How could she do a thing like that? Sandy wondered.
The answer came to her mind in the old, familiar voice of Maggie Kutch-“Easy: m-o-n-e-y.”
No, Sandy thought. Janice isn’t like that. She wouldn’t risk the lives of innocent people that way. So maybe she doesn’t know what really happened to Warren.
Or maybe it
Eric would’ve killed him.
Sandy climbed the wooden stairs to the back porch of Beast House.
Warren would be dead, she told herself, if Eric had attacked him. Dead like Terry and all the others. So obviously, Eric wasn’t responsible for...
That’s different, she thought. I’m his mother. He hardly hurt me at all—a few scratches, a few bites, nothing major.
Everybody else, he rips apart
He would’ve shredded Warren, killed him.
So maybe it was teenagers, after all.
The porch door was locked. Clamping the flashlight between her thighs, Sandy dug into a front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a folding Buck knife. She opened the four-inch blade and slipped it into the crack between the screen door and its frame.
A simple hook and eye secured the door.
She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there. They’d been there in the old days when she was a guide. And they’d still been there the last time she’d secretly entered Beast House to search for Eric.
After first returning to Malcasa Point in early 1993, she’d gone into the house two or three nights a week. But that hadn’t lasted long. Soon, she’d tapered off to once or twice a month as she began to give up her theory that Eric would return to the town of his birth, the home of his ancestors.
He’s not a homing pigeon, she used to tell herself.
But then she would think of all the stories she’d heard about cats and dogs finding their way home from enormous distances...
Their cabin to Malcasa Point wouldn’t be any great trick.
A person could walk the distance in less than a week, no trouble at all.
Eric, apparently, hadn’t.
Maybe he just wasn’t interested in returning to Malcasa Point. Or maybe he didn’t know how. Or he
Though Sandy could only guess at the reason, the fact was that she never found Eric—or any trace of his presence—during her clandestine visits to Beast House.
She’d made her last illegal entry near the end of 1994.
Here we go again, she thought.
With a flick of the knife, she tapped the unseen hook out of its unseen eye. She folded the knife, slipped it into her pocket, then took the flashlight from between her thighs and opened the screen door. Inside the porch, she eased the door shut. She fastened its hook.
Turning around slowly, flashlight off, she scanned the dark porch. During the day, it served as a makeshift lounge area for Beast House staff members. She knew there was a sofa, a card table, a couple of old lounge chairs and a small refrigerator. Now, they made a jumble of motionless shadows. She smelled a faint, stale odor of cigarette butts.
Facing the back door of the house, Sandy listened. She heard the quick thumping of her own heart. Off in the hills, an owl hooted. She also noticed a quiet
She stepped to the wooden door. Again, she clamped the flashlight between her legs. Hands free, she removed a slim leather case from a breast pocket of her outer shirt. She opened it and drew out her pick and tension bar.
She felt for the door knob, found the lock hole, then slipped her tools into it.
She needed no light for picking the lock
Inside the kitchen of Beast House—the door shut and locked behind her back—Sandy put away the tools. Then she took slow, deep breaths, trying to calm down.
This was
Her heart was trying to smash its way out of her chest. Sweat trickled down her face and neck. The flashlight felt slippery in her hand.
With the tail of her outer shirt, she wiped her face.
Then she made her way slowly through the kitchen.
Nothing to be afraid of, she told herself.
She smiled, but her smile trembled.
She knew that she wasn’t afraid of physical harm to herself...and she certainly didn’t fear “the beast.” She had no reason to fear being caught trespassing, either; not only was she a police officer, but she was one of Lynn Tucker’s best friends. If taken for a prowler, she could simply explain that she’d entered to investigate something. Maybe she’d noticed a flicker of light in one of the windows...
She feared none of that. What terrified her was the possibility of confronting her son.
Her baby.
Eric.
She had always loved him. Even before his birth, when he was an unseen force slumbering in her womb, she’d loved him.
After his birth, she’d cherished him even more. She would’ve done anything for him. She would’ve died for him. She did kill for him, and he had killed for her.
But Eric had also murdered Terry.
And he had taken Sandy by force and made her pregnant, and
She had to kill him. For what he’d done to Terry. For what he’d done to her and what she’d bad to do because of it. But she still loved him. She would never be able to stop loving him, no matter what he might do, but she had to kill him nonetheless.
He probably isn’t here, anyway, she told herself.
But maybe he is.
Something had scared the kid in the attic.
While still in the spa, Sandy had decided to try the attic first.
She left the kitchen and walked slowly along the narrow passage to the foot of the stairway. Then she stepped around the newel post and began to climb the stairs. She made no attempt for silence. Her western boots clumped against the wood. The old planks creaked and moaned under her weight.
The noises seemed very loud in the silence. Sandy figured they could probably be heard throughout the house-except perhaps in the attic and cellar.
They might warn Eric of her approach.
Good.
At the top of the stairs, she turned to the right and walked heavily down the hallway. She stopped at the attic door.
It was shut. With her left hand, she unhooked one end of the cordon and let it fall. Then she gave the knob a
