Sofia screamed it now. "That's not possible."

"She's right," Noah said. "This is wrong. What is going on out there?"

"I know how this sounds," Uhl said. "Look, it's what we've been told. My orders are to make sure you two are safe. But I wanted to keep you both in the loop, make sure you know your enemy. Now I'm right outside the door. I'm going to call in some more units soon, when they've wrapped up at the Collins building. With Detective Daly and whoever else on the loose out there—"

"He's not involved," Sofia said. "That's a lie."

"Whoever's out there," Uhl said, "I'm going to make sure they're not getting in here. I'm calling in back-up. You'll both be safe."

Before they could ask any more questions, Uhl left with a curt nod. He left the two of them standing there staring at each other.

Eliza was dead.

Andrew gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel of the SUV as he cut through rain that fell like knives. He tore through town to the police station.

He would get there before Collins did, show the cops the tape of Eliza's murder, and convince them what kind of man Collins really was.

On the police scanner pegged to the dashboard of the SUV, a neat feature to Collins's security firm vehicles, Andrew heard his name. Associated with words like homicide, weapon, dangerous.

Collins had made a call and painted him as the killer. When he made it to that station, he'd be met by a blaze of gunfire for killing the chief. He was as good as dead. Even if he could somehow explain himself, Collins owned the police.

He listened to the APB out on the company vehicle he was driving and went for the bag of blow from his trench coat, powdered his nose to sharpen that focus. He chased it down with a shot from his flask, the car swerving out of the lane a bit, jerking in the rain.

He made a pit stop at a mechanic's shop where he broke in to steal a container of gasoline. Later he made a sharp, sudden turn when he saw a police cruiser a few blocks down roll past an intersection with its blues and reds flashing. He stopped for a moment on a side street and waited until it passed.

He took a few detours in case he was wandering into any traps and eventually found himself in the shadows of a one-way side street directly across from the police station. He turned the car's headlights off and parked close to the side of a tiny strip mall. The SUV was hidden in the shadows of the building and the leaves of a towering oak that had grown out of a thin patch of grass before the sidewalk.

The station was a two-story structure, modest by city standards but spiffy for a local department. In the current power outage it was mostly dark, only soft back-up lights visible. There didn't seem to be any activity outside, at least from what he could tell through the windshield and the pouring rain. A few empty police cruisers were parked out front, as well as a few regular vehicles in the side parking lot. One of those vehicles was another black SUV matching his own.

Collins.

"Damn it."

As he was thinking, he heard the scratch of heavy radio chatter over the police scanner: "Possible location on suspect's SUV." The rest was drowned out in static. Andrew looked around outside his vehicle but saw no one.

Another voice: "Say again, what is it?"

"Saw possible Collins security van. Can't be sure, but otherwise matching description of suspect's vehicle. Heading north on 384 by the old furniture warehouse. Iowa plates. Romeo, Echo, Victor, one, three, one, eight."

"Your twenty?"

"In pursuit."

"Copy."

About a minute later Andrew heard, "Failure to comply. I'm heading back south over the bypass, see if he heads back into town."

"Roger."

Andrew narrowed his gaze at the scanner. If he was parked in the shadows across from the police station and Collins was parked in the station parking lot, who the hell was out there in another company SUV?

The thought struck him: Collins had been followed down to the basement garage while Collins himself had been following Andrew.

The killer.

Andrew knew that stealing one of his cars was easy enough. The keys to all the company vehicles were kept in a metal cabinet in the garage with a flimsy lock he busted through with a few swings from an emergency axe.

If it was the real killer out there, it was the distraction he needed right now. He opened the glove compartment and fished around, found the registration and car manual, not much else. Then he was into the backseat, coming upon what he needed under a thick blanket: a phone book.

Phone lines were down but he had a feeling that the phone book in a Collins Security van was going to have exactly what he wanted.

And sure enough behind the yellow cover was a separate laminated sheet indicating important emergency contacts, including personal cell numbers of higher-ups in the Riggsboro Police Department. With Chief Graves gone, he would have to deal with her number two man. Eliza had told Andrew about him, a big guy all meat and business. And that was the mental image Andrew had in his head as he dialed the number for Deputy Chief James Alcott.

Back in the motel room, Sofia was sitting on the bed as Noah paced. She said, not necessarily to Noah, just to herself, in a trance, "She was here. She was just here. She slept right there. I just…I can't believe…"

"I know."

"We have to do something," she said. "Someone's framing Andrew while the real killer is out there."

Noah continued to pace, his eyes moving fast.

"This isn't right," he said. "This, all of this, it's a diversion. The flood, David Collins, Daly winding up a suspect. The killer, he—he's worked it all out this way."

"How is Andrew even a suspect?" she asked. "It doesn't make any fucking sense."

"Collins is dirty," Noah said. "He's somehow involved in the deaths and covering it up, framing Daly for it."

"Well, if you know that, we have to do something, tell that cop outside and—"

Noah shook his head. "Collins owns this town. No one'll ever believe us."

"Then what do we do? What's happening?"

Noah sat down on the bed, collected himself for a moment. "He's confusing us."

"Who?"

"The real killer. Look, when Charlee was alive, she told me once that she thought this guy had a plan. Her killer. And he did—he tricked everybody and he got to her. She thought I was the one he was after—but it had been her all along. She thought that because he killed—" He cut himself off. He froze, eyes widening.

"What?" Sofia asked. "What is it?"

"…Alison."

"Who?"

"She thought he was coming after me because he had killed Alison." Noah was looking off to a distant point, talking softly, thinking out loud.

Sofia stared at him. "What are you…"

"Brittany," Noah said. "Brittany is your best friend."

"Um…yeah…"

"When you called her, how long had she been missing? How long since someone had last heard from her?"

"Uh, I don't know, her parents said a couple hours. Emma said she had called, but…I don't remember—what are you getting at?"

"Alison Brown. She was Charlee's best friend. And he killed her first. It was part of his plan."

"You're not saying…"

"Lehman and Graves were just killed. Our killer, he's here in town right now. But he hasn't been all day. The cops have been looking but he didn't show up until just now. Now either he was hiding…or…"

"You think he got to Brittany." Sofia shook her head furiously. "No, no. She, he can't, he couldn't have…"

"It'd be about a two hour drive down from Waverly to Riggsboro. That about matches the time when Brittany went missing."

"No. No. She can't be dead, she can't, I'll call, I'll call her again—" Sofia charged toward the door.

Noah caught her and grabbed her shoulders. "You know the lines are dead. He did that too. I don't know how but he did it on purpose."

"What, why—what does he want?"

"This. He wants this. He wants you like this. This is his plan."

Sofia breathed heavy, looked him dead in the eyes. "Okay." She said it calm. "What do we do?"

He sighed and gave her one of his intense looks. She didn't know that in his mind he was remembering what Charlee had told him the night of her death: that he was in danger, that they had to run away together and couldn't tell anyone.

And now, a year later, he said to Sofia: "We're going to have to get out of here. Leave and not tell anyone."

"And go where?"

He frowned. She wasn't going to like it.

Deputy Chief Jim Alcott stood in a back room of the currently dimly-lit Riggsboro Police Station. David Collins III sat on a bench behind bars in protective custody in the station's main holding cell situated at the corner of the room.

Alcott stood over a two-way radio behind a desk and spoke into it. "Do I have units confirming that sighting of the suspect's vehicle on 384?"

"Negative, Deputy," a voice crackled over the speaker. "Checked the location. Still nothing."

"How about south on the bypass?"

"Negative."

"Keep looking."

"Ten-four."

Alcott threw the radio mike down. "Son of a bitch."

The three patrolmen in the room with him all met his gaze. Alcott still couldn't believe Graves was dead or that some out-of-town fucker was behind it all, masquerading as a private investigator, even offing his own partner.

Add to that the sight of David Collins holed up here for his own protection. He sat with his suit coat and vest off. His white dress shirt was covered in blood. He had a duffel bag of money next to him and a crazy story that Detective Lehman had jacked him up for it earlier that night. Maybe the detectives had been in it together from the beginning, and then Daly got greedy and wanted the money all for himself.

Whatever the truth, Alcott was going to find him and get some answers.

"I'm sorry about this again, David," he said, stepping up close to the cell. Collins removed two pieces of gauze from his nostrils and dabbed at crusty blood with a tissue.

"Whatever it takes, Jim," Collins said. Alcott noticed he didn't speak with his usual confidence.

"Have you heard anything more?" Collins asked.

"Possible sightings," Alcott said. "We'll be closing in soon." He heard the ringing of his cell phone from his pocket and excused himself. It was an out of town area code. He put it on speaker.

"This is Deputy Chief Alcott."

"Deputy Alcott. This is Andrew Daly."

Walsh, Sykes, and Shadrick, the three officers in the room with him, all shot up from their desks and paperwork, hurrying in a circle around Alcott and his phone. Collins, eyes wide, stood up and grabbed hold of the cell bars.

"Mr. Daly," Alcott said.

"It's unfortunate we have to meet like this," Daly said. "I know you're looking for me. But you need to be aware that David Collins is a liar. Earlier tonight he raped and killed my partner."

"Fucking liar," Collins told them, quietly.

Alcott held up a finger.

Daly went on: "Now. I'm willing to come in and talk. But in exchange for my cooperation, I ask for one thing: give me Collins. You're protecting the man you see as this town's most important asset, but I beg of you, Deputy, to see otherwise. I can show you the kind of man Collins really is with video evidence of Eliza's murder. The killer—the real killer out there—has been killing all these years because of this man. I believe I can end it and stop the killing. But if you choose to keep protecting him, I promise you more people will die. And it will be all your fault. You're in charge now, Alcott. What's it going to be?"

"Mr. Daly," Alcott said, "we will by no means entertain your demands. But we promise to listen if you turn yourself in."

Daly chuckled. "You're all fucking pathetic. Eliza trusted you people. We came to you to protect an innocent girl. If she dies tonight, it's on all of you. Just like Eliza. Collins may have done the act, but you're all responsible. And now your orders are to kill me. You're all puppets. All I ask is to let me have the puppet master."

"Mr. Daly—"

The line went dead.

Alcott breathed slow and heavy. He looked over at Walsh, the middle-aged cop hurrying to the radio to notify the outside units. Alcott turned to another cop, younger. "Sykes, let everyone else here know," he said, trying to think of how many other men he had here at the station—there was Roth, Steinhice, Evers, and then Sutton who was due back soon from a patrol. He turned to the third cop in the room, Shadrick, family man, ex-military, good at following orders and following them well. "Shadrick, check all exits, make sure this place is secure."

"Yes, sir."

Alcott looked over at Collins behind the bars, the man's face open, waiting.

Alcott sighed, left it at that.

After ending the call, Andrew took one last look at his cell phone and smashed it to pieces on the dashboard. After a call like that he was going to have to go underground for a while.

Running on cocaine and fury, he exited the SUV and darted through the rain across the street to the station. He hid in the shadows on the side of the building when he saw a police cruiser come off the street and pull into the lot, driving around back.

Andrew, breathing heavy, knew what he had to do.

A minute later, the recently arrived cruiser was parked in a row of spaces by the back entrance. A young male officer was climbing out of the car. Andrew approached silently in the darkness behind him, the rainfall muffling his movements.

When the officer shut the door, Andrew was there at his six. He covered the officer's mouth and shoved Noah's open switch blade into his throat.

As the officer squirmed and blood spurted from his throat, Andrew felt it running hot and thick over his fist clasping the knife handle. Flailing back in a brief struggle, the officer made several choking sounds before going limp in Andrew's arms. Andrew leaned over him as he brought him down gently to the pavement. He yanked the knife out of his neck and stood back up. He thought of his father killing Viet Cong during the war and wondered if he would be proud.

He didn't like this but the cops had had their chance. They were protecting Collins. Graves had revealed as much to Eliza by letting Collins try to kill her. Graves was dirty and so were all her men. All of them were complicit in Eliza's rape and murder. And allowing Collins to live for this long and get away with all he had over the years—every single one of them was an accomplice. In their complacency and silence all these years they were responsible for every life the Riggsboro killer had claimed.

All this had ever been about was Collins. While Sofia was now the current target, it all stemmed back to that bastard. He was the source. Go to the source and it all ends. He could do it. He could end all the years of this shit. And to do that he would kill anyone in his way. They were collateral damage, the price he had to pay to make all the killing worth something. To make sure Sofia, his Sofia, so precious and beautiful like her sister, made it through this night alive.

Besides they planned to kill him anyway. This was self-defense.

Bending again over the cop's body, he saw the nametag on the uniform—Sutton—and felt the first real sting of his act. The name made it personal.

But he had to secure that shit and keep going. He dragged Sutton's body into the shadows behind the station.

Officer Shadrick was sweeping a back hall with his gun and flashlight when he heard a sound around the corner in the next hallway. It was the click and hiss of one of the back doors opening, the sound of rain coming with it until the door closed again.

But when Shadrick checked the hall, no one was there. Walking down further he saw only wet footprints going around the next bend. He checked the back door. Secure. It was bullet-proof and pick-proof. Only way in was by swiping the ID every officer was given with his shield.

He turned the corner to at least take note of who just entered. He saw an officer who was having trouble trying to get into the equipment room, fumbling with his ID. Shadrick saw the nametag, but the face was not Sutton's. Hiding behind a messy head of long black hair, this guy had the look of a fiend, drugs and murder in his eyes.

Shadrick didn't have time to react before the uniformed imposter grabbed him, put a hand over his mouth, and drove him back to the wall. The next thing he felt was a blade being shoved deep into his neck.

Andrew kept his hand over the officer's mouth as his eyes bulged, blood running down his uniform from his throat. The cop gave up and Andrew hefted him up from under the armpits, boot heels squeaking along the floor as he pulled the lifeless body into the equipment room. He was careful not to let blood hit the floor and leave a trail. He eyed a security camera in the corner of the hall.

Inside the cramped closet a dim back-up light was the only illumination. He let the body drop to the floor. This one, Shadrick, had a wedding ring. Andrew sighed.

He looked up to the shelves of supplies around him. Secured service weapons, holsters, pepper spray, tasers, protective gear, radios, cuffs, batons, Sam Browne belts and belt keepers.

He nodded and several minutes later walked cautiously down an empty side hallway with the knife handle in his palm, the blade turned up and hidden behind the sleeve of Officer Sutton's police blues. He ducked furtively around each hall he crossed into, all of them also empty until he came to a pair of swinging side doors adjacent to the main squad room.

Peeking through a square door window, he spotted two cops, one older, one younger, the old one at the coffee maker in a break-room alcove and the young one walking back from a fortified door against the far wall. Andrew guessed that Collins was behind that door, protected by Alcott and any others still lurking about the stationhouse.

"Hey, I'm going out and check the monitors," the older cop said.

"Gotcha."

Andrew stepped back from the window when the older cop—big, heavy, bald—holding his cup of coffee, shouldered his way through the swing-open doors right into Andrew's grasp.

Andrew grabbed him and the cup of coffee fell to the floor. He covered the man's mouth and pulled him away from view toward the wall, knifing his throat like he did the others. The blade hit the jugular and blood sprayed the wall. Andrew flinched against some flying spatter, a few dark red droplets hitting his cheek. The hefty cop quivered and choked, sliding down the wall until he lay dead on the floor.

Andrew breathed and entered through the double push-open doors. The young cop sat at one of the many desks in the large room against the far wall. His back was to Andrew.

Andrew drew Sutton's gun and approached silently through the rows of desks until the cop began to turn around.

"Roth?" the cop said.

When he saw that it wasn't Roth, this young guy, Sykes, looked at Andrew strangely. Andrew kept walking toward him. Sykes's eyes went wide when he saw the gun at Andrew's side, the blood peppered across his face.

"Shit—" Sykes shot up and tried to go for his own weapon before Andrew reached out and grabbed him. He swung Sykes around and put him in a chokehold, pressing the barrel of Sutton's service weapon to his temple.

"Do exactly as I say."

Alcott stood in the secure back room manning the corner holding cell with Steinhice, Walsh, and Evers. The back room was a medium-sized version of the main squad room, just fewer desks and with the single holding cell that sat adjacent to a narrow corridor that led to the other holding cells. That hallway dead-ended at a fire exit. There was only one main door, and no windows.

There was a loud knock on the fortified door. "Sykes," the officer called from the other side.

"Get it," Alcott told Evers.

Evers was by the book. He checked the slide-out door window to make sure it was Sykes on the other side. It was.

Alcott turned and walked away into the corridor with the other holding cells. He had some emergency equipment in one that was currently acting as storage, figured he'd go get it now in case there were any surprises later.

When the fortified steel door opened to the back room, Sykes flew in as if pushed. It didn't take Evers long to figure out that he had been, a crazed cop-impersonator standing behind him with a raised gun.

Steinhice, a beefy bald cop who was all muscle and attitude, stood up and watched this madman shoot both Sykes and Evers without flinching, headshots on both of them. They hit the floor.

David Collins stumbled back in his cell, eyes wide. "No!"

"Shit!" Steinhice went for his gun, but by the time he grabbed it he heard three shots and looked down to find three holes in his chest leaking blood. He collapsed and joined his friends in oblivion.

Walsh didn't wait. He had his service weapon out right as the guy was turning in his direction.

Walsh fired three times, getting him in the chest before he could get off a shot. The cop killer crumpled forward, falling to his knees and then chest-first to the floor. Walsh approached the body slowly as Alcott charged out of the holding cell corridor, wearing his Kevlar vest and holding several more.

Walsh only realized then how fast everything had just happened—two, maybe three seconds. Three of their guys were dead, plus the killer. In that time Alcott had only been able to rush down the corridor from the storage cell to see what the hell was going on.

Dropping the vests to the floor and looking at the bodies, Alcott said, "Christ!" He told Walsh, "Check him. Carefully." He turned to Collins who was breathing fast and shaking behind the bars. Alcott said, "You hit?"

Walsh inched up to Detective Daly's body, gun drawn.

"No," Collins said.

"It's over," Alcott said. "We got him."

Collins exhaled, but then it suddenly caught in his throat. "No—"

Alcott spun around in time to see Andrew Daly become alive, thrusting his leg out and kicking Walsh's gun arm out of the way. He spun and pulled his own gun and pointed it at Walsh's face and blew his brains out. Blood and entrails spattered back on Andrew's face and all over the floor. Walsh fell to his knees, a gaping hole where an eyeball once was, then hit the floor dead.

Andrew stood up and immediately fired at Alcott, three shots that struck his chest and sent him flying back to the floor of the holding cell corridor.

He walked over to the caged Collins with a literal bloody smile. He wiped some of the blood out of his eyes and raised the gun through the bars.

"No—no!" Collins cried, backing up and ducking down.

Andrew smirked and then noticed in his periphery that Alcott had risen. With all the blood in his eyes earlier, he had missed that the deputy, like him, was also wearing Kevlar.

Before he could turn he felt a burning at his collar bone that paralyzed him in incredible pain. Alcott had gotten him with a Taser. A wire had shot out from the barrel and blasted high voltage hell right beneath his shoulder. He stood, immobile, grunting against the staccato crackle of the electricity.

He didn't make another sound as he started to fall back. He couldn't. Andrew hit the ground and met darkness.

Alcott approached his body slowly.

"Shoot him," Collins said, "Shoot him for real. Kill him!"

"Nah," Alcott said, breathing heavy as he bent behind the body, picking him up under the shoulders. "I want this sum-bitch alive. For now. He killed my men. Don't you worry, Dave. We're gonna fry his ass, just have some fun with him first." Alcott tossed the Taser away and took out his cuffs.

He tried to put one bracelet over Andrew's wrist as he felt a searing pain in his side. "Agh, damn it!" He touched blood at a point right below his vest where a bullet had grazed him. It was bleeding pretty good but it didn't look deep.

"You okay?" Collins said.

"Yeah." Alcott grunted, kneeling to a different position. "He just got me—"

Andrew came back to life again and drew the switchblade from his pocket. He shoved it into Alcott's throat.

"Jim!" Collins yelled.

Alcott coughed and convulsed, his eyes bulging. Andrew sat up and drove him to the floor. He whipped the blade out of Alcott's flesh and slammed his head against the tiles. The man's skull crunched and leaked crimson. He gurgled some last minute blood before he went silent forever.

Collins went into a crying fit. "Oh no, no, no—God no! Somebody—somebody!"

Andrew stood back up slowly with a devil's smile. He put the knife away and waved daintily at Collins. He bent back over Alcott and grabbed the key ring off his belt. For all the holding cells there seemed to be only one skeleton key. He put it through the keyhole of Collins's cell, releasing the lock and pulling back the door.

Collins backed into the far corner, shaking. Andrew walked into the cell.

"Please," Collins said. "Please."

Andrew took out Sutton's gun. As he raised it Collins shook his head furiously, tears streaming down his face. "No, no, no, no, no…"

"Shut up."

Collins still whimpered.

"I said shut the fuck up. Look at me." He lowered the gun.

Collins swallowed tears and caught his breath, looked at him.

"How does it feel?" Andrew asked him. "Knowing you're about to die? I'd like to know."

"I'll pay you," Collins said. "Please. There's money, there, right there—it's yours." Collins pointed and that was when Andrew first noticed the bulging duffel bag underneath the bench.

"Your partner, she took it earlier, said she'd take it to rebuild your business. You can do that. Take it all. I'll find more for you even. Make you set for life, make you a rich man. You'll never hear from me again."

"Oh, I'll be taking the bag. But it's not going to save you. You raped and killed my partner."

"Please…"

"Mmm. Is that what she said? Did she beg?"

Collins was shaking again. The tears returned. "Please, just, just don't…"

Andrew walked up closer to him. He grabbed the man's throat and put the gun under his chin. "Don't what?"

"God, please…" Collins wept, literally started to break down and sob, his face red and sweaty, the tears gushing now. "Don't kill me, please. Please…" He was hyperventilating, hysterical.

Andrew put the gun down again. Went so far as to toss it through the bars and out onto the floor. He backed up. "Like men," he said.

"What—"

Andrew stepped back, dukes up. Slowly Collins brought up his own arms.

They moved slowly toward each other in a hesitant dance.

They both faked each other out for a second before a quick punch from Andrew landed Collins square in the face. Collins tasted iron in his throat, fighting dizziness and another bloody nose.

Andrew grabbed him by the waist and drove him into the wall. Airborne, Collins fought back with hard knuckle-punches to Andrew's back. Andrew flipped him over to the ground.

Collins lashed out one of his legs and rammed his shoe into Andrew's knee. Andrew slammed his boot into Collins's chest and stomach, kicking him repeatedly. Collins grabbed hold of Andrew's kicking leg and pulled him close, driving a punch to his gut and then to his face.

As Andrew went down, nose bleeding, he took Collins with him. The two of them rolled roughly over the bench and crashed onto the floor, tearing clothes, scratching and grunting and struggling for the purchase to get a decent hit in.

Collins eventually got an advantage by grabbing Andrew by his long hair and ramming his head into the cell bars. He climbed on top of Andrew and grabbed his throat, started choking him.

Andrew turned his head and reached an arm out of the cell, stretching, his fingers a hair's length away from the gun he had tossed.

It wasn't going to happen. With a choked cry he drove a knee up and found Collins's stomach. Collins coughed and slipped off of Andrew. Andrew rammed his boot into Collins's face. Collins fell back to the floor. Andrew sat up and climbed on top of him. He slammed the back of the man's head to the floor but not hard enough to kill him just yet.

He took his time and wailed on him, swinging back punches one after another, destroying that handsome face.

As Andrew's hands bled and he grew tired, Collins's head swiveled around in all directions, his face a bloody pulp. He spit up blood and teeth and blubbered, "Please, please, I'm sorry, I'm fucking sorry, please…"

Andrew stopped for a moment, took a couple deep breaths.

Collins continued to cry. "I have a problem with women…"

"What?" Andrew said, panting. "The fuck did you just say?"

Collins rambled, his speech garbled with blood and tears: "It's fucked up, I know, but please, please, don't kill me please I'll do anything, God please…"

Andrew reached in the uniform pocket and retrieved his knife. He put the blade to Collins's throat.

Collins's eyes grew wide again. "No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! I have a family, a wife, a daughter, please—"

"A daughter?" Andrew said. "A daughter!"

He raised the knife high. Collins yelped one last "No!" before Andrew sliced open his throat and blood came pouring out. The man's panicked scream was a high-pitched gargle as he grabbed at his gashed throat. He squirmed and moaned with every ounce of strength he had left and all Andrew wanted was for him to stop moving. He stabbed him again, deep in the chest. Took the knife out. Brought it down again. Back out. Back down. Over and over.

He watched the life leave Collins's eyes, his bloody head lolling over to the side. Blood drained from his open mouth, his eyes still open and forever staring at a point far beyond this world.

Andrew stood back up, breathing heavy. He pocketed the knife and rubbed away the blood from Collins that had sprayed back in his face, up around his eyes. He looked down. The uniform he wore was covered in blood.

Everything was dead quiet now and he had a moment to collect himself. He listened. The roar of the pouring rain outside was merely a gentle rumbling against the building.

He knelt down and picked up the black duffel bag, peered inside and saw it chock-full of cash in neatly bound packs.

Eliza, I fucking love you. This was supposed to be ours.

He walked out of the cell with the duffel and took in the carnage around him. He found himself breathing even heavier. All this, all these bodies—it was all him. He ran a hand through his long hair and pulled on it just to feel something. The past few minutes, kill after kill after kill had felt like someone else was in his body and he had merely watched it all happen. Like he was possessed. He felt numb all over save for a heavy weight in the pit of his stomach.

"Oh fuck," he whispered, eyes moving over the bloody corpses of Evers, Steinhice, Walsh, and Alcott.

As the numbness faded, a splitting headache emerged. That rock in his stomach sprouted feet and began to crawl upward into his throat and then out his mouth in a torrent of vomit.

He grabbed one of the cell bars to steady himself. After that came tears, silent at first before they turned into loud sobs. "Oh fuck," he said, "oh fuck."

No. No. He had to contain that shit. They deserved this. They all fucking deserved it.

He had to focus. There was still work to do.

He wiped the tears away and willed himself to breathe slower. He made his way to the front of the building. A lobby with a reception desk was completely empty, the desk guy gone for the night. Andrew checked under the desk and around it, but it looked neat and immaculate, unoccupied probably since the last shift change. He then checked behind a door labeled ADMINISTRATION and found only a darkened floor of cubicles and desks, the entire room immersed in darkness. The lights had not been on and therefore no generator lights had ever replaced them. No one was there. He shut the door.

Next he glanced out the front doors to see if any more cruisers had arrived or were pulling in. But the parking lot was empty, the dark night outside a hurricane.

He walked back through the station to the back hallway and out the back door he had originally come through. In his parked SUV across the street, he dropped the money bag in the backseat and took a couple fingertips of coke, following it again with a long swig from his flask.

He grabbed his old clothes and the red canister of gasoline he had taken from the mechanic's shop. He shut the door.

Inside he went into the bathroom and stripped away the bloody uniform, redressing in his clothes and trench coat. He could hardly steady his hand to do his tie, but alas, he left it loose like he liked and didn't know why he was bothering with it anyway. He splashed a little soap and water on his face and wiped at some crusty blood with a paper towel. He washed the knife and Sutton's service weapon. He had left his own gun in the SUV the whole time.

He went searching until he found the room that held the security monitors. He took the videocassettes out of every single one and smashed them to pieces, tearing out the black strips of film and pocketing them.

Out in the back hallway and the main squad room, he began to pour a trail of gasoline, paying extra attention to each body. He continued the trail into the back room and the holding cell, wishing almost that he had left Collins breathing so that he'd feel the sting of the gas on his skin and the pain of burning alive.

He used the last of the gasoline to spill over the strips of film he then pulled out of his pocket and tossed to the floor. On top of the film he threw the switchblade. Then he tossed the empty canister aside.

Safely at the back door, he took out his lighter. He lit two cigarettes and threw one into the gas-drenched pile of tape. He took a drag on the other cigarette as he watched a trail of flames sweep quickly down the hallway and around the corner. He left.

From across the street, safe in the SUV, he smoked and watched the building burn. He drove around the side and then to the front—not leaving, not content, until he saw the entire thing on fire. All the windows eventually shattered, puffs of smoke and licks of flame reaching out into the night.

After a minute or so he couldn't afford to be there anymore so he drove away with his lights off. He turned onto a side street, casting one last glance at the burning police station he was leaving behind.

Police resources were going to be stretched thin tonight. He drove into the darkness and listened to the night around him.

More unnerving than if he had actually heard the wailing of sirens in the distance was hearing nothing at all.

"Requesting back-up," Uhl was saying over the car radio as he sat in his black-and-white, one leg outside the car door that was open to the rainy night. "This is Uhl, unit 201, I'm at the Hawkeye Motel."

"Reason for request?" another officer said.

"Because I'm all alone out here and the kids're scared. Just get some damn cars over here!"

"Not priority right now, Brad. Have you been listening?"

"I just got to my radio, what?" He listened to frantic radio chatter: "Situation down at the station." "Entire fucking thing is in flames!" "Any bodies?" "No one there's responding. Doesn't look good." "Just passed the fire department—they're flooded. It'll be awhile before we can get trucks."

Halfway across town, ten minutes after fleeing the stationhouse fire, Andrew drove the security SUV in the direction of the motel. He listened to all of this on the dashboard police scanner.

Meanwhile Uhl sighed and shook his head. This wasn't Riggsboro. He certainly hadn't signed up for this. He spoke into his radio mike: "Does anyone know how this happened?"

"Negative."

"Damn it!" He flung the radio down, only to look up through the rain and see a black SUV parked in the shadows on the side of the motel, right by the manager's office.

"Shit—" He got back on the radio. "All units, I got a twenty on the suspect's vehicle. Black SUV. It's here, 1214 Route 148, Hawkeye Motel."

"Copy that, over."

"I'm checking it out. I need more units and I need them now!"

Uhl left the car and shut the door, grabbing his shotgun and cocking the barrel as he trudged through the quagmire of a parking lot. He got up under the awning and checked through the window of the only occupied room to see that the two kids were still safe, looking like they were in the middle of an intense conversation. He carefully scaled the wall before reaching the side of the motel with his 12-gauge drawn.

The SUV's lights were off. Tinted windows prevented him from seeing anything, so he kept the shotgun raised, trained on the vehicle. He eyed the license plate: Iowa registration, REV 1318. Same as broadcast earlier.

Slowly Uhl checked the door handle on the driver's side. It clicked open without resistance.

He raised the shotgun inside.

The driver's side and passenger's side were both empty. He opened the back door. Empty also. He opened the hatch doors…

A folded strip of long metal barbs sat in the otherwise empty space in the back. Uhl took a closer look. He knew what it was. County and state guys came equipped with them in the trunks of their cruisers. A stinger, a spike strip, used to blow out the tires of a car in a high-speed chase.

He could only imagine what plans Daly had for that. And right now Daly was somewhere on the premises.

Uhl shut the hatch doors and crept along the side of the motel. He swung around to the back of the building, gazing out at the sprawling cornfield, crops shivering in the unforgiving wind and rain. He walked slowly down the back wall, sweeping his surroundings with the gun.

He came upon the other side of the building, also empty, circling back around under the awning in the front. He went stalking down to the front lobby and charged in, shotgun at the ready.

He went pale. "Fuck."

Behind the reception desk in the glow of flickering candles, the motel manager sat sprawled up against the back wall on his stool, a pair of scissors buried deep in his chest. His eyes were still open, his expression a mix of confusion and shock.

Uhl quickly jumped the desk and back to the manager's live-in room and office, sweeping it with his gun, checking behind everything and in the closet. Clear.

The kids.

He had to get back.

He tore out, ran down the awning walkway, busted into the kids' room—

It was empty. Everything was laid out like it had been, candles flickering.

"Hey—" He hurried over to the bathroom, checking behind the curtain to the shower, praying they weren't dead. That would be on him. But there was no one in the bathroom.

A sudden breeze hit him, a gust of wind with a spray of rain. He looked up. The curtain billowed from the wide open bathroom window.

No, he thought. He had just been behind the building and all the windows were closed. It had to have just happened—

"Shit." He leaned out the window with his gun. The back lot was empty. He thought of how long it had been since he was back there, a couple minutes at the most, but still enough time to get far.

He climbed back in and hurried out of the room, quickly checking the other room the detectives and kids had used—also empty.

He ran back out through the parking lot to his cruiser, got on the radio and yelled, "This is Uhl! Hawkeye Motel, 1214 Route 148. Sofia Sutherland and Noah Faison just went missing. I repeat—Sutherland and Faison are missing. Last check-up was two minutes ago so they can't have gotten far. Suspect's vehicle is still here but unattended and the motel manager has been killed. All available units respond now!"

Andrew heard this over the scanner and his heart sank. The second he heard that the third SUV had shown up at the motel, he had picked up his speed, the car barreling through half-flooded roads and neighborhoods.

But now—Sofia and Noah were missing. He wouldn't let himself think the worst, that they had been taken. No, the third SUV was still at the motel, Uhl had said. That meant that the kids had escaped, had fled themselves, but where they were going Andrew didn't have any—

He did have an idea.

Braking hard and whipping the SUV around in a tire-spinning 180, he felt one side of the vehicle momentarily lift off the ground. It came falling back down and he burned rubber, shooting off in a new direction.

Save for the radio chatter on the scanner, he heard only the constant falling of heavy rain that flooded the darkened ghost town, unleashed from a black sky into the cold and empty night.

THIRTY-FOUR

Noah and Sofia trudged through the flooded town in the rainy darkness. They were soaked, hair drenched and heavy clothes sticking to them, jackets offering little protection against the storm.

After fleeing the motel, Noah guided her through the myriad cornstalks in the farm country out back. A few minutes later they emerged far up the road, on the shoulder of Route 148.

From there he had them cut through a few neighborhoods, all of the houses pitch dark, quiet and locked away from the storm outside. When he could, Noah took her off residential roads and had them cut through backyards. He had a flashlight he borrowed from Daly's bag to help them along.

Many roads by now were submerged under several inches of water, the levels only rising. Floodwaters ravaged high against curbsides that tried to hold water at bay from overflowing sewer drains.

"I'm sorry," Noah yelled over the storm. "About all of this. We can turn around whenever you want to. I'm putting you in a lot of danger."

A squad car spinning its reds and blues wailed around the corner of the road. Noah grabbed Sofia and they dove for cover. They lost purchase in the dive and slipped, held onto each other as they tumbled down a muddy embankment.

Noah helped her up and any mud on them was soon rinsed off in the downpour. They found a less steep route back up onto the road and pressed on.

Sofia didn't complain once. "We keep going," she yelled. "I have to do this, especially if he's got Brittany. You're sure this is where he'll be?"

"Yes. It's where he wants to end all this. I know it."

They took the floodwall behind some homes and went around Hollow Hills to the Valley.

"And you can stop him?" Sofia said, taking Noah's wrist and looking him dead in the face. Her matted hair added to the intensity in her eyes. The wind and rain gave her the look of a war-torn solider.

"I have this," Noah said, indicating the weapon in his shoulder holster. "And this, most important." He tugged at the cross on his rosary that still dangled from his neck.

"Beads?"

"God."

She stared at him a long time and nodded. She slid her palm into his, tried to interlock fingers. He pulled his hand away gently.

"Seriously?" she said. "I'm not gonna try to kiss you again, just fucking hold my hand!"

Noah complied. It felt good. Safe.

It took them about an hour in the storm and they didn't rest. Noah recognized the hilly area that led down into the dense woods behind Sleepy Hollow Drive. Descending from the floodwall, he led Sofia through an area made marshy by the storm until they came upon the stretch of road that had been abandoned for years. Down that old road would be a haunted house, filled with the ghosts of Halloweens past.

Moments after Officer Uhl's call over the radio, police units all over town raced with sirens blaring to the Hawkeye Motel. A couple even missed Andrew's SUV as he pulled over to the side of the road to hide from them, his lights off.

About a half-dozen police cruisers roared into the muddy parking lot of the motel, the dark night awash in red and blue made psychedelic in the storm. They shut off their sirens as they came to a halt but kept the lights on.

Uhl stood under the awning with his shotgun and watched what looked to him like a circus of radio cars, cops swarming out of them like clowns. His eyes swept over them in a passing glance: Tierney, Hardwicke, Coffey, Wakefield, Meyerhold, Hannigan.

As they rushed up to him, he yelled over the storm: "The manager's body is in the lobby. These two rooms behind me are the ones the kids and detectives used today. Spread out and search the area!"

They spread out between the rooms, the lobby, the SUV, and the rows of corn out back.

Uhl grabbed a lanky rookie named Hardwicke by the shoulder before he went into one of the rooms. "Andrew Daly used this room. I want all his possessions, any evidence you can find, bagged." Uhl didn't beat any officers here in rank but he had seniority and everyone respected it. Hardwicke nodded and went to work.

Uhl sighed thinking of the paperwork that would follow this night. He wanted to be home sleeping. He wondered when and how it would all end.

On his way across town to Sleepy Hollow Drive, Andrew remembered the tape. He had the videocassette in the glove compartment that he had taken from the security room in the Collins building. The man was dead, but this town still needed to know who he was.

He took the tape and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his inside trench coat pocket. On it he had written the name and address for local reporter Clarissa Novak. He had kept her name and information as she was the one who had covered the Riggsboro murders and their investigations for the past two years.

Novak would thoroughly destroy Collins's legacy when she saw him killing Eliza on the tape. He had talked to her the last time he had been in Riggsboro, after Charlee's death, and she'd ranted about Collins's influence over the paper.

He found her home not too far out of the way on an oak-lined street of Victorian homes. He slid to a stop against the curb. From the backseat he pulled out Melissa's journal. He had had the good sense to make a hurried stop at Eliza's car during his break-out of the Collins building to grab it.

In his notepad Andrew wrote:

Abigail Phelan = Charlee McCool

Joanna Phelan = Sofia Sutherland

Talk to Neil Gerety

He ripped the page out and stuck it inside the journal. Novak would fill in the blanks and have no qualms sharing the information she uncovered.

He quickly ran out of the car and up the path to her front door. She had a slot for mail where he slipped both the tape and the journal inside.

He ran back to the SUV and sped off, his mind back on Sofia and Noah.

Officer Uhl's report over the radio held that the third SUV was still at the motel. That meant that if the kids were headed to the Phelan house, the killer was nowhere near there. At least not yet. Unless—unless the SUV was left at the motel and the killer, like Sofia and Noah, was trekking to the house on foot.

Andrew wasn't taking any chances. He drove like a madman deeper into the night.

In the candlelit motel room that the late Eliza Lehman had shared with Sofia Sutherland, Uhl performed the obligatory search with Officers Tierney and Meyerhold, all three with flashlights out.

"Uhl," the young rookie Hardwicke said as he came into the room. He stepped up and closed a notepad. "All of Daly's belongings are logged."

"Good."

Meyerhold—heavyset, older, and bald—lumbered over to Uhl, told him, "Daly's car is still at the Collins building. I just came from there. He abandoned it before he fled the scene in one of the company cars."

"It's still there now?"

"We ain't gettin' a tow on this night. But I went through it. Nothing unusual. Case files in the backseat, all about what he and his partner were doing in Riggsboro. Looks like someone might have gone through them though. Someone other than Daly. The window was broken."

"Anything missing?"

"Can't be sure."

"Nothing out here in the field," came a voice over Uhl's shoulder radio. Wakefield.

"Nothing out back either." Hannigan.

Uhl spoke into his shoulder mike: "Copy." He asked Hardwicke: "How's everything next door?"

"It's clean."

"Okay." He looked at Meyerhold and Tierney. "We done here?"

"We're clean too," Tierney said.

"All right," Uhl said, looked back to Hardwicke. "Let's have a final look at your room. Do a final sweep with everyone."

So the officers moved out onto the awning and then into the adjacent room that Daly had shared with Noah Faison. On their way, Uhl called over his radio: "Hannigan, Wakefield—I want everyone back at Daly's room. Debrief."

"Copy."

"Roger."

Uhl and the other officers met up with Coffey. The middle-aged officer was wearing latex gloves and holding a flashlight in the pitch darkness, wrapping up the cataloging of Daly's belongings.

By the time Uhl reached the back of the room and turned around, a soaking wet Hannigan and Wakefield entered. There were no candles in this room so everyone had their flashlights out.

"All right," Uhl said. "It's been about a half-hour. Anyone have anything? Anything outside—footsteps?"

"Not in this rain," Hannigan said.

Wakefield shook his head. "No sign of anything or anyone, other than the SUV which is clean outside of that spike strip."

"Okay," Uhl said. "We can't get the meat wagon for the manager until morning, or whenever this literal shit-storm subsides."

"Same thing at the Collins building," Coffey said. "We called in some men from Collins security to seal up the building. They all have cellular phones, said they'll watch it overnight until we can get someone from the coroner's office out there."

"What about Alcott and the others at the station?" Uhl asked.

"We still haven't heard anything," Meyerhold said.

"Okay." Uhl sighed. "What about the other rooms in the motel?"

No one answered. A silence hovered over the room interrupted only by the pounding rain.

Uhl said, "There's ten others rooms in this strip of motel. Did anyone search the other rooms?"

Hardwicke said, "Um, you didn't tell anyone to search the rooms, sir."

Uhl sighed and closed his eyes.

Meyerhold noticed the look. He was close to Uhl in seniority and spoke up. "All right, everyone. We search the other rooms next. We'll get the keys down in the lobby."

"Good," Uhl said. "And someone get on their squad radio and get the county guys down here. We need more manpower. I don't know what happened to Alcott and the others, but we don't have the luxury of being optimistic. We meet back here in ten."

Meyerhold said, "All right, let's spread out, a person to a room."

Hannigan and Wakefield were the first ones at the door. Wakefield turned the knob and found it stiffly immoveable. "The hell—"

Hannigan tried it too, even nudged the door hard with his shoulder. "Fucking thing won't move an inch." He looked back at the other men. Tierney stepped up to try it but before he could a puddle of water suddenly came rushing in under the crack at the bottom of the door.

"Shit," Hannigan said, as it hit his boots along with Wakefield's and Tierney's.

"The flood," Wakefield said. "It's coming in."

"How is it holding the door?" Tierney asked. "That can't be water pressure." He stepped forward and tried the door also. The doorknob would not turn.

"Wait," he said, backing up a step and sniffing the air. "That smells like…" He looked down.

Coffey stepped forward, eyes widening. "That's not water."

They didn't see whatever sparked it from outside the room, but suddenly flames shot through the crack at the bottom of the door and the gasoline-soaked floor caught on fire.

"Aw fuck!" Coffey yelled.

Hannigan, Wakefield, and Tierney—standing in the puddle—didn't have a chance.

All three of them went up in flames.

They howled and flailed in panic as the fire consumed their bodies. Everyone else started yelling and stumbling back. Hardwicke tripped and fell on the floor in front of the window.

The door went up in flames, smoke spreading. The room became oven hot, the smoke heavy.

"The window!" Meyerhold yelled, pointing. "Open it!"

Hardwicke was trying to get up. He reached for the window when suddenly the glass broke and a hand from the outside reached in, shaking a red gasoline canister, spewing out more gas.

Hardwicke screamed as the gas drenched him and the fire from the door caught him. "No, no, no!" He tried furiously to pat and kick the fire off him but it only spread. By the time he thought stop, drop, and roll, he fell into the puddle of inflamed gasoline and let out an agonizing final scream.

The fire worked across the floor and climbed the curtains and walls. Hannigan, Wakefield, and Tierney, crying their last, crumpled to the ground in the rising flames. The smell of burning flesh mingled with the smoke.

"Back up!" Uhl yelled. "Bathroom—go!" He grabbed his shotgun that was leaning up against a back wall and charged into the bathroom toward the window. He pried at the bottom but it wouldn't budge.

Meyerhold came in after him and Coffey stumbled behind him, hitting the dresser in a rush of panic, breathing heavy and fumbling with an asthma inhaler he took out of his pocket. He slipped to the ground, wheezing. Licks of flame found his boots and crept up his ankles as he squirmed on the floor. His eyes went wide and he started screaming. "No, no!"

Meyerhold yelled to Uhl, "The shower! Water!" Then he ripped the comforter off the bed and tackled Coffey on the floor, patting down his ankles and boots. Coffey squirmed in shock and sucked at his inhaler furiously. Meyerhold got up, coughing in the dense smoke that smothered him, blinded him on the way back to the bathroom. Had to get water, get back to Coffey.

Uhl spun the bathtub shower knob fast but no water was coming out. Same with the sink. "It's been cut!" he yelled. He grabbed his shotgun again and smashed the butt of it against the bottom of the window, shattering the glass.

From back in the room a sharp cry of pain came. Coffey—still lying on the floor. Meyerhold turned and saw through the doorway that the flames had reached him again. When he tried to crawl away the fire went faster and covered his entire body. He writhed on the floor, screeching. Then he pulled out his duty weapon and held it to his temple.

"No!" Meyerhold cried, but couldn't get out of the bathroom without being overwhelmed by the smoke.

Coffey pulled the trigger and his burning body went still.

Meyerhold coughed and coughed as the fire crackled and scorched like thunder, eating the room alive and coming after him. The smoke billowed into the bathroom and he couldn't breathe at all, was too big and too old to handle this. He keeled over on the edge of the bathtub, gasping for air that wasn't there, sucking in lungful after lungful of smoke.

"Hold on!" Uhl yelled, coughing himself, continuing to bust through the window glass with his shotgun. But when he looked behind him, Meyerhold had no more fight left in him. The big man had collapsed into the bathtub clutching his chest and was no more.

Uhl just screamed, smashing the gun at the wooden window frame between the two panes of glass. Though the young Sofia and Noah may have been able to squeeze through the bottom of their window, Uhl was a bit too big. He got the frame cracked and splintered until finally the wood broke in half and the rest of the glass shattered. He swept away loose shards on the edges of the frame with his gun and began to climb out. He stuck his head and half his body out the window, gulping in sweet night air and cool rain.

Behind him his feet caught fire as the flames slithered into the bathroom, covering the floor and climbing the walls, smothering the bathtub and Meyerhold's lifeless body. Uhl kicked at the flames traveling up his boots and licking at his pants. He tried desperately to squirm out of the space and into the open night, howling into the darkness. The fire spread to his waist. He cried in maddening pain and delirious panic. Smoke flooded out the window into the rainy night as he continued to scream and his flesh turned red as a steamed lobster and began to blister. He was stuck and no longer had the strength to move, hanging limp out of the window, the consuming fire reaching out into the night for the rest of him.

The last thing he saw before the blaze overtook him was a tall shadow in the midst of the smoke. Just standing there. Still. Watching him die.

He wondered if it was Death waiting for him at the gates of hell.

The roads were too far gone and Andrew could no longer get around them. Deeper into the valley town, coming upon the actual Valley neighborhood, he drove the SUV through water that was a foot deep.

A bridge over a small brook had collapsed and he had to make a detour. Another road was blocked off by a fallen power line. And still another road dead-ended at a section of floodwall. He tried to run the SUV up it, but the tires only kicked up mud. The vehicle slipped back down. Then when he tried to back up onto the road, the rear tires spun and would not budge.

"Fuck me."

It took several maneuvers but finally he broke free, speeding back with a spin onto the road.

The only other way to Sleepy Hollow was a country road that swung around Hollow Hills and then weaved in toward the Valley. From there he could go on foot if he had to.

He didn't waste any time. He flew down the road. The silence on the police scanner was loud. For the last several minutes no one had used the frequency at all.

He was glancing down at the scanner when a black SUV barreled into his passenger side.

The doors caved in and the windows exploded.

Andrew went face-first into the steering wheel.

His car settled off the road, smoking. Andrew coughed blood and blinked several times, his world spinning black and blue and red.

"Fuck." His voice was wet with a mouthful of blood that spilled down his chin.

He spit more blood, wiped his mouth. He looked out the driver's side window and saw himself on the edge of a steep embankment, watery darkness far below.

Then he looked out the totaled passenger side…

The third SUV.

It sat there with its lights off, dented grill steaming.

Then its lights turned on.

The engine revved and tires spun and the car charged forward.

Andrew screamed.

There was the boom of impact and then his car toppled. It came crashing down against the hill and began rolling. Andrew tumbled about in his cage of banging steel and shattering glass.

He landed upside down, hitting the deep floodwaters with a massive splash.

Water burst through the busted windows as he hung there helpless, blood running into his eyes. The car was sinking fast.

He held his breath as the torrent of water enveloped him. In the muffled silence underwater, he struggled with the seatbelt, clicked it loose, and swam over the seats to the back of the vehicle. He was completely below the surface of the water now, trapped, the car continuing its plunge.

The one way out was the double-back doors. He pushed on the door handle. The water pressure was too much. He banged with his fists and slammed his shoulder into the already splintered windows. Nothing.

He grabbed the suit hangers above the backdoors for leverage and kicked. A few kicks later the glass shattered.

It made things worse. A surge of pressure blasted him as he tried to swim out. He fought for a grip on the sides of the window and lost it.

He was sucked back down. He groaned, searching for a breath in all the effort and panic. Water flooded his mouth and nose and lungs. There was burning pain in his head and chest and bright lights popped before his eyes.

I failed you, Sofia.

He could no longer see the surface as he descended into darkness.

I failed you like I failed Eliza. Like I failed Charlee. I'm sorry.

Unconsciousness swallowed him whole.

I'm so sorry.

Then nothing.

Noah had never been here before.

In his time living in Riggsboro he had heard the legend of Sleepy Hollow Drive, the couple that was murdered years ago and the mythical killer that still prowled the woods back where the house still stood. But never once had he ventured there himself.

Still he knew the way. His hand on Sofia's as they trudged through the muddy wooded area behind Sleepy Hollow, he suddenly felt the scuffle of his shoes against rough old pavement.

"'…though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," he was reciting, "I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies…'"

"Noah," Sofia said. "Up there."

Accompanied by a flash of lightning, he looked where Sofia was pointing. Past some oak trees and up on a nearby hillside that curved into the eventual shape of the floodwall, a large car was parked.

Trekking up the hillside away from the direction of the house, they came upon it. It was a smashed-up black SUV, the hood dented far in and the grill ready to fall off.

"Step back," Noah said. He took out his gun and aimed at the tinted windshield and car windows. He swung open the front door, swept the gun over the inside. Empty. He checked the shockwave radio attached to the police scanner, picked up the mic and noticed it was torn off. He tossed it in the passenger seat. He felt the ignition. No keys. He picked up a company binder that was in between the seats. The front said Collins Security Services.

"He's here?" Sofia asked. She wasn't far behind Noah, peering in.

Noah looked at her. "I don't think so."

"What the hell happened to it?" she asked, nodding at the crushed grill.

Noah shut the door, looked at Sofia, shook his head.

They walked back down the hillside, sliding at times in the mud and almost losing their footing.

Through the rainy darkness and another flash of lightning, the silhouette of the old Phelan home loomed in the deep valley below.

"Is that it?" Sofia asked, the small house as imposing as a gothic castle.

"Yes."

Noah held her hand the entire walk there, their fingers coiled tightly together.

"Are we going in?" Sofia asked.

"Let's look around first."

He wondered as they searched the perimeter if this was what Charlee had done one year ago this very night.

They went through the backyard and saw nothing but trees swaying in the storm and the muddy remains of a ruined back lawn. A stairwell leading down to the basement was completely submerged in water and another backdoor was locked shut.

"Oh shit," Sofia said, looking out into the back woods.

"What?"

"That—that's Emma's car!"

He looked where Sofia was pointing but could hardly make anything out in the thick forest obscured by darkness and rain. But as she started jogging in the direction of some trees, he noticed the outline of another car. He followed close behind.

The car was a gold Mercury Mystique and was parked behind a line of trees.

"This is her car," Sofia said. "This is definitely Emma's car." She touched the corner of the front windshield, a BC3 parking pass affixed to the underside of the glass.

"It's been here awhile," Noah said, "look. The tires are stuck deep, practically buried. That SUV back there looked like it was just parked. But this car got here before the flood got too bad. Maybe a few hours ago." He nodded, going through it in his head. "He drove Emma's car from Waverly to Riggsboro, walked over to the Collins building, and when he was done drove the SUV back here. Right in time for us."

Sofia stared at him. "He knew we were coming."

Noah looked at her. He nodded. Then he drew the gun and searched the Mystique same as he had the SUV. It was empty. And no keys here either. He popped the trunk. Empty.

That stopped him. No one had a completely empty trunk. He saw something and frowned.

"What's wrong?" Sofia asked.

He pointed.

Sofia saw it. The light was dim but there were clear dried droplets of blood spattered all over the fabric.

"Oh God…" She covered her mouth.

"Come on." Noah slammed the trunk closed and grabbed Sofia's hand. They went back toward the house. "I'm going to look through the windows as we go by," he said. "You keep looking outside."

Sofia nodded and they did just that. Noah peered through the rattling two by fours nailed to the windows as he walked and held the gun as Hagen had trained him. He could see only darkness inside. He thought about using the flashlight, but didn't want to make his presence known just yet. Sofia looked the other way, keeping an eye outside on the shadows of the night and the surrounding forest, her gaze continually falling upon Emma's car.

Before coming around the side of the house, Noah noticed something through one of the back windows. Inside the room was a dim light, casting little to no glow and illuminating nothing. It flickered.

"There's something," he said.

"What?" Sofia couldn't hear him over the rain.

"In there." Noah pointed. "I see a light. A candle or something."

Sofia cupped her hands above her eyes and peered through the window. She couldn't make out anything above a distant flickering flame.

The two continued around to the front. Noah made a path through the arching canopy of a weeping willow fluttering furiously at the side of the house.

Out front he noticed the memorial set in up remembrance of Charlee. Potted plants and flowers and homemade cards lay scattered about in the wind and rain. The cross with Charlee's name on it had fallen in the mud, an enlarged yearbook photo attached.

"It happened right here, didn't it?" Sofia asked, staring at the picture that was a spitting image of herself minus the hair.

"Yeah."

She could feel the anger and sadness in Noah's grip. She stared at him until he looked at her and she nodded. They walked up to the house. There was a large hole in the siding below a broken window in one of the bedrooms, looked as if a truck had busted out from the inside. A large wooden board covering it read RIGGSBORO P.D. NO TRESPASSING. Sofia checked around it with her free hand, but there was no way to get in.

The large board over the front door looked considerably older, the NO TRESPASSING written in faded print. Noah tried it. Bolted shut. Sofia dropped Noah's hand and checked a nearby window to the right of the door. She found a wide space between two flimsy wooden planks. It looked like people had crawled through it before.

Noah took out the flashlight, held it above his weapon. He aimed them into the hole and climbed in, Sofia right behind him.

THIRTY-FIVE

Across the stormy landscape of the county, darkness moved like a conscious entity, an evil so pure and total it settled for nothing less than total destruction.

Cell phone towers experienced a glitch and went down. Invisible waves across the airspace went dead.

Utility poles and trees collapsed. Power substations went off the grid, lost in the storm and the spreading darkness.

A gas line blew beneath a downtown intersection. A nearby line of stores exploded. A huge cavern opened up in the pavement.

Two ambulances turned sharply to avoid the crater and collided with a large news van coming from the other direction. The van toppled. One ambulance went on its side and the other's hood caved in and caught fire.

A slew of bodies chewed up and sprawled out inside the vehicles lay unconscious or half-dead, most on their way to whole-dead.

On a county route outside of town, a cavalry of Iowa State Police and Poweshiek County Sheriff's Office vehicles barreled their way through the rain-drenched night toward Riggsboro, lights spinning and sirens blaring.

A sergeant heading up the line of county sheriff vehicles tried to radio the other cars but got nothing. He said to the officer in the passenger seat, "Storm's cut the frequency out all over. How the hell…?"

In a state police vehicle far behind, another officer noticed the same thing. "There's nothing," he said to his partner. "We've lost contact with anyone."

His partner pulled out his cell phone. "No cellular service either. Towers are shot to shit and phone and power lines are down all over the county."

Also speeding into town, almost at the exit ramp on the highway, was a caravan of utility trucks and vans bearing the insignia MIDAMERICAN ENERGY.

A supervisor riding shotgun in one of the trucks kept flipping frequencies over the radio.

"Anything?" the worker at the wheel asked.

"It's not working, nothing's working," the supervisor said, stammering as he kept pushing buttons and flipping switches.

"Is that possible? Even in the storm?"

On their way to begin the long process of restoring power and repairing the damage to the ravaged town, they just looked at each other.

And then there was an accident.

The first truck in the lineup came upon the spike strip stretched out across the three-lane highway.

Visibility was low in the storm. By the time it was spotted nothing could be done.

The truck hit. Tires blew.

It pitched forward and flipped onto its back. Another truck hit that one and went hydroplaning across the highway, losing purchase and toppling onto its side.

A following van attempted to swerve—"Watch out!" the worker riding shotgun bleated—but they caught the edge of the falling truck and flipped. They were airborne for a moment and then fell back to the road rolling and crashing, cart-wheeling into the windshield of a truck behind them.

The drivers behind the windshield of that truck only had time to scream before the van crashed into them. They lost control and slid into the guardrail, sparks flying. Another van spinning in hydroplane pummeled them from the side. They burst through the rail and were suddenly flying—

The state police vehicle coming out from under the overpass below never saw it coming. The cruiser was utterly crushed by the falling utility truck. The falling van that had hit the truck followed, landing on its nose and smashing over onto its side.

"Ah shit!" the driver of another state police car screamed. He and his partner were coming up fast on the accident. He slammed on the brakes but the vehicle spun across the wet road and didn't stop.

"Daaggh—fuck—!" his partner screamed—cut off as they smashed into the totaled vehicles. They flipped trunk over hood, rolling over the other cars, and came to a crashing stop upside down on the shoulder, flattened.

Two speeding county sheriff cruisers a hundred yards ahead suddenly went down, driving into a spot of road that was flooded out. The vehicles did a nose dive into the water and two more vehicles smashed into them from behind. A third cruiser swiped the side of one and went airborne off the shoulder, tumbling down an embankment to the flooded plains below.

A chain reaction of police vehicles spun and crashed into one another. A large black utility van with the white letters SWAT pummeled into an already leaning utility pole. The pole splintered and cracked and started to come down, pulling live wires with it. Another car rammed into the gas tank of the SWAT van and was totaled, the hood popping off as the front portion caved in like an accordion. The smell of gasoline permeated the air. Those that were wounded and staggering out of their vehicles took notice. Gasoline dripping out of the SWAT van was carried off into the roaring wind of the storm, mixing in with the rain.

A power transformer fell and crushed one police officer, his scream short and stifled. The utility pole soon followed it, coming down completely across the hoods and windshields and tops of several cruisers.

Arcing wires danced about in the rain like an octopus stretching out its tentacles. The wires sparked and as they hit the ground and brought sudden death by electrocution to several of the cops. A spark found the trail of gasoline spilling out of the SWAT van—

The massive vehicle was all but vaporized in the deafening boom that followed, an overwhelming blast of fire, metal, glass, and heat that shot out in all directions, enveloping the night like hell on earth. Anyone still alive was killed.

The entire countryside of colliding vehicles seemed alive in death, in the sounds of screeching steel and shattering glass and burning rubber, noise that still seemed lost against the cacophony of the pounding storm, orchestrated by that force of darkness which filled the night with blood and thunder, fire and lightning—

And the abysmal screams of the damned.

Darkness.

The beam of Noah's flashlight swept the interior of the house. He took Sofia's hand and interlaced his fingers with her.

He shined the light around the vacant main section of the house, empty floor and walls covered in dirt and cobwebs, a musty smell particularly strong this very wet night.

The ceiling leaked everywhere.

He moved the beam of light to a wide doorway. With Sofia he stepped forward, scanning the flashlight around the skeleton of a kitchen as they walked through it. He checked behind the doors of an old pantry. He checked the back den and back door.

More disconcerting than the thick darkness and the pockets of shadows was all the space. More than being devoid of possessions, the house felt utterly devoid of life, as if it could never have been lived in. Whatever love had once lived here had been utterly sucked away by forces of darkness unknown, all traces of lived-in humanity swept into the chains of lost memories.

Turning around, Noah pointed the flashlight into a doorway and lost the beam down a stairwell into deep darkness.

The basement.

They heard a sound from below amid the pounding of the storm, something like whispering. It was only as they listened closer that they realized it was rushing water, the basement flooding.

As they backed up, Sofia noticed something as the flashlight beam passed over the floor back by the doorway.

"Shit," she whispered. "Look."

Noah rested the beam where she pointed.

Blood.

Red, dark, coagulated.

He found the beginning of the trail back near the front door. Walking out of the kitchen, they saw it move around the bend and disappear into one of the bedrooms. A dim flickering light showed in the crack beneath the door.

"The light we saw," Sofia whispered.

Noah nodded. He squeezed Sofia's hand tight. "Stay behind me."

She huddled close behind him. He aimed the gun forward with the flashlight over it. He inched forward slowly, breathing steady.

He tried the doorknob when he reached it. Locked.

He took a step back and kicked in the door. It swung completely open.

Noah raised the gun.

"Oh my God," Sofia said.

Four bodies lay across the floor in a neat row. Each one was covered with a blanket, and over their heads to mask their faces were jack-o'-lanterns. All teeth and eyes and evil.

Noah stepped in slowly, scanning with gun and torch. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling that opened into the attic, and on the far wall, a gutted area that had once been a closet.

He looked back at Sofia, nodded. He holstered the gun and she followed him in, breathing heavy.

The source of the light was at the front of the room, another menacing jack-o'-lantern smiling tauntingly at them, a flickering candle underneath. It sat atop an old ironing board that jutted out from its compartment in the wall.

Noah turned his attention back to the bodies and knelt down before the first one. Sofia stood behind him. He uncovered the blanket.

Underneath was the bloody body of a man who had been stabbed repeatedly in the chest.

Sofia noticed the clothes he was wearing. A beige suit coat, gray slacks, white button-up shirt that was now soaked in blood. "No," she said, "no…"

Noah pried the jack-o'-lantern off the body's head.

"Daddy!" Sofia cried, falling to her knees. "Daddy, no!"

Her father's face had no color. His eyes were open but devoid of life.

She scurried on all fours over to the next body, crying, "No, no, no, no, no…"

She ripped the blanket off the body and the jack-o'-lantern off the face. Hey mother lay butchered underneath, chest covered in dark shades of red over deep gashes.

"No, no, no, Mommy, no!"

Noah hurried across the floor and held Sofia. She rocked violently and sobbed. "Mom, Mom, please, no, no…"

He held her tight as she looked at the other two bodies.

"Do it," she wept. "I can't…I can't…" She knew Brittany and Emma lay dead beneath the other two sheets and she just couldn't. She crumpled forward in her kneeling position and cried.

Noah crawled to the third body and slowly removed the pumpkin head. He sighed heavily. Brittany's eyes were closed and her head lolled back as if sleeping.

Sofia chanced a look up from her palms that were covered in tears and let out a mournful wail. "Brittany, Brittany, no…no baby, please, no…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…" She blubbered nonsensically and took off the blanket, weeping at the blood spattered across her chest. She slumped, sobbing into Brittany's arm, her body heaving and her throat hoarse from crying.

Noah looked at Brittany's body and shook his head. "Merciful Jesus."

Sofia turned back to him and he held her again. Held her tight.

Then Brittany came back to life.

She shot up screaming, her eyes wide.

Sofia screamed as well before her eyes widened in relief. "Brittany? Brittany! Brittany, oh God!"

"Sofia!"

They dove into each other's arms and hugged fiercely, weeping.

Noah leaned forward, examining Brittany's blood-stained shirt. "You're hurt," he said. "How bad? Are you all right?"

Sofia pulled up Brittany's shirt and looked around for something to press against her wounds.

But there weren't any wounds.

"It's not mine," Brittany said, looking over at the bloody bodies of Sofia's parents. "It's theirs. He made me watch. He took us all here and he made me watch! I was pulling into Emma's, and, and he was the backseat! He took me, he tied me up, he—" She raised her hands and they saw the bloody markings left from where her wrists had been tied with something like barbed wire. "He knocked me out, I…" She touched the back of her head. Sofia felt it and noticed it was swollen.

"Oh God," Brittany said, "I thought I was dead…"

"Oh baby," Sofia said. "Get up, we'll help you. Come on."

As they helped stand her up, Brittany seemed to notice Noah for the first time. "What's going on?" she asked, shaking off the blanket, wiping pumpkin goo and seeds off of her face. "What is all of this?"

A knife shot out of the darkness and impaled Brittany through her back.

She drew a sharp breath and her eyes bulged.

Noah and Sofia stared stupefied at the blade that burst forth from Brittany's chest, at the blossoming flower of blood that soaked her shirt, at the shock and pain in her wide eyes.

"No—" Sofia stammered. She watched as Brittany was picked up off the floor by the knife. She hung in the darkness. Blood leaked out of her mouth and onto the floor.

The fourth pumpkin-headed body was behind her.

Alive.

The tall figure, shrouded in darkness, twisted the blade in Brittany's back. She moaned until gradually her eyes, lost of all light, closed.

Her head slung down. She was gone.

The jack-o'-lantern masked figure whipped the knife out from Brittany's back and let her fall to the floor. Sofia gasped as Noah pointed the flashlight beam into the malevolent, fiendish smile—that of a clown—carved across the dark shape's pumpkin face.

They watched as he ripped the jack-o'-lantern off his head and tossed it to the floor.

His face was the palest nothing and the darkest everything.

Noah's breath caught. This was the same thinghe had seen in the backyards of Riggsboro last year on Mischief Night. And it was the same presence he had felt in the campus library at BC3.

Not a man, no.

Pure, unadulterated—

Evil.

The shape stepped forward and raised the bloody knife high.

Noah grabbed Sofia's hand as she screamed. There was no time to think, no time to do anything—anything but run. They bolted out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them.

THIRTY-SIX

Outside in the dark corridor, Noah pushed Sofia behind him as they backed into a corner, edged up against the wall before the open vestibule in the front of the house. He shielded her as he raised the gun and flashlight at the closed door of the bedroom.

"No, no…" Sofia was hysterical. "Brittany! We have to go back, Noah, we have to help her—"

He held her back. "Sofia, Sofia, she's dead, she's dead. I'm sorry."

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" Convulsing in a teary-eyed fury, Sofia hit Noah over and over, pounding her fists on his back, his shoulders.

"No!" she cried. "You, you—this was your idea! You brought me here, you brought me into all of this! Brittany's dead—they're all dead because of you!"

"Sofia—quiet—"

But she sobbed. "How can…" She grabbed at the rosary draped over Noah's chest under his jacket. As she talked, she cried and spat and moaned: "How can you believe this? How could God do this? Tell me, goddamnit…" She faded off, weeping, shaking, breathing heavy.

"Sofia—"

"Fuck you!"

"Quiet—"

"There is no God!"

"Sofia!" He grabbed her rough, holding the gun with one hand now as he placed the flashlight under his arm and put his other hand over Sofia's mouth. He whispered in her ear: "This is not God. This is the devil. He's very real, and he's behind that door."

Sofia whined beneath his palm, struggling in his grasp. Her red cheeks were damp with tears.

"Look!" he said. "I need you to be quiet. When he comes out of that room he's dead. Now just stay behind me and stay quiet—can you do that for me?"

She calmed down, swallowed, nodded. He released her and again he shielded her behind him, returning a firm grip on the gun he kept trained on the door.

They waited.

Seconds passed and nothing happened.

They heard a momentary scuffle but it was followed by more silence.

"Where the fuck is he?" Sofia whispered.

Noah swallowed, waited a few more seconds, then whispered, "Hold this." He gave Sofia the flashlight. "Stay here and aim it at the door."

"But…"

"It's okay. Just stay right here."

She let him go and he inched slowly back down the hall toward the door. Sofia aimed the beam at the doorway. When Noah reached it he looked back at her and took a breath. She stood waiting at the edge of the hallway, seemed so thin and fragile against the murky obscurity of darkness around her. The thick shadows seemed to ripple like a gelatinous substance, threaten to swallow her whole, banish the light from her flashlight.

Noah looked back and pushed the door open. He swept the gun in all directions.

The shape was gone.

There were just the three dead bodies and their discarded pumpkin-heads. He backed out of the room and lowered the gun. He looked over at Sofia, her face open, waiting.

"He's gone," he said. He looked back into the room and noticed the planks across the window frame were missing. Wind blew into the room with a violent spray of rain.

"The window," he said.

"What?"

When he turned back to Sofia, a pasty white face had materialized behind her.

"Sofia!"

In the next second she was screaming. A strong hand pulled her hair back and a large knife was placed against her open throat. The flashlight fell to the floor and went out.

"No!" Noah raised the gun at the shape and got his face within his sights.

Sofia squealed in his grasp. "God, no, please…" The blade teased her throat, the heavy breathing in her ear a growl.

"Let her go!" Noah took one step forward.

The shape gave another pull to Sofia's hair and pressed the blade harder against her throat. She yelped.

Noah halted. If he took one more step she was dead.

"Let her go." He said it softer. Begging.

"Please don't kill me," Sofia said, tears streaming from her eyes, "oh God please."

Noah had to take a chance. She was dead whether he took a step or not.

He stared into the face of his wife's killer.

The mask.

The mask which was its true face.

How hideous the blank neutral features of a man.

Noah stared into those eyes obscured by the deepest darkness.

He had trained for this moment. He could shoot and hit only the shape.

Maybe this would be the most important moment of his life. Maybe he would end years of terror with one bullet.

He re-checked his front sight and rear, weapon trained dead on the mask.

He took a breath and it was too late.

The shape recoiled into the darkness like a phantom, Sofia's scream suddenly silenced as if sucked up by the house.

Noah bolted to where they had disappeared. He spun in place, the gun sweeping over emptiness. He fumbled for the flashlight on the ground and snatched it up. He clicked the switch a couple times and hit it against his palm, but nothing. He let his eyes adjust to the darkness and was able to look over the kitchen. Empty. He looked down the basement steps. No one as far as he could tell.

It couldn't have happened this fast. Not like this. It couldn't be over. Sofia couldn't be dead. He had to find her.

Upon a banging noise he turned back to the den and noticed the back door flapping in the wind. He ran over and opened it to the stormy night.

He realized this back door was the same way the killer came in to get Sofia after climbing out the window of that room. Now they were both gone into the night.

He sprinted out into the pouring rain over the sopping grass and muddy terrain. A flash of lightning gave him something to work with for a second. He could see within the thickness of the forest and the darkened crevices of the backyard.

But no one was there.

Noah's head spun. No one could move this fast. They had to have gone somewhere, somewhere close—

He turned and saw the concrete steps that led down to the basement's back entrance, the stairwell buried in water.

He ran over and jumped into the pool where the steps disappeared. Freezing cold like a thousand knives pierced through his jacket and clothes to his skin. Head and shoulders above the surface, he fished for the doorknob until it was secure in his grasp.

It was locked. He pushed against the door but got nothing. The glass windowpanes were further secured with two by fours. He tried to pry one off but couldn't. He peered through the top of the window, could see nothing past the grimy old panes but thick darkness.

He sucked in air and went underwater, taking the doorknob and shaking it. Something had it bolted from the other side, a strong plank or steel pipe or something. He gave up and shot back out of the water, lumbering quickly up the steps, weighed down by wet clothes.

He tore back over to the door and dove inside.

Sofia's world was a blur. First it was darkness. Then she was dragged out into the storm, raindrops stinging her eyes as she looked up and tried to see. Then it was water. She was yanked under the surface of the flooded stairwell, all-consuming cold washing over her, and she felt for sure that she was going to drown.

But then—air. She shot up from the surface of the water. It didn't go much higher than her knees. She took in her darkened surroundings and realized she was in the basement. She could see copper piping streamed along the ceiling beams and in one corner a hot water heater next to a rusty furnace.

She sloshed toward the stairs, her steps heavy. "Noah!" she called, her voice hoarse and drowned out in the roaring patter of rain against the house and the floodwaters around her.

She stretched her arm out toward the stairwell, longing for the railing. But a strong hand grabbed the collar of her jacket and pulled her back.

She squealed and spun around, staring at the stark white face, glaring black eyes, and frizzy brown hair of a madman.

A large hand closed around her throat and the other raised a knife under her chin. The shape raised her skinny frame into the air and kept the blade under her jaw. She was carried by one hand over to the far wall.

"No—!" she said, the cry choking in her throat with a squeeze from his hand.

He pushed her against a wall and as she squirmed she saw that on either side of her were steel shackles, thick chains hanging from clasps bolted into the wall.

When he had her pinned, he took hold of one of the chains. She fought but couldn't move under his immense strength. She could just stare at him looming over her, a towering hulk. Below his mask he was garbed in dirty black coveralls as a mechanic might wear. His large hands, preparing to fasten the shackles to her wrists, were marked up with the pinkish-brown hues of faded burn scars. The rippled flesh spread to his wrists and continued up his sleeves.

Before he could lock her in she heard Noah shout from the doorway atop the basement steps.

"Hey!"

A warning shot hit the wall far down by the old furnace, a rap as booming as a firecracker.

The shape turned around. He dropped Sofia in the water and stalked toward the stairs. Holding the knife up at his waist he took the steps.

Noah waited too long again. The shape didn't move fast but his presence was so utterly paralyzing Noah wasted valuable time just standing there with the gun drawn.

But then he fired three times into the shape's chest.

The shape jerked but kept coming. He raised his arms to grab Noah, bounding toward the top step. His big hands clasped the gun in Noah's grasp as he fired once more.

The shape jerked again and ripped the gun apart in Noah's hands, tearing the slide completely off the barrel as he fell back.

Noah stared at the half a gun in his hand as the shape tumbled down the stairs and landed on the last few steps.

He wasn't down for long. Sofia screamed. As he started to get up she ran behind him with a large two by four and clocked him across the head. He turned toward her and the next swing beat his face in.

He fell back onto the lower steps. Sofia raised the thick plank once more and drove it down onto his resting face with a mad grunt.

The shape moved no longer. Water lapped at his still body.

She dropped the plank and made a frantic move for the stairs. Noah held up a hand, whispering fast, "No—stop! He's still breathing. I'll come to you."

"No!" she whisper-shouted back. "He'll get us both. I can come to you."

Noah took a second to think about it. "Okay." He stretched out his arm atop the steps to get ready for her. "Be careful."

The shape was blocking her path completely. She took a breath and stepped in between the shape's legs, mounting the first step. She took the second step slow, her foot settling next to the shape's arm, knife handle loose in his grasp.

His fingers twitched.

She froze.

But he didn't move.

She took one more step, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Her foot landed right next to the shape's face.

And the rickety old stair decided to creak loudly in protest.

She froze again. Noah held up his hand in a halting gesture. His eyes were wide, face pale. Sofia kept her own terrified gaze forward and swallowed.

The shape didn't move.

Slowly Noah motioned for her to keep coming forward.

She wasn't wasting any more time. She took one more step—she was out of the shape's way now—and ran up the rest of the stairs. She reached out her arms to Noah as she sprinted, his own arms open and waiting until the steps collapsed beneath her.

The upper half of the stairwell crumbled under her sprint. She fell screaming and flailing and landed with a splash.

"Sofia!"

She shot out of the waters below.

"Noah!"

She was trapped down here with the killer.

But the fallen shape had still not awoken. He lay recumbent, water level rising ever so gradually.

"Can you get out the back?" Noah asked from above.

She was already ahead of him, sloshing through the water to the back door the shape had first brought her in. She tried the knob, pushing aside a pipe that held it bolted. Still it was stuck. She shook it but wasn't nearly as strong as she needed to be. It barely moved from the pressure of the water outside and in.

"I can't!" she called.

"Can you grab this?" Noah shrugged off his jacket and hung it below the open cellar doorway to the space below. She traipsed back over and tried to reach for it. She jumped. It was just out of her grasp.

"All right," Noah said, "I'm gonna find something, a rope or something, get you up here, okay? One of the blankets from that room."

"Go. Hurry!"

He disappeared from the doorway running.

Sofia glanced once more at the shape's body and then at her surroundings. Her eyes caught something in a corner opposite the furnace, a steel contraption that looked like a tunnel going up into the ceiling. It started a few feet above the floor.

A laundry chute.

She glanced back at the empty doorway, the light scuffle of Noah's hurried footsteps above her. She sloshed over to the chute and bent down to peer up inside. It was a narrow space, yet inside it felt like a massive cave. The blackness in the interior of the shaft was thick with shadows and layers of cobwebs.

She'd wait for Noah to throw down the blanket.

But in her periphery, she saw the shape rise.

He turned his head to look at her, rising slowly, dripping wet. His chest heaved and he gripped the knife tight in his scarred hand.

He began walking toward her.

"Noah!"

He showed up at the doorway and let down a blanket. It reached far down and she could easily have taken hold of it if she had been over there, if the shape had still been down—

"Here!" Noah yelled. "Run, now!"

But she'd never make it. The shape kept coming. He raised the knife. She missed a swipe as she grabbed hold of the laundry chute and swung her skinny body up and in.

Her athletic physique allowed her a graceful pull-up. She missed another swing of the blade as she disappeared up and into the dark shaft, climbing.

She froze for a moment as she was suddenly overwhelmed by the dirt and spider webs in her hair, her eyes, her mouth. She coughed and spit and sneezed. Had to keep going, keep moving against the narrow walls.

She pressed forth, moaning behind tightly closed lips, climbing into pitch black above.

"Sofia!" Noah called from the foot of the stairs. He saw her disappear in the corner and up some kind of a chute. Smart.

When the shape saw that she had just the thin enough frame to shimmy up the shaft and he could no longer pursue her, he lowered the knife and turned toward Noah in the doorway. He took a few long strides, grabbed hold of the blanket and yanked.

Noah pitched forward through the doorway but caught the floor with his hands before he could fall completely. His legs kicked into the cellar below, trying to find purchase against the wall. The long knife blade slashed one of his ankles. He let out a brief cry and hefted himself back up, a hand trying to grab hold of his shoe. He slipped out of the waiting death grasp and scurried onto the top floor.

He shot up, bolted out of the kitchen, and rounded the corner past the vestibule to the hallway of bedrooms. Pain seared through his ankle and he had to limp. Blood ran down into his already wet socks and shoes.

He tried to quickly gauge where the laundry chute would come up on this floor.

The master bedroom.

Busting through the door at the end of the hall he was greeted by the storm. Heavy gusts of rain carried by the wind worked around the large board that semi-covered the busted-out window and hole in the wall. Noah scanned the walls, the floor, looking for any kind of small door or hatch.

Into the walk-in closet he quickly peered up the attic stairwell into the darkness above. He then heard a series of muffled thuds and moans from inside the wall, getting louder.

He found the small chute door opposite the entrance to the attic, pulled the rusted handle and yanked it open, a puff of dirt shooting into his face. He coughed.

"Sofia!" He reached his hand down into the webby darkness.

A desperate hand grabbed his. He made it two hands, reaching them both in and pulling her out of the narrow opening as she coughed and spit and screamed, covered in white-gray dirt and cobwebs. Two spiders scurried across her face and into her hair and she yelped, swiping at her face and pulling at her hair.

Noah dragged her the rest of the way out. Together they collapsed on the closet floor. Sofia kept brushing herself off. Noah helped, running his hands through her hair and then cupping her cheeks to let her know she was clean and safe.

"Where is he?" she spat.

"Downstairs. Steps are cut off and he's too big for the chute. Only way out is that back door."

Suddenly a rumbling beneath their feet. The ground shook, floorboards rustling.

"Come on." Noah grabbed Sofia's hand and hurried her out into the master bedroom proper and toward the hallway. He bent his foot in a bad way and the sliced ankle seared again. He groaned and fell to one knee.

Sofia bent down, examining his ankle. "You're hurt."

"I'll be fine," he said as she helped him get up. "Let's just get—"

And suddenly the floor opened up beneath them.

"Go!" Noah pushed Sofia to the door as the floorboards crumbled in front of them. Sofia leapt over the widening chasm that suddenly opened beneath her. She was airborne for a moment over the abysmal darkness below, the shape in the basement wielding a long chain as a lasso and hitting the copper ceiling pipes, tearing them out, bringing the upper floor down with it—

She landed hard in the doorway. On her side she looked back at Noah the same moment the floor underneath him completely collapsed and he went down with it into the basement below.

"Noah!"

She heard a loud splash.

"Noah!"

The thunderous rumble of the breaking floorboards over now, she scurried to the edge of the gaping hole in the floor and peered into the watery darkness below.

She heard splashing but could see neither Noah nor the shape in the dark. She wondered if Noah was underwater now, if he was being drowned.

A sob broke through as she called his name one more time.

And then his voice came from the darkness below. She could make out his rough silhouette as he looked up and yelled, "Sofia, run!"

And she realized then that she couldn't see the shape because he was hanging onto the basement ceiling with his chain to one of the pipes, right underneath her at the edge of the chasm—

A hand shot out of the hole wielding a butcher knife, stabbing the blade into the floorboard, the shape gaining leverage and hefting himself up.

Sofia screamed. As she tried to crawl backward his other hand came up and grabbed hold of her ankle, dragging her across the floor.

She squirmed and kicked with her foot and then there was pain. The hand on her ankle twisted and she could hear the crackle of her own muscle and bone. She cried out, louder suddenly as he ran the knife into her foot.

Somehow she yanked her bleeding foot away and broke free of the blade. She aimed her good foot at the shape's masked head as it rose above the hole. With a loud grunt she slammed her shoe square in his face.

He jerked back into the hole but she didn't hear a fall. He was still hanging on either the chain or the ceiling pipes. And she wasn't sticking around to find out.

She stood up and fell right back down. The pain in her twisted ankle and stabbed foot coursed through her like electricity.

So she crawled, moaning, leaving behind a bloody trail on the floorboards as she pulled herself out of the room and along the floor of the hallway.

She heard the shape climbing out of the hole in the bedroom.

Then footsteps.

She turned her head. He was in the doorway, white mask and black eyes bearing down on her. He dripped water to the floor. The bloody knife at his side was tight in his hand.

He walked toward her, footsteps wet and heavy.

"No," she moaned, crying as she continued to crawl. "Please…leave me alone…"

As she reached the end of the hallway his large hand grabbed her bad ankle.

"No!" she cried, hysterical. "No, please!"

He spun her around on her stomach and began dragging her along the floor past the main entryway and toward the kitchen.

"No…no…" Most of her sobs were caught in her throat, tears streaming uncontrollably down her cheeks as she heaved in panic. She broke her nails digging into the wood floor as she was pulled.

In the kitchen the shape dropped her leg onto the floor and she saw that she was at the foot of the basement again, only darkness below where the stairwell had collapsed.

The shape pocketed the long knife and bent over and grabbed hold of her throat, pulling her up in the air, rough fingers clasped under her jawbone.

"No, no!" she cried, squirming as he dangled her tall skinny body inside the basement doorway to drop her. She punched the meaty arm that was so effortlessly holding her out, pulled up his sleeve, clawed at burned skin.

Then he knocked the side of her head into the doorframe. With his other hand he yanked back her hair and slammed her face full-on into the frame.

Her squirming stopped, moans becoming subdued garbles of blood in her nose and throat. It ran hot down her face. She looked at the shape blankly, his own blank face looking back at her.

Through the dizziness and pain she could hear his heavy breathing. He moved her up close to his masked face. He stared at her. Studied her. Tilted his head to one side.

She licked at a loose tooth and spit blood at his pasty white mask.

The shape didn't flinch. He tilted his head to the other side. His white face spattered with her blood was the last thing she saw before he smashed her head once more against the doorframe.

She was out.

Before her body could be dropped into the basement, a large chain shot out from behind the shape and swung itself around his neck.

Noah.

He was soaking wet and screaming as he pulled back with all his strength. When Sofia fell she hit the floor at the base of the doorway, missing the long drop into the cellar.

The shape whipped his head around as Noah pulled back the chains like a whip and slung them over his shoulder. By then he was ready with a large pipe he had torn off the basement ceiling on his climb up the hole in the master bedroom.

He drove it down hard across the shape's chest with a mad cry.

The shape stumbled toward the back of the house, out of the kitchen into the den.

Noah wailed on him. Beat him once more in the chest. Popped him in a kneecap. Threw one at the side of his neck.

But the shape kept standing. He stood in the den with his arms at his side as if waiting for Noah's next move. Letting him move.

When Noah stopped he just breathed heavy and stared at the unmoving shape. He lowered the pipe.

"No more."

The shape tilted his head to one side.

"You won't have her. Not like my wife."

The shape tilted his head to the other side.

"You killed her. You killed her!"

The shape just stared.

Noah relaxed. "I'm going to kill you now," he said. Calm.

Then he charged toward the shape screaming. "I'm gonna kill you!"

Noah ducked swiftly as arms lunged for him. He spun around and whacked the pipe hard into the side of the shape's head. He heard the sound of a splintering skull.

The shape fell to his knees but just like that got back up.

Noah swung back the pipe like a bat and pummeled him square in the face. The crunching sound this time sounded wet.

The shape staggered on his feet. Noah swung the pipe at his face again but the shape caught it with both hands, ramming it back at Noah's forehead. Noah fell back into the wall, the chains falling off his shoulders.

The shape held the pipe back like a spear and drove it forward. A dazed Noah still moved fast and spun off line. The pipe impaled the wall with a powerful blast of drywall and dust. Noah snatched up the fallen chains as the shape struggled with the pipe, stuck deep against a stud in the wall.

The shape turned his head just as Noah lassoed the chain back and whipped it forward. The chain hooked around the shape's neck, catching it tight. The shape grabbed the chain in front of him and pulled it, pitching Noah forward. The shape's other hand—massive, powerful, scarred—grabbed Noah's face and squeezed tight. Noah moaned, helpless as the strong grip shoved him, his body tossed back.

The pipe that was stuck in the wall broke his fall, and his fall actually helped to dislodge the thing, so Noah used the momentum he had going to swing around and pop the shape in the back of his knees.

The shape staggered again. He would have regained his footing had Noah not pulled back on the chain. It brought the shape to his knees.

Noah stood behind him and grabbed both ends of the chain wrapped around the shape's throat. He pulled.

The shape grabbed at the chains that strangled him but Noah pulled hard and taut, muscles bulging and face red.

The shape tried to move. Noah almost lost his footing, feeling the shape attempt to flip him over. He just pulled harder, wrapping both chains around his wrists for extra leverage. He grunted and cried sharply as muscles burned and the chains threatened to break his wrists.

"No…more….just…die!"

He pulled until he swore he heard the sound of the chain breaking flesh, going into the shape's neck.

The shape clawed at his throat until finally his hands loosened their grip.

They fell at his side and his head slumped forward hitting his chest.

Noah let go of the chains and before the shape could fall took hold of his chin and the top of his skull.

He snapped his neck.

The shape crumpled to the ground and did not move.

Noah stumbled back, breathing heavy, tears in his eyes as he rubbed his hands and arms and wrists.

There would be time for that later. He picked up the pipe and stood before the shape. He pounded him again in the skull. Again. Again. Again. Kept going until blood leaked out from underneath the shape's mask and out of his eyeholes. Noah's bleeding hands cramped up and the pipe dropped with a clang to the floor.

He stood there watching for a long moment as blood pooled around the shape's head.

Finally he staggered back around the corner to the kitchen and to Sofia. She was still lying at the threshold of the open basement.

He bent over her and checked her pulse. It was steady.

"Sofia," he whispered, touching a trembling, bloody hand to her shoulder.

Nothing.

He moved her head gently to the side and saw a bloody mess of matted hair. He sought out the wound. The blood didn't gush but it would need stitches. And it could be bleeding internally. He took out some tissues from his jacket pocket, wet and nearly crumpled now, but still he was able to wipe the blood off her nose and mouth and dab at the cut on her head.

"Sofia." This time he gently shook her.

Still nothing.

He took her in his arms and she began to stir.

"Mmm…what…what's…" Slowly she blinked her eyes until they looked into his.

"You're okay," he said, helping her sit up and beginning to pull off her bloody sneaker.

"Agh, please, no," she said as she winced. "My ankle." She took it off herself, gritting her teeth against the pain.

Noah peeled off her blood-soaked sock slowly and dabbed the wet tissue around the deep scar on her foot still seeping blood. She winced again, holding her aching head.

"I want to go to bed," she said, gazing into nothingness. "I'm so tired…"

"You could have a concussion. Stay with me, stay awake."

"I want to go home."

Noah said nothing, still tending to her wounds.

She continued: "But they're gone. Everyone's gone. I have no home anymore." Slowly she broke out of her daze and looked into Noah's eyes with madness in hers. "Where is he?"

"He's—" Noah turned around and looked into the den. A thick pipe lay next to chains strewn about an empty floor.

The open back door flapped in a sudden gust of wind, blowing in spatters of rainfall.

Not a man, he thought.

Then to Sofia he said, "We have to go get you help. Let's see if you can stand."

He helped her up but she cried in sharp agony as soon as she put any pressure on her ankle or her foot. She fell into his arms. "I can't…I can't…"

"Okay," he said. "We have to dress the wound anyway. You go out like this in the flood, you'll get an infection. But we have to move."

"Where are we going? He'll find us anywhere in here."

"Just someplace safe for now." He hefted her light body in his arms. He used to carry Charlee like this, spin her around and around as they smiled and laughed and kissed. Kissed forever.

Sofia felt just the same in his arms.

He carried her down the hall and stopped in front of the bedroom door opposite the room with the bodies. He kicked open the door softly, walked in, shut it behind him.

Adjacent to a wall with a boarded-up corner window was a long closet with folding doors. Each door had wooden blinds with narrow slits in between. Noah nudged one of the doors open with his foot and looked inside. It was dark, empty, and narrow. He lowered Sofia and lay her down inside. He went to the window and pulled hard, tore off two covering planks from where they had been nailed to the frame and placed them gently against the wall inside the closet. He checked the space in the opening he had created. If need be it was big enough for an escape.

He returned to Sofia's side and shut the closet door, closing the two of them in pitch darkness. He took off his belt and tied it around the inside doorknobs.

"He won't know we're here?" Sofia whispered.

"For a little while, hopefully," he said. "Just talk quietly. Let me see your wounds."

"Don't you need light to see them?"

"We can't, even if we still had any. It would show if he came in. Here, hold these against your head. Keep pressure."

Sofia felt for Noah's hand in the dark and took the tissues he offered, pressing them softly against her head and cringing again at the pain.

Neither of them said a word for the next few minutes. All was silent save for the muffled roar of the storm outside the window next to the closet.

Noah slipped out of his jacket and took off his shirt, ringing out excess water. He had a plain black tee underneath. After slipping his jacket back on he tied the long-sleeve tight around the bleeding stab wound in Sofia's foot. She winced and moaned.

"Okay," he whispered. "We'll stay here a minute, let your body heal a bit. Hold your leg up like that. Keep it elevated against mine, yeah, good. 'Kay, then we'll leave out the window there and I'm going to carry you, get help up at a house on the main road. See if they know someone that has a radio and who can call the cops. Get them to come down and find him and get you to a hospital."

Sofia said, "You don't believe it'll be that simple, do you?"

"I'm getting you out of here."

"No, I mean them finding him. He'll be long gone." She paused. "I need to kill him, Noah. I need to fucking kill him. I need to watch him die."

"They'll get him."

"That's a lie and you know it."

Noah said nothing.

Sofia said, "If we can somehow get him down again and I can get his knife…I can make sure he'll never come back. I'll slice his fucking head off."

Noah thought how it had almost come to that before. Now he doubted even that would stop him.

"Think about it," Sofia said. "Sure we could escape and hide from him tonight. But not forever. If we don't stop him now, who's to say he won't be back next year…for both of us. And maybe then we won't be so lucky."

Noah shook his head. "I should have gone by myself, not let you get hurt like this. I should've left you at the motel and gone alone."

"Like Charlee went alone?" Sofia said. "No. I'm in this. We kill him."

There was a heavy, pregnant pause.

"Okay," Noah said. "I'll do it though. We wait for him to come in. You stay behind me, here." He shifted his position so he was against the door and Sofia was pushed up against the far wall of the closet. They lay side-by-side, almost on top of each other. Their conjoined body heat helped warm their shivering bodies.

"He'll see me first," Noah said. "When he takes me, you go, crawl as fast as you can to the window and climb out of it. Okay? Do you think you can do that?"

She didn't answer.

"Sofia?"

He shook her.

Nothing.

"No…Sofia!"

She jerked awake.

"I heard you," she said. "Crawl, the window."

"I know you're tired, but you have to stay awake."

"Okay."

"Good. Now we should be quiet. Just keep moving a little bit, let me know you're staying awake."

After a moment:

"Noah." She said it lazily, dream-like. "I love you."

She didn't mean it. Or maybe she did. Maybe it was just that she had been enamored with him from the beginning and now it could be the end. Either way it felt right.

But Noah said nothing.

"I'm sorry about what I said to you earlier," she said. "It's not your fault. I just can't believe…I can't believe they're all dead."

"We should be quiet."

"Is it really true what you said, what you believe?"

"What."

She touched his chest, fingering the cross on his rosary, the beads. "This."

"Yes."

The conviction in his voice, his strength despite everything, that sold it.

"I'm not a good person," she said. "I've done things…"

"Nothing is too big for God. He forgives us through his Son, Jesus. Believe in Him and that He died for your sins on the cross. Ask Him for forgiveness. Then you're saved. Then you have new life in Him."

"But…I don't deserve…"

"It's not about deserve, it's about grace. It's free. None of us deserve it."

"Why did He allow all of this to happen?"

Noah shook his head. He could go on about the theological Problem of Evil, go into all manner of discourses and explanations as he would in one of his seminars back at school, but none of it would do, not now.

"It's…sometimes…sometimes there's reasons for things we may never see in this life here on earth."

She asked, "What's heaven like?"

"Don't think like that. We're getting out of here."

"Tell me anyway."

He gave it a thoughtful pause, then told her. "It's peace. Everything from this world will have passed on. Every tear you've ever cried will be wiped away. And there'll be no more suffering or pain. Just love."

"Your voice," she said, drifting, "it's like a lullaby, I love it…"

"Stay with me, Sofia."

"I believe you if you tell me God is real. I believe. I trust you."

"Trust in Him."

"You're so good. You're always saving me." She was crying now, weeping softly.

Noah was silent.

She told him, "Before you, I…I don't know. Then you showed up one day and it was like…like I'd never…"

"Shh. Don't try to speak."

A full silent minute passed. Sofia moved and fidgeted every few seconds to let Noah know she was awake.

Then Noah said, "Sofia."

"Yeah?" Even though it was Sofia talking, it was Charlee's voice he heard, that dreamy inflection of post-sex euphoria.

"You know that I…I love you too, right?"

Sofia groped in the dark, finding Noah's cheek, cupping it warmly in her palm as she had last night. "You're just saying that because you're a good Christian."

"No."

"I wish I could have been Charlee. I wish I could kiss you. I wish I could go back…I want to go…I want to start over…"

"Hey, stay with me."

"I'm scared, Noah."

"Me too. But hold on."

"Do you think we could…pray? Could we do that?"

"Yeah. Sure we could. Take my hand. Bow your head."

Sofia did so.

"Saint Michael the archangel," Noah said, "defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."

"Amen," Sofia said. "Thank you."

There was a loud creak and she froze with a gasp. It was right outside the closet door, and it was then that Noah realized it came from the window. The shape had been outside and noticed the two planks missing.

Now he was inside, having climbed right through the opening he had made.

His footfalls were accompanied by loud creaks as they passed by the closet doors.

Noah kept still and quiet. Sofia covered her mouth.

The footsteps faded as they headed to the front of the room. The door to the hallway opened. Then the footsteps stopped.

They turned around.

Started to come back.

Noah and Sofia could hear them right outside the closet door again. Once more they stopped.

Nothing for a moment or two. They could both hear muffled breathing over the muffled storm.

Suddenly the closet door shook gently. Noah's belt, wrapped over the doorknobs, strained slightly. The doors shook once more, a little bit rougher.

And then nothing.

The footsteps retreated and were gone.

They waited. Seconds passed of only silence.

"I'm gonna check," Noah whispered. "Hold on."

He slowly broke himself away from Sofia and got up on his knees, unwrapping his belt from the knob.

Slowly, quietly, he slid open the folding door and peered out into the dark room.

It was empty.

No one by the window, no one by the door. But the door was open now, the hallway outside filled only with a darkness vast and silent.

"Anything?" Sofia asked, looking up at him.

He looked back. "No, I don't—"

The closet wall behind Sofia exploded.

The shape—

He came busting through, boards of wood flying.

Sofia screamed.

He was covered in wood chips, dust, and drywall. It was all over his ragged black coveralls, on his blood-smeared mask, and in his shock of hair that was caked in blood and flew in all directions.

He charged Sofia, knife in hand.

"Sofia!" Noah grabbed her arm and threw her out of the closet, diving after her and swinging the doors shut.

The shape punched through the blinds and tore the doors off their old hinges as he bounded into the room with knife poised. He reached his other hand down at Noah's fallen body and grabbed him by the throat.

Noah clasped the meaty hand choking him.

"No!" Sofia screamed, clawing at Noah as the shape lifted him off his feet. "No! Noah!"

The shape pressed his masked face eye to eye with Noah. Noah couldn't breathe. He looked deep into masked eyeholes of pure blackness.

The shape drew back the knife. Noah looked at the long blade and cringed.

"No!" Sofia screamed. "It's me you want! Take me! Take me!"

The shape paused and turned his head toward her.

"It's me you're after," she said. "Not him. Take me."

"No," Noah choked, "no—"

The shape whipped his head back at Noah and tightened his fist around his throat, drawing the knife further back.

Sofia screamed again. "No! Take me, you motherfucker! It's me you want! I'm right fucking here!"

The shape tossed Noah into the corner. He crumbled, curling up on the ground as he coughed and writhed.

The shape walked over to Sofia with the knife at his waist.

"Noah, run," she said.

"No," he coughed, the breath caught in his aching throat. "No—"

Sofia managed to get on her feet. Though tears were racing down her cheeks, she looked at the shape calmly as he advanced on her and raised the knife. He thrust it down—

—and plunged it straight into Noah's heart.

She never saw him jump up and get in the shape's way. Didn't see him dive into the path of the knife.

But suddenly there he was.

Noah felt it—a sharp and sudden pain—and as he looked down he saw the handle of the knife protruding out of his chest and the shape's firm fist clasped around it.

The blade was completely buried.

The shape stared at him for a moment and then ripped the knife out with a squishy chopping sound.

Noah's world slowed. He heard Sofia's mad wails like a distant echo as he faltered back a step.

The shape grabbed hold of his throat before he could fall and drove the knife down twice more into his chest.

Noah's grunts were dulled to his own ears. Amplified instead were the visceral blows of sharp steel thwacking through flesh.

The shape pushed him to the floor and when he fell it seemed in slow motion. He hit the ground hard, but every sensation was dulled, each sound coming at him like he was in a tunnel.

Sofia was crying as she was on the floor again and crawling, dragging her ankle. "No, no, no, no…"

The shape stood over Noah's body with blood dripping off the knife.

As Sofia reached Noah, the shape raised the knife again. She waited, didn't care.

But then, inexplicably, he paused, freezing the knife as he drew it back. He stared at her for a moment, then at Noah, and tilted his head one way and then the other. He looked at the knife in his grasp and slowly lowered it.

He turned away and walked out of the room.

Confusion for just a moment. Then she turned back at Noah.

"No," she said, "no," becoming covered with his blood as she touched his chest. His shirt and jacket were soaked in it as it continued to seep out.

"Not you," she said, weeping. "Not you, Noah, please…please…"

His head lolled over to look at her, a trickle of blood leaking out the side of his mouth. He tried to say something but coughed on his own blood. He swallowed, tried to relax.

"Noah…"

He grasped the now blood-smeared rosary across his chest. He moved his head to the side and took it off, wincing as his body protested every movement. He lifted it up and slid it over Sofia's head, letting it hang from her neck.

She stared down at it, back at him.

"Noah, no," she cried.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, coughing up more blood, a tear falling out of one eye and sliding down his temple.

Sofia wiped his tear away and squeezed his hand. Noah lifted his other hand and brushed back her damp hair, running his fingers through it. He rested his palm on her cheek and she leaned into it, whimpering.

She stared at him and he stared at her.

They stared at each other a long time.

Finally she whispered to him: "Go."

He kept looking into her eyes.

"I'll be okay," she said. "Your wife is waiting for you."

The softest hint of a smile formed on Noah's lips, his eyes glazing over dream-like as he stared at Sofia gratefully, lovingly.

"Charlee," he said, barely a whisper, as suddenly he saw light from somewhere and Sofia's face was Charlee's and he was back on the roof of the Collins Mall and it was morning and no time had ever gone by at all, the last year a dream.

Brilliant beams of light crested the horizon as a vista of perpetual dawn broke across the sky.

Noah's hand went limp in Sofia's grasp and the other fell from her cheek.

She watched his head roll lazily to the side, his glazed-over eyes close, and life leave his body with a final breath.

She cradled his head in her arms and sobbed.

"Where are you!"

She eventually got the strength enough to stand again. She used a long busted floorboard as a makeshift crutch. She hobbled out of the bedroom into the hallway and down to the empty vestibule, shouting and screaming all the way.

"Where the fuck are you!"

The front door was open now. She limped over to it and stood in the doorway as the wind and rain blew in. She stared out across the porch into the violent darkness, into the cold empty night.

He was gone.

Stolen her soul and left her alive and alone and lost forever.

It was all over.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Eventually she walked back to the bedroom where Noah's body lay.

She leaned against the doorframe and stared at him. She looked down at her foot. Blood was soaked through the shirt that Noah had tied around her wound.

She could barely walk and couldn't fight if she wanted to. So she sat down, wincing with the effort. Her head throbbed. The cut over her temple hurt to the touch.

She thought about going outside. But it was useless. The storm would kill her if she tried. Her only option was to wait until help came. If they ever found out where she was. And by that time she could very well be dead.

Noah had told her she may have a concussion.

So if she went to sleep…

Yes.

Maybe that was her way out.

"He won," she told Noah. "I'm sorry. But it's okay. I'm going to sleep. Then it'll all be over…"

She stopped fighting and closed her eyes and let the fatigue take over.

Realizing this was the end, all her unfulfilled dreams danced around in her mind, final pangs of longing. It had all been cut too short. She had never really lived. All she had ever done was muddle through her suck-ass life chasing temporary highs and waiting for when she would just be happy.

And for it to end like this? What did she even have to show for her life?

So she wondered what might have been. One day she might have escaped Waverly. Started a successful modeling career, maybe a fashion line, had some fun out there in the real world. Settled down with a guy like Noah, really be loved, really love someone else.

Yeah.

Or maybe not.

Maybe there was just going to be disappointment.

Maybe it was better this way.

Her body went limp and her head lolled to the side. She let peaceful, sublime sleep settle into her every being.

Outside, the storm raged on.

Thunder boomed and lightning lit up the hills and the valley. On the outskirts of town, farmhouse gates rattled in the wind and rain. Weathervanes spun in a fury. Beaten scarecrows in crop-laden fields stood tall, taunting. One with a burlap sack for a face rose above rows and rows of corn with arms outstretched. Another with a jack-o'-lantern for a face wielded a sickle as it stood guard over a pumpkin patch, the night watchman.

The rain persisted. Nestled neighborhoods across the blacked-out town waited out the storm, residents sleeping away the night as the streets flooded around them, sewage drains backing up and the water levels rising over curbsides to front yards. Scattered Halloween decorations were swept about in the wind, monsters and ghouls given free reign of the night. Murky brown water seeped into downtown strip malls, gas stations, department stores, and supermarkets. It worked its way into the Collins Mall, rising over the bench where Charlee and Noah first kissed, where they had made love countless times. It crept into the local elementary, junior high, and high schools, flooding hallways and classrooms. Back outside, water swept across acres of countryside peppered with the skeletal frames of houses in the Harvest Run development, the newest piece of Collins real estate. And across town, water pushed the edge of the floodwall around the Valley, threatening to give way until suddenly, it did.

Water crested the floodwall behind the abandoned stretch of road off Sleepy Hollow Drive. It came barreling down, smothering the ground and cutting through the dark wood.

The floodwaters slowed as they began to settle in the low elevations. Still they rose gradually. They covered the Charlee McCool memorial in front of the Phelan house, flowers and cards lost under the undulating waves.

The flood trickled into the old home like it was a sinking ship.

In her dream, the rain stopped and the sun came out. It was the brightest sun she had ever seen, but it didn't hurt the eyes to look at.

And there was a rainbow. She knew if she climbed that rainbow she could reach the top and slide down the other side, ride those colors into that glorious light.

But the rain started again. The sun and the rainbow disappeared. She felt it before she saw it…

Roving floodwaters pooled around Sofia's still body. Her open hand twitched as it felt the wetness.

That was when she opened her eyes and decided she was going to live.

She forced herself awake and her worsening headache flared. She moaned and saw spots. She breathed steady, waiting for the spots to clear.

Climbing up the wall for stability, she stood slowly and blinked several times.

As she grabbed her floorboard crutch that was leaning against the doorframe, she looked at the floor.

Noah's body was gone.

She stared at the spot it was supposed to be for a long time. Then she followed the pool of his dried blood on the floor and the streaks of it smeared toward the doorway as it looked like he had been dragged before being picked up.

Right now those blood stains were diluted by the incoming flood, the cold water getting back into Sofia's shoes, as well as on the ass and back-legs of her jeans from when she was sitting.

She shivered for a moment, shaking her senses back.

The killer was not gone.

Somehow he knew she was going to want to live again. That she had to fight to make it all worth something. For Noah, for her parents, for Brittany, for Charlee, for everyone whose lives he had taken or ruined.

Exactly one year ago her twin sister had come here to do the very same thing. Charlee had gone out to avenge the death of her best friend and protect the love of her life. She had done it alone. And now Sofia was alone.

She slowly unwrapped Noah's shirt from her foot—had to be able to move—and stumbled out into the hallway on her crutch, feeling the wall for some leverage and sloshing through the water. She didn't know what diseases were getting into her wounds but she didn't care.

The front door was still open. She stared out into the rainy darkness a moment before turning and walking through the kitchen into the den. Beneath the water she saw the large copper pipe that lay next to a pile of scattered chains.

She bent over with some effort and reached her hand into the cold water to clasp the pipe. She brought it up and held it like a sword. Looked like a warrior.

She walked out of the house and into the night. The storm hit her but she kept going, the wind and rain washing over her. Cleansing her.

The water was up past her ankles and her footsteps were squishy with mud as she crossed the front lawn. She felt the sting of the elements as nature seeped over her foot and into her wounds, into her blood.

She scanned the dark forest, doing a 360 sweep as a crackle of lightning illuminated the surroundings and thunder roared. She saw nothing through the trees or far up the gently sloping hillsides to the distant floodwall.

It was dark again until a rapid series of lightning flashes lit up the night once more, followed by booms of thunder. That was when she saw a tall shape in the distance. Walking amidst the trees. Carrying a body.

Darkness consumed the land again and she lost him. She lumbered quickly in that direction, moving through the pain and disappearing into the trees.

Rain continued to pour from a merciless sky as the flood lay claim to the countryside. Whipping wind whistled through the branches of bare-limbed trees that shivered in the cold night. The gusts ripped off any autumn leaves still on the trees.

She thought about going up to the main part of Sleepy Hollow like Noah had wanted for her. But the killer would be gone by the time any help came. He would never be found but would most definitely find her again. And she wasn't going to spend the rest of her life running.

She watched the dance of the trees in the storm, silhouettes against the night sky, the shaking limbs and trunks like goblins engulfing her, driving her mad. Shrieking bats shared the sky with witches on broomsticks. Ghosts wailed as they swept across the haunted land, mingling with vampires and beasts. All the creatures of the night, this Halloween night, closed in around her—howling, cackling, calling her name.

She picked up speed.

In her mad rush deeper into the woods, she tripped, dropping her floorboard cane and the pipe. She fell underwater and scuffed her knees against a tree root that stuck out of the ground. She had to swim to pick herself up, the current of the flood carrying her back. She recovered the pipe and crutch and kept going.

She stopped when she reached the place she had seen the shape. No one was around. A sharp crack tore through the air behind her and she spun around.

Aside from the storm and the violently swaying trees, there was nothing.

She turned back around, walked further, and heard another crack. She froze but kept looking straight ahead. Nothing—

Until a body with a jack-o'-lantern head came swinging down in front of her.

She didn't scream. She merely stepped back and stared at the corpse that hung with a rope around its neck and swayed in the wind.

Noah.

She looked atop the tree trunk he hung from and let a mad curve of a smile form on her lips.

The shape descended from the sky and that was the last thing she remembered.

She felt the cold first before her headache returned. In her daze she reached to touch her head but couldn't.

As she opened her eyes to the blurry darkness, the first thing she saw was both of her wrists clasped in shackles on either side of her.

She was back in the basement. Chained up against the wall.

Naked.

She wore Noah's rosary and nothing else.

She tested the chains but they could only move out so far. Her legs were free but mostly underwater. The water was like ice.

Her pale skin turned bluer by the moment. She could not stop shivering.
The water was almost at her waist and rising slowly. From the upstairs doorway before the demolished stairwell, water emptied itself into the cellar like a waterfall.

From the gaping hole in the ceiling that led to the master bedroom, more water poured in. And more beyond that leaked through the old floorboards—steady, never-ending streams, the place a suffocating shower of rain and cold.

Sofia gritted her teeth and flailed against her chains. When she screamed it was a bellow of uncontrollable rage.

A white face materialized out of the darkness in front of her. She breathed heavy and stared as the rest of the shape came into focus, emerging out of the shadows with knife in hand.

With his blood-stained white face, frizzy hair, and ragged coveralls, he was a mad caricature of a man. Humanity distorted.

His black eyes burned into her.

She glared in return as he began walking toward her.

When he reached her, he looked her body up and down and raised the hand that didn't hold the knife. Slowly and gently he brushed his dirty scarred fingers against her cheek. She winced and took a sharp breath, closed her eyes.

The hand followed her jaw line and down her neck, across the hollow of her throat and between her tiny breasts that heaved as she trembled.

As the fingers reached her slender torso, they played across her goose-bumped flesh. Drawing symbols just above her naval where the water line now reached.
"Just kill me," she said.

The shape looked up and into her eyes.

"Just fucking kill me."

He tilted his head to one side and back.

And then swiped the blade across her stomach.

She howled and struggled against the chains.

The shape swiped again, this slash going down.

Hot blood ran down her cold skin. She stared at the crude symbol of an upside-down cross. The wounds weren't deep but the blood kept running.

The shape stepped even closer and she could feel his hot rancid breath on her face. Could make out every hole and rip on his shabby old jumpsuit. Could see every mark on the pale mask that was bloody and weathered from the night, dingy and faded with age.

But there was something else. Something sinister and profound and centuries old. Whatever was standing in front of her was more than the man or boy it had once been. The thing in front of her was the manifestation of an evil deep and ancient and everlasting.

With his free hand he touched her stomach again and played with her wet blood on his fingers.

When he took a couple of steps back and put the knife away, she knew he was going to stand there and watch her until the water rose enough and she drowned.

He stared at her now. Patient. Unmoving. Never looking away.

She would die as Charlee did. Strung up and helpless. Waiting for the inevitable.

As the minutes passed, she watched trance-like as the cold water came up her stomach and covered her wounds and reached her breasts. She had maybe a few more minutes until she was underwater completely.

As she stared, entranced by the sight of her blood in the water, she saw the rosary that hung from her neck. The cross with Jesus crucified floated in a murky cloud of her blood.

She lifted her head up slowly and met the shape's dark gaze. She snarled and it was bloody and mad and mean as hell.

"Fuck you," she said. "You lost. He already saved me." She laughed. "Your whole night, your whole plan. What you meant for evil…"

She looked down at the rosary again and smiled. When she looked back up, the shape had raised his knife. He lunged forward with a demon's bellow of rage.

She cringed in anticipation for the blade that never came.

Because someone fired a gun and the shape's brains blew out the back of his head.

A torrent of gore and entrails hit Sofia in the face.

She watched through blood-spattered eyes as the shape collapsed into the water and sank, his body lost in a dark cloud of deepening crimson.

She looked up with wide eyes to the basement doorway.

Andrew Daly.

He holstered his weapon and jumped into the freezing water below, trudging through the flooded cellar to Sofia. "I'm here." He clutched her bare arms and rubbed his face against hers. "My baby…" With some floodwater he cleaned off her bloody face. He looked at the chains and clasps that held her. "Is there a key?"

"I…I don't know."

"I'll check him." He moved toward the sunken body buried in a sea of red.

"No! He doesn't die!"

Andrew went under, swishing away the murky blood water in his path and coming upon the dormant body of the shape. He swiped the large butcher knife quickly from the shape's loose hand and placed it in the pocket of his trench coat. He felt the pockets of the shape's coveralls.

He felt the key. Reached in the pocket.

The shape jerked.

Andrew let out a muffled bellow under the water.

But the shape didn't move again.

Andrew shot out of the water with the key and sloshed back over to Sofia. He found the keyholes in the chain clasps and set her free. She fell into his arms and hugged him.

He felt something restrained in the hug. He felt like she should be crying but she wasn't. She looked resolute. She looked mean.

"God, you're cold," he said. "And bleeding. We're getting you out of here. Getting you clothes and help."

"First we put him in the chains." She dragged herself over to where the shape had fallen. "Help me grab him. We lock him up. He drowns with this house."

"Sofia—"

"He doesn't stay dead! Now help me!"

She was not a woman with whom to be argued. "Okay," he said. "But I'll do it, you step back."

She did and Andrew returned under the dirty crimson water. As the blood dissipated, fading into a lighter red that became more diluted with the rising water, his eyes went wide.

The shape was gone.

Andrew shot back out of the water and looked at Sofia and she knew exactly what the look meant.

"I shot him in the fucking head," he said.

Sofia scanned the waters and the surrounding darkness. Andrew took out his gun and did the same.

They stood back to back, checking the water below and the darkness around.

Finally Sofia looked up. She saw the pale white face in the darkness of the ceiling above, the shape hanging horizontally against the copper piping.

"Move!" she yelled.

The shape let himself fall, bringing a pipe down with him.

Andrew raised his gun. "Fuck!"

The shape crashed with a tumultuous splash in between them.

He arose, charged Sofia, raised the pipe high.

"No!" Andrew fired the gun. Got him in the back.

The shape jerked and lowered the pipe but didn't fall.

He turned around slow.

Andrew could feel his glare even though he couldn't see his eyes. The shape's blank face smeared with blood and dirt was like the mad scowl of a menacing clown. He made large strides through the water, coming at Andrew and wielding the pipe high—

Andrew fired again, pounding the shape's chest with shots, holes opening up and blood spraying out.

But he didn't go down. He convulsed against the rapid smattering of bullets, but still he kept coming, never stopped coming—

Andrew kept shooting until he clicked dry. The slide racked back. He was done.

The shape loomed over him.

"Oh fuck, no!"

Sofia had him before he could strike. She threw a chain around his body that wrapped itself around twice. She pulled once and the already weakened shape stumbled back into the wall where she had been hanging.

His feet became entangled in a pile of chains on the floor. His debilitated body slipped slowly down the wall and underwater, leaving a thick smear of blood.

Andrew quickly put away his gun and lunged forward, catching one of the shape's arms and slamming it into a clasp on the wall. Sofia took his other wrist and locked him into the other clasp.

He hung there bolted to the wall. Motionless.

They stared at him.

Suddenly his head moved. Slowly he looked up.

He lunged for them but was caught in the chains. Andrew stumbled but Sofia didn't flinch. She felt inside Andrew's coat pocket and removed the large knife.

She rushed the shape screaming and plunged it straight through his heart.

She gritted her teeth and growled like a madwoman, twisting the blade, carving up his chest. Looking into his unholy black eyes.

"I got you," she said, "motherfucker."

She yanked the knife out and with several grunts drove it back into his chest again and again and again. Each time handle-deep. She kept at it until her arm hurt and she could do no more. She whipped the knife out one last time and tossed it back into the floodwaters.

She stumbled and Andrew caught her.

They watched. The shape hung on the wall motionless as the water grew higher around him, past his pulverized chest to his neckline.

Eventually they lost purchase on the floor and had to tread water to stay afloat. They watched as the water rose over the shape's mask and covered his head, covered him completely.

At first nothing.

Then a rumble.

The shape came alive.

His submerged body writhed in the chains. The wall behind him, the entire basement, the house even, seemed to cry in vigorous protest, threatening to give way under the strain.

Sofia and Andrew wondered for a moment if he would break free and bring the house down, crush them all to death.

But that didn't happen. The shape went into a fit of spasms. Bloody air bubbles escaped from his eyeholes and under the neck of his mask. With one last strain against the chains, his body gave up the fight.

His head slung down and his arms relaxed, his submerged body splayed out in the chains.

This time he was motionless for good.

Sofia and Andrew couldn't stop staring even as the water continued to rise. When it carried them to the threshold of the basement and Andrew helped Sofia up into the kitchen, still they continued to gaze at the lifeless body of the shape.

He hung there like a silent specter, a phantom, hovering in the dark waters of his tomb.

He was gone. He was dead.

They kept telling themselves that until they believed it.

In the vestibule of the house before the open front door, Andrew took his long trench coat off and wrapped Sofia in it.

"I saw Noah," he said. "And I saw that room down there…"

"Everyone's gone," she said, very matter of fact. "My parents, Brittany, they're all dead." She sat on the flooded floor catching her breath and stared at him. "What do we do now?"

"You need a hospital." He grabbed the black duffel bag of cash he had put on a windowsill and slung it over his shoulder.

"And after that?" she asked.

He knelt down before her and opened the bag of wet bills. "Come with me," he said. There was enough in there for both of them to start over, to run away together. The rest he would send to his daughter. Maybe one day he would see her again.

Sofia stared at the money and then into his eyes. "Okay," she said.

Andrew closed the bag, took Sofia in his arms, and carried her to the door.

By the time they heard the rattle of chains on the front porch, the shape had already stepped into the doorway brandishing the knife high. In one flourish he slammed Andrew's head into the doorframe and thrust the knife into Sofia's stomach.

The shape ripped her out of Andrew's arms completely and lifted her into the air by the knife handle, the blade sticking out of her back.

Andrew cried a loud and long "No!" as he fell to the floor, his world spinning and threatening to go black. He tried to get back up. The shape kicked him in the face. The back of his head hit the doorframe again.

Andrew could move no longer. As he fought to keep his eyes open, he watched as the shape tore the knife out from Sofia's body and dropped her to the floor. She writhed and coughed up blood.

The shape stooped over her and raised the knife high.

She stared into his eyes and laughed. Bloody and hard.

He drove the blade down with brutal force into her resigned, waiting flesh.

He didn't stop.

Sofia laughed until her last.

And in that moment she thought about Noah and she thought about peace and she thought about love. She decided maybe her suck-ass life hadn't been so bad after all.

And she smiled, thinking about that rainbow.

As darkness took hold of Andrew, his mind spun in revelation.

You. The killer. The man in black. The beast. You knew it all from the beginning—from the moment you chose David Collins and his family. You killed Melissa and Dylan Phelan and always planned to return for their daughters. You tortured Collins's ex-wife for years until she took her own life. You knew Collins would find out and blame Eliza and I. And you knew Collins would kill Eliza and that I would see it happen—you led me right to that security room and locked me in. You knew I would get out and find Collins, that I would kill him and all those cops. And you knew I would leak Collins's skeletons to the press, you being the one who led me to Melissa's journal. I was a pawn. I killed for you and did your bidding. I added to your body count and shattered the symbol that Collins and his family's legacy was to the people of Riggsboro forever. You chose Collins because of his secrets and what he represented to the town. And everything came apart, your game coming full circle all on the night of a devastating flood. Just the way you had it planned. You saw this night years ago and you knew the town would never recover. You achieved something far worse than a killing spree. You stole the very soul of Riggsboro. And you used all of us to do it. Set us all on a scavenger hunt to find Sofia and lead her right here, right to you. You knew my obsession with Charlee and you knew I would never stop hunting. I fell into your trap—we all did.

Now everyone's dead and all those bodies are on me. You'll disappear and your legacy will become mine.

You knew how it would end from the beginning.

Andrew closed his eyes and slept.

At dawn, there was stillness.

A fog hovered over the settled floodwaters. The Phelan house sat half-submerged in the dead calm.

Sofia Sutherland's eviscerated body hung above the water, strung up on the chimney in chains. Her head was slung low, hair covering her face.

Half a jack-o'-lantern floated by slowly at her feet. An evil smile and soulless eyes, glare burning deep and dark…

Andrew woke up in darkness beneath the Myers house in Haddonfield, Illinois.

Of course he didn't know this.

He didn't remember being carried down the basement steps, and from there to a small subbasement, a series of underground tunnels, and then a hatch in the floor marked 616…

When the hatch was opened, down a ladder he was carried…

When he woke up there was a thick shackle around his ankle that was connected to a heavy chain bolted to the wall.

A manically grinning jack-o'-lantern lit up the cavern with muted candlelight. The hatch door was open above.

There was a corpse next to him. Also with a shackle around the ankle.

It was a rotted skeleton of a man, a leather case lying next to him. Andrew grabbed the case. A badge and ID were inside. Deputy Earl Ramsey. Haddonfield Police.

Andrew looked up. A number of white masks and black jumpsuits were strewn about in a pile behind the glowing jack-o'-lantern.

And all across the floor were bone fragments and ashes.

Andrew fought with his chain, pulling it hard. But the bolt in the wall was secure. He tried the shackle next, but the cuff was tightly clasped around his ankle with little room to move.

He patted himself down, unsheathing his gun but remembering as he took it apart that he had used all the bullets anyway. He checked for a service weapon on the dead cop. Nothing.

A tall figure rose from the shadows of the dank cavern, a white face emerging in the darkness, tinted orange in the light of the jack-o'-lantern.

The shape was clean now—new mask, new suit, and no longer did he have the chains hanging from his wrists. He stepped forward and stared down at Andrew with his hollow eyes, his breathing heavy and muffled.

There was something in his hand. A manila envelope. He tossed it to Andrew and it landed on the floor. Andrew crawled over the dust of human remains and grabbed it.

LEHMAN-DALY INVESTIGATIONS

(To Be Opened ONLY in the Event of My Death)

Sam Loomis

He had forgotten about this. So had Eliza apparently. He remembered Loomis sending it to them a couple years back with his files about the first Riggsboro murders. It had to have been sitting in the back of Eliza's car along with all the other files. And Andrew had abandoned the car back at the Collins building. Left it vulnerable for anyone to go through.

The envelope had already been torn open. He slid out and unfolded a piece of paper from which also fell a certified check. He ignored the check and read the letter:

Hello Detectives.

If you are reading this it means that I am long gone from this world. What I need to tell you is of grave importance: Laurie Strode, Michael Myers's sister, is still alive.

Years ago I helped fake her death and put her into hiding. Now that I am dead I beseech you to check up on her as I did.

The information on her whereabouts is located in my office in Langdon. My nurse, Marion Whittington, will allow you complete access to my files. A check is enclosed for your help in this matter.

Lastly—watch over Laurie, but do not hunt Michael. It is only now that I realize he fed off my obsession. This is the devil you are dealing with. And the devil does not merely want you dead—he wants to drag you down into hell, where your soul will belong to him for eternity.

Burn this after you read it.

Andrew's head spun with memories that weren't his—the good doctor helping to stage the car accident that allegedly killed Laurie Strode, the two of them planting her own blood from blood bank packets, securing connections with the right people to falsify coroner's reports, a death certificate, a birth certificate with a new name, new identity.

Laurie Strode had to die so that she could live. But now her secret was out. And Andrew knew—her brother would find her.

In time he figures out all our secrets. In time he finds and kills us all.

Andrew looked back up. He lunged at the shape but the ankle clasp caught him.

"Let me out of here, you son of a bitch!"

The shape snuffed out the candle in the jack-o'-lantern, immersing the room in darkness. He turned and began climbing up the ladder.

"No! No! You can't fucking do this to me!"

The shape looked down at Andrew from the tunnel above, his gaze dark, final. He swung the hatch door shut and locked it, sealing him in the tomb forever.

THE END

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