Читать книгу Darker Than Midnight - Maggie Shayne, Maggie Shayne - Страница 8

“Stop!”

Dawn shouted the word and Bryan hit the brakes of her Jeep. It skidded a little on the road, then came to a stop right in front of the empty, beautifully painted Victorian house that sat alone a few yards away.

“What?” Bryan asked. “What’s wrong?”

He knew something was. Something had been wrong for months now, and she was running out of ways to deny it, or avoid it, or block it out.

She swallowed hard, tried not to notice the worry in his dark eyes, or the way his hair had fallen over his forehead, making her want to smooth it away. He hadn’t cut it since they’d started college. She liked it this way.

“Dawn?”

“There was something in the road….” She watched his face, knowing immediately there had been nothing there. Nothing he had been able to see, anyway. Certainly not a woman in a white nightgown, holding a baby in her arms. Certainly not that.

Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “Sorry, Bry. I—it was just a squirrel. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He sighed in relief, seemed to relax visibly. “You’re wound awfully tight lately, Dawn. I’m really glad you’re gonna spend Thanksgiving break at the inn with Beth and my dad.” He smiled. “And me.”

She shrugged and chose to ignore the final part of his comment. He knew she needed to cool things off between them. He didn’t know why—pretended to accept her decision and be fine with it. But he wasn’t fine. She’d hurt him and she knew that. If there were any other way—

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. I get a little torn. It’s tough, trying to find time to spend with both families—breaks from college are few and far between.”

He nodded. “At least your adoptive mom is cool with you spending time with your birth mom,” he put in. “That helps.”

It also helped that her birth mother, Beth, was married to Bryan’s dad, Joshua. Or it would have helped, if she weren’t trying so hard to put some distance between herself and Bry—for his sake, mostly.

“Let’s get going. Beth and Josh are waiting for us,” she said.

Bryan set the Jeep into motion. But as they drove away, Dawn couldn’t stop her gaze from straying back to that dark, lonely house. And as she did, she saw the woman again, a filmy, nearly transparent shape in the night. Not real, Dawn knew. She wasn’t real at all. None of them were.

It’s not going to work, you know, she thought. You’re never going to make it work, Father. Never.

The best restaurant in Blackberry, the Sugar Tree, was a two-story log cabin with picture windows that looked out on to a rolling, snow-covered lawn. In the summer, the hostess told Jax, there were glorious flowers and blossoming trees, a tiny pond with a fountain in the center, and outdoor tables. But this time of year, all the fun was indoors. The second floor was loft-style on all four sides, leaving the center of the place open clear to the rafters. It was a hell of a place.

The hostess seated them at a table near the huge stone fireplace with a window nearby, leaned closer and said, “Welcome back to Blackberry, Lieutenant Jackson. We sure hope you like it enough to stay.” She sent her a wink. “Your waitress will be right over to take your drink orders. Enjoy your dinner.”

Jax lifted her brows and sent a look at the three coconspirators who sat around the circular table. “So, does the whole town know what I’m doing here?”

“Honey,” Frankie said, “this is Blackberry. The whole town probably knows what time you arrived and what your mother made you for breakfast.”

“Small towns,” Jax said with a shake of her head.

“It’s not all bad,” her mom told her. “People may know a lot of your business, but not all of it. It’s nice that they care enough to want to know what you’re willing to share, but also enough to know when to leave it alone.”

Jax shot a look at her father.

“She means they don’t pry here,” her father interjected. “I’ve confided in Frankie about my past. But I’ve seen no sign that it’s gone any further.”

“It hasn’t,” Frankie assured him. “Nor will it.”

He nodded. “I don’t deserve your loyalty, Frankie, but I do appreciate it.”

“Of course you deserve it.” Frankie patted his hand across the table. “We’ve all done things we wish we could undo.”

“Few as much as I,” he said softly.

“Dad, you paid for what you did.”

He met Jax’s eyes, and for a moment they were so dark, so sullen, she didn’t even recognize them. But then he looked away. Her father was a haunted man. Sometimes she wondered if he knew the truth—but no. He couldn’t possibly. It would kill him if he knew.

Mariah said, “You’ve had all day to think it over, Cassie. Don’t keep us in suspense any longer than you have to. Have you made a decision yet?”

Jax tore her worried gaze from her father, sent her mother a nod and a smile, then focused on the chief of police. “I’ve decided to take you up on your offer to stay in the house and shadow you on the job for the next two weeks. And—hell, there’s not much point playing cutesy, is there? Unless something really troubling crops up, or you decide to withdraw the offer, I imagine I’ll be accepting the job when the two weeks are up.”

“Hot damn!” Frankie said with a smile. “Well, this calls for a celebration!” Even as she said it, a pretty young waitress arrived, dressed in black pants with a knife-sharp crease, spotless white blouse, red ribbon tied in a bow at her collar, and carrying an order pad in her hand.

“Champagne?” Frankie asked the others.

“I prefer a nice cold beer,” Jax said. “In the bottle.”

“Ahh, me, too,” Frankie said. “But make mine an N.A., in a frosted mug.”

“Mariah and I will have wine. A nice merlot. You choose,” Ben told the waitress.

The girl smiled brightly and trotted off to get the drinks. Jax said, “I’m kind of looking forward to spending the night at the house tonight.”

“Tonight?” her mother asked.

“Sure. Why not?”

“Well, the power’s not turned on. There’s no phone yet, no heat….”

“I can have the utilities turned on fast,” Frankie said. “But not that fast. By tomorrow, for sure.” She shrugged. “On the other hand, I’ve already got a bed set up in the master bedroom. Even took over some fresh sheets and blankets for you, got it all made up and ready. No other furniture in the place yet—I planned to do that tomorrow, as well.”

“You don’t need to furnish the house, Frankie. That’s asking too much,” Jax said.

“Oh, I won’t be. Not all by myself. Your parents have some things in storage, and several others around town have items they want to contribute. I mean, you’ll want your own things once you decide to make it your permanent home, but these will do for your two-week trial period,” Frankie said with a smile, as if she knew damn well Jax would be staying.

“You should stay with us tonight, hon,” Mariah said. “It’s not safe to be in that house all alone.”

Jax put a hand over her mother’s on the table. “It’ll be an adventure. Like camping out when we were kids.”

“Carrie always hated it,” Mariah said softly.

“Only because I always managed to find something slimy to put in her sleeping bag before sunup. Frogs, lizards—”

“You were such a brat.” Her mother turned her hand over, closing it around Jax’s.

“I’ll have the fireplace for heat. Dad, you can loan me a couple of your lanterns. It’ll be fun.”

Mariah looked to her husband as if for backup. But Benjamin was studying his daughter and nodding in reluctant approval. “She’s a grown woman, a police officer, Mariah. She’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

He nodded, smiling slightly.

The waitress arrived with their drinks and handed them around. Jax twisted the cap off her longneck bottle. Frankie lifted her mug. “Here’s to the newest resident of Blackberry,” she said. “Welcome home, Jax.”

“Welcome home,” her parents echoed.

They clanked their drinks together as the waitress hovered, ready to take their orders.

Driving the dead orderly’s car had become more and more difficult, and finally impossible. The third time River veered off the road, and went skidding through the slush on the shoulder, he’d taken out two mailboxes. At first, he thought he’d hit two human beings. It shook him too much to continue. He didn’t want to kill anyone else. He didn’t want to end up dead himself—not until he found the answers he needed to find, at least.

Besides, he was pretty sure he’d been seen. Another car had passed, heading in the opposite direction, just as he’d lost control that last time. The driver probably called the cops. Probably reported him as a drunk driver. Maybe not.

Didn’t matter. He couldn’t drive anymore.

He steered the car up a side road, where the only other tracks in the snow had been made by a logging truck, by the looks of them. And then he drove until the tires spun in the snow.

After that, he got out and took a look around. His mind kept wandering, but he managed to keep tugging it back on track. He knew where he was. In a tall pine forest outside Blackberry. Five miles to town, on foot, but less if he cut through the woods. It had been a while since he’d spent any time in the woods.

He used to, though. All the time. Him and Ethan. When they were kids. The trips with Ethan’s dad. Camping and hiking. As adults, they’d bought a hunting cabin together, the two of them. It wasn’t far from here—too far to walk, though. An hour by car. It had been their getaway. Stephanie called it their “He-Man Woman Haters Club.” God, they’d had some good times there.

River stopped walking, vaguely aware he’d let his mind wander again. He wasn’t sure which way he’d gone, had to check his tracks in the snow to tell which direction the road was. “Have to stay focused,” he muttered. He managed to get his bearings. The fire trail was off to his left. He headed for it, knowing it cut kitty-corner through the southeastern edge of Blackberry and ended at the pond across the street from his house.

He was weak, he realized as he set off again. Every step in the packed snow was an effort, and every steamy breath came harder. It was probably no wonder. He’d done nothing but sit in a hospital for a year. The meds had killed his appetite months ago, to the point where only the threat of a feeding tube forced him to down a few bites of the meals that were brought to him, and even that small amount made his stomach buck in rebellion. Four miles. Surely he could manage that much.

He did, but by the time he emerged from the woods across the street from his long-lost home, he was so cold he’d stopped shivering. No coat. He should have taken that into account. The orderly’s shoes were a size too small, and designed for padding softly through hospital corridors, not for trudging through snow. River’s feet had long since gone numb, so his stumbling gait had more than just a chemical cause.

It was night; he couldn’t guess how late, but it wasn’t dark. The full moon hung low, spilling its milky light over the snow, over his house. Or what remained of it. He noted the absence of the entire wing, but also noted that the place looked to be in excellent condition, given what had happened.

The square, main part of the house remained, pristine white with those green shutters and purplish trim, colors Steph had chosen. The big oak door. It had an arched, stained-glass panel above that matched the slender ones to either side. He looked up higher, at the tall, narrow bedroom windows on the second floor. One of those bedrooms had been his and Stephanie’s. Another was going to be the nursery. The wing had held a two-car garage and a huge family room, with guest rooms upstairs. One of those guest rooms was the room where Stephanie had died.

Gone now, except for bits of the foundation showing through the snow. Vanished, like his life. And any possible reason he might have had for living it.

He sank to his knees in the snow, braced his hands in its frigid depths to keep from falling facedown. God, he was cold. And dizzy. And so very tired. The walk had drained him. He hadn’t walked more than a few yards at a stretch during his time in the hospital. From his room to the community room. More often just within the confines of his room, where he’d preferred to stay alone. He never had to walk to the isolation room, the proverbial “rubber room,” where they took him when they decided he had become agitated or violent. He had found himself there a number of times, confined in a straitjacket. Ethan would tell him the things he’d done, but he wouldn’t remember them. It was sheer hell to finally realize he was capable of violence during his blackouts. He would never have believed it if Ethan hadn’t told him himself, witnessed it himself.

Maybe River had killed Stephanie.

His hands were going numb. The wind burned his face and ears. He sat up slowly, his fogged mind telling him he had to find shelter. A warm place to sleep. If he stayed where he was, he’d likely be dead by morning.

With what felt like superhuman effort, he got to his feet again and turned in a slow circle, studying the intact part of his house. Well, not his house. Not anymore.

It stood there, dark and silent. Not a light on in the place, no car in the driveway. The house exuded emptiness. As he moved closer he realized there were no curtains in the windows. So maybe his house was still empty. Hell, he didn’t wonder at that. Who would want to live in a place with so much horror in its past?

No one. Certainly not him. When it had gone to the town in lieu of taxes he hadn’t even cared. He never intended to set foot there again.

And now he was doing just that.

He walked up onto the porch and tried the door. It was locked, naturally. Sighing, he lowered his head and left the porch. He walked around the place, tracking through the snow, until he reached the back door. And by then he was barely holding his eyes open. There was no time for subtlety here. He wasn’t going to be able to stay on his feet much longer. He tapped a windowpane with his knuckles, then tapped it a little harder. The third time, he hit it hard enough to break the glass, then he reached through, scratching his arm on the way. He found the doorknob, the lock, flipped it free, opened the door, and stepped into the kitchen.

He stood, none too steadily for a moment, looking around the place. It felt so familiar he almost collapsed from the force of the memories rushing at him. And he could only be grateful it was too dark to see much, or it might have been even worse.

“Just get on with it, already.”

There was no kitchen table. No chairs. No place where he could sit to remove his shoes, so he sank onto the floor and wrestled the frozen, snow-coated things off his feet. He’d have killed for a pair of warm, dry socks. His feet were heavy stumps with hardly any feeling left in them, and he sat there for a moment, rubbing them until he felt the intense sensation of needles pricking them all over as the feeling slowly returned.

His feet burned when he managed to get back up on them, and the blood rushed into them. He found a light switch and snapped it on, but nothing happened. Frowning, he limped to the refrigerator, but found it empty, spotless and unplugged. Its door was propped slightly open by a foam block sitting in the bottom.

Clearly, no one had lived in the house for a while. Maybe not since the fire, though someone had made repairs. Maybe the Fates had finally decided to cut him a break. He stumbled through the kitchen, found the stairway and limped up it. It was even darker in the upstairs hallway, but moonlight flooded through the windows of the first bedroom he reached. It spilled onto a neatly made bed as if angels were pointing the way for him. He almost laughed at the absurdity of the notion, even as he moved forward, clasping the comforter in his eager hands, tugging it back, seeing the thick pillows awaiting his tired head.

He wanted to collapse into the bed right that instant, but managed to hold off long enough to struggle free of his wet, frozen clothes. Then, at last, he crawled into the bed, pulling the covers tight around him, tucking them in on all sides and around the bottoms of his feet. He lay on his side, wrapped in a soft cocoon, and he was still waiting for warmth to seep into his bones when he fell into a deep sleep.

Jax stopped off at her parents’ house to pick up the lanterns her father had promised to loan her, but she did so largely to soothe her mother’s constant worry. She couldn’t blame her mom for worrying about her. She’d lost one daughter, so it was natural she would become overprotective of the other. Even though Jax was on the fast track to thirty, and a decorated police officer, her mother hadn’t managed to make the leap. She still worried, still fussed.

Probably always would.

Carrie had been the one who’d needed fussing over—the one who’d thrived on it. She’d been very much a girlie-girl, while Cassie had been the tomboy. It chafed when her mother fussed, but not so much that she would ever complain.

Jax wasn’t worried in the least. She could handle herself. She’d kicked the asses of countless perps who thought they could outdo her on the streets. And probably an even greater number of male colleagues in the gym, when they underestimated her abilities. A few responded by developing a grudging respect. Most just got their boxers in a twist over having their ultrafragile male egos bruised, and became more hostile than ever.

Assholes.

It was a fine line she’d learned to walk. Frankly, it was a damn tightrope, and she resented having to walk it. Moreover, she was tired of it. Here, it would be different. Instead of an entire city PD full of men to whom she had to prove herself even while tiptoeing over their machismo, she would have three fellow officers. She could make this work. She knew she could. Without tiptoeing, bowing, scraping or leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

It was going to be great.

As she pulled her dependable red Ford Taurus into the driveway of the pitch-dark house, she didn’t feel a single hint of apprehension about going inside, spending the night there alone. She had her flashlight—always carried one in the car—and her personal handgun strapped to her side, not that she expected to need it. She had a spare gun in the glove compartment for emergencies. There wouldn’t be any, of course. After all, nothing bad ever happened in Blackberry.

Right.

The driveway was freshly plowed. Frankie must have made a phone call or her father had sent someone over. There wasn’t a lot of snow on the ground, not yet. Six inches of packy, rapidly melting white stuff, with hardly any base to it. Stones and dirt showed through where the plow blade had scraped. She pulled her car to a stop close to the porch, left the headlights on, hit the trunk release button, then got out and went around to the back.

She took the megasize dog dishes from their blue plastic Wal-Mart bag. She’d made a stop on the way back from her parents’ at a store they had assured her was almost always open. She’d purchased some bottled water, a giant bag of dog food, a windup alarm clock, the dog dishes and, most essential of all, a small coffeemaker with filters, a pound of ground roast and a travel mug. She was good to go. The humongous, thick, cushy dog bed had been an afterthought. Another chink in her armor.

She filled the dish with food and left the big bag of dog food there in the trunk for the night. No point bringing it inside and leaving it out where it would attract any curious mice or chipmunks that might have taken up residence in the vacant house.

She took the other purchases out, threading her arm through the plastic handles of the overloaded bag, wedging the dog bed between her inner arm and her body, and, dog dish in one hand, flashlight in the other, she closed the trunk. Then Cassie walked over the nicely plowed driveway toward the porch, seeing that whoever had scraped away the snow had taken a shovel to the sidewalk, too, and even cleaned off the front steps. Nice.

She set the items down, taking only her flashlight and the dog bed with her as she trudged through the snow to the spot where the dog had emerged from underneath the porch today. A couple of boards were missing, giving the shepherd a handy entrance. She shone the light inside, but there was no sign of the dog right now. Still, she shoved the dog bed through the opening, pushing it back as far as she could reach. The cover could be unzipped, removed and washed. The inner part was waterproof and cedar filled. You could empty it out and refill it with fresh stuffing if you wanted. Not that she would. Only a real sucker would go to that much trouble for a stray.

She backed out of the opening once she was satisfied the bed was back far enough to stay dry and be sheltered from the wind. Then she got the bowl of food and tucked it inside the opening, as well.

She decided against filling the water dish just now. It would only freeze overnight, and she had no idea if the dog would be back. He’d probably become accustomed to eating snow or drinking from an icy stream somewhere. Water could wait until tomorrow. She paused a moment, to turn and look around in the darkness, seeing plenty of tracks in the snow around the house, some made by her dad as he’d checked the place out from one end to the other earlier today. Others no doubt made by the big dog snooping around. He’d be back. She was sure of it.

She returned to the car for her duffel bag, in which she’d packed what she hoped were enough clothes for a two-week stay. Slinging it over her shoulder, she returned to the porch, picked up her shopping bag, got out the keys Frankie had given her, and let herself in through the front door.

Damn, but she liked this house. Bathed in moonlight, the cozy living room spread out before her like an old friend opening its arms. The walls were a deep forest-green, the woodwork trim and floorboards, knotty pine. She crossed the room and set her shopping bag on the stone hearth, then knelt to remove the screen. A fire lay ready; a handful of logs were stacked nearby. Another thoughtful surprise from Frankie, or more likely, one of her boys in blue.

She dropped her duffel and dug in her shopping bag for the long-snouted lighter she’d picked up, then flicked it and touched it to the waiting papers. They caught, curling and blazing up. She sat there and watched the fire take off, its flames feeding on the newspapers, then the kindling and then licking hungrily at the larger logs cleverly stacked in a teepee shape overtop. She replaced the screen and sat a while longer, holding out her hands to feel the warmth seeping into them, into her body. It felt good. As the room grew warmer she took off her coat and hung it from a doorknob.

When she could safely add more logs without risk of putting out the burgeoning flames, she added several all at once, hoping to create enough heat to warm her even in the upstairs bedroom, and ensure there would be warm, glowing coals when she woke up in the morning.

The far side of the living room was still just as cold, though. She walked along the wall, one hand out, feeling for a draft or some other source for the unnatural chill. But she couldn’t find one. That was the side of the house that used to extend farther, she recalled. The one that had burned.

Shivers danced up her spine as she paused near the window. Something caught her eye, and she held her breath, leaned closer to the glass and peered outside. For just an instant she’d glimpsed something—a shape, a vague sense of flowing white fabric. But of course, there was nothing there. Probably a trick of the firelight on the glass.

Sighing, she reached for her new alarm clock, set it by her watch, wound it tight and put the alarm on 6:00 a.m. She wanted to arrive at the Blackberry PD bright and early, and she had to leave time to stop by her parents’ place for a shower and one of her mother’s high-calorie breakfasts on the way.

Jax was smiling as she hoisted her duffel and flashlight, and walked up the stairs, into the first bedroom. The moon was high now, but a corner could still be seen from the very top of one of the bedroom windows, spilling a small amount of light into the room. It touched the bottom of a bed, and the blue-and-green-patterned comforter Frankie had contributed to the cause.

Jax set her flashlight on the floor and peeled her sweatshirt over her head. Cool air touched her skin—too cold to take off much more, she thought. She’d keep the T-shirt on, maybe her socks, too. But the shoulder holster and sidearm, jeans and suede Columbia boots had to go. She took off the holster first, setting it on the nearby dresser, then bent to untie the first boot. She paused there, because she heard a sound in the room.

A sound she should have noted when she’d first come in, but she supposed she’d been moving around, making noise of her own. In a break between motions, as she reached for her shoelace, she heard it.

Breathing.

A long, slow, relaxed exhale.

A broken, unsteady inhale.

An unnatural pause.

A long, slow exhale.

A soft moan.

Shit.

Jax’s hand snapped around the cool metallic grip of her Maglite flashlight. She yanked it up even as she straightened, and aimed its eye at the bed, where the breathing was coming from, training her own eyes that way as well, while reaching to the dresser with her free hand.

There was a man sound asleep in her bed. Her fingers closed on the gun, sliding it smoothly from its holster. Her heart pounding in her chest, she inched closer to the bed.

“Hey! Hey you, wake up!”

There was another low moan, and the man moved a little, then snuggled deeper into the covers with a sigh. He had a face carved of granite. Bones that were unnaturally prominent, but would be sharply delineated even under a normal layer of flesh.

She used her foot to nudge his shoulder, pushing him from his side onto his back, and she saw his collarbones and winced. He had to be a homeless person, though he would be the first one she’d encountered here in Blackberry. She had begun to think they didn’t have any.

“Wake up, dammit!”

Eyes flew open, stark and surprised, first confused and then intense in the glow of her flashlight. There was something riveting about them. Something familiar. And then she realized what it was. They held that same wary, mistrusting look she’d seen in the stray dog’s eyes. And they were just as brown.

“What the hell are you doing in my house?”

It seemed the eyes widened after an unnatural time, as if it took extra beats for her words to make their way through his mind. Then he leaped out of the bed, stark naked.

God, he was thin. Beautiful, and painfully thin. He’d been muscled once; she could still see the remnants, the lines sculpted in his flesh, just rapidly losing definition. Shrinking.

He glanced down at himself, then at his clothes on the floor near his feet.

“Go ahead, get dressed. But don’t try anything.”

He reached for the pants. They looked to be part of some sort of uniform—white pants, as if he worked in an ice cream parlor or a hospital or something. Not warm, that was for sure. He pulled them on, did them up. His feet were bare. He pulled on a T-shirt, then a white uniform shirt over it.

“I…umm…I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

His words were slurred, as if he’d been drinking, but she didn’t smell alcohol on his breath. His hair was messy. Dark, too long, as if it hadn’t been trimmed in a long time. And his face had the dark shadow of beard coming in, as if he hadn’t shaved today or maybe yesterday, either. She lowered the gun, tucked it into the back of her pants while he finished dressing, knowing she could handle him fine without it. He was in no shape to fight her and win.

He took a step toward the bedroom door.

“No, just a minute,” she said, shining her light on him. “You’re not going anywhere—not until you tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”

She saw the hint of panic in his eyes just before he lunged for the door. She stepped into his path, the heel of her hand slamming him square in the chest. The impact put him flat on his back and sent her flashlight crashing to the floor. It rolled to the fallen man, came to rest with its beam in his eyes.

“I’ll ask you again,” she said, standing over him. She was a little breathless, but it was from excitement, not exertion. She loved her work—especially this part of it: the rush of adrenaline, the certainty of a win. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”

He got to his feet, picking up her flashlight on the way. She took a step backward, and let him, even while reaching behind her to snug a hand around her handgun, just in case.

He lifted the light, held it high and shone it on her face, so that she had to shield her eyes. “This was a mistake,” he said, and it seemed to Jax he had to focus intently on each syllable. He was trying hard not to slur his speech. She thought he might be on something. “I’m going now. Y-you’ll n-n-never shee me again.”

Then he turned the flashlight off, flipped it over and handed it to her. She could see him in the moonlight, standing there, holding her light out to her. It trembled in his hand. He was shaking. She released her grip on the handgun, reached out to take the light, lowered her guard.

He moved closer, one step, and even as he shoved her chest with the flat of his hand, his foot hooked behind one of hers, ensuring she would go down, and she did. And dammit, she landed on the handgun and bruised her tailbone to hell and gone, which resulted in her barking a stream of cuss words as the man fled. His feet pounded down the stairs.

She surged to her feet, pulling the gun and rubbing her ass with her free hand. Then she grabbed the light and limped into the hall after him as she flicked it on.

The sounds of his retreat were clumsy. He didn’t go out the front door, but through the back, through the kitchen, where she thought he might have fallen down once. She raced through the house, but by the time she reached the kitchen, he was gone.

The back door stood wide open, and as she swung her light around the room, she noticed the broken pane of glass, its sharp fingers pointing inward, while other bits of glass lay on the floor. His point of entry. There were a pair of socks there, too, and puddles where shoes must have been standing.

He’d run out into the Vermont winter night with thin pants, no socks, and no coat that she knew of. And he’d held that flashlight on her in a very telling way. Overhead, above eye level. And in his left hand. He held that flashlight like a cop held a flashlight.

She still had her boots on, no coat, but she’d survive. She had to see where he had gone. So she stepped outside, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, and studied the footprints in the snow.

He’d headed around the house, and she followed the tracks. She had no intention of chasing this guy down, just wanted to see where he went, whether he had a vehicle or not, and if so, get the stats on it. Make, model, plates.

But she didn’t see a car. The tracks vanished at the neatly plowed driveway. She walked around a bit more, and when she heard a sound, she crossed the street and moved off the road a bit, trudging past trees to the large, flat, snow-covered meadow that lay just behind them.

She shone her light around that meadow, looking for footprints, but there were none. She was sure he had come this way. She took a few more steps, shining her light this way and that.

“Why are you running away?” she called. “What is it you have to hide?”

She took a few more steps, then stood still, just listening. The night wind blew softly, whispering and even whining now and then as it blew past the naked limbs of wintry trees. And then there was another sound, a sharp creaking, cracking, snapping sound that seemed to grow louder. She swung her head left and right, because the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

And then she felt the icy rush of water over her boots, and snapped her head down. The snowy meadow on which she stood wasn’t a meadow at all. It was a pond. A frozen pond. She’d wandered almost to its center, and the ice was giving way beneath her feet.