let in the water.'
Miles shook his head. 'I don't... I don't understand.'
'We killed them,' Tibbert said. 'We flooded the town and killed them all.'
The picture was starting to come together, though he still could not claim he understood it.
Apparently, someone screwed up and forgot to make sure that all of the people were out of the town before water was released from the dam upriver. The water flooded the new reservoir, killing everyone who had not been evacuated. The force of the raging water drove them through the canyon-in many instances knocking them out of their shoes or clothes, breaking their bones--and their existence was only discovered a day later, after the ceremonies were over and the dignitaries were gone, when scuba divers went down to
examine the new dam and found the bodies crammed against debris screens, mixed in with the mud. All total, over sixty men and women died.
And now someone or something was taking revenge for it, picking off people who had worked on the project. Supervisors, from what Tibbert told him of the names on the list. People in charge.
The old man leaned back in his chair, drained his cap of coffee. The expression on his face was unreadable, and though he met Miles' eyes, it was only for a second; then he pretended to focus his attention on a bowling trophy atop the refrigerator.
It made sense, Miles supposed, but it was fantastic, and the scenario brought up more questions than it answered. It this was some sort of curse, why had it waited until now to kick in? And who was behind it?
Was this part of some ancient Indian thing, or was it instigated by the relative of one of the people who'd drowned?
Miles stood, perfunctorily thanked Tibbert for the coffee and for answering his questions, told him he'd be in touch soon with some follow-ups, then quickly hurried out of the house and over to his car.
On the sidewalk two Asian girls were playing hopscotch, and from the porch Tibbert told them to get the hell away from his house and play in their own yards. The shouting brought Miles' mind back to the here and now, and he turned back toward the old man, still standing on the front steps. 'Be careful!' he called out. 'You know what's happening. You might be next.'
'Don't worry about me,' Tibbert said, but Miles heard the fear beneath the bravado.
He stepped back up the walk. 'You want me to have someone watch you?
Maybe stake out your place here case something happens?'
Tibbert shook his head.
'You have someone you can stay with?'
'I'll be fine.'
Miles nodded. He wasn't sure that was the case, was not even sure Tibbert himself believed it, but he knew when not to push, and he sensed that the best thing to do right now was to give him a little breathing room. He'd call the old man back in a few hours and check in, see what he wanted not to do after he'd had time to soak this all in and think about it.
Miles walked out to the car, got in, and started the engine. He gave Tibbert one last look, then pulled into traffic.
Magic. Curses. Mysterious deaths. It was crazy, but he bought it all, and he realized that what was really throwing him for a loop was the old lady from the mall.
She's going after the dam builders, too!
The crazy woman had mistaken him for his father, had called him by his father's name. Did that mean that Bob was somehow connected to all this? Miles refused to credit that. He accepted that some supernatural force was being used to avenge the deaths in Wolf Canyon all those years ago, but linking that to his father's resurrection did not make any sense.
Or did it?
He drove out of Monterey Park and onto the Pomona Freeway, troubled.
Liam Connor pushed open the sliding glass door and walked outside to light up a cigarette. Even with Marina gone, he still felt guilty smoking in the house, and he stood on the back patio, inhaling deeply, staring into the darkness.
There seemed something strange about tonight. He could not put his finger on it, but it made him antsy. This was already his fifth cigarette of the evening, though he had vowed to limit himself to three a day.
The backyard was big, but night expanded its parameters even farther.
Light from the house illuminated the patio and a half-circle section of lawn, but the outer flower bed, the bushes beyond, and the wooden fence that marked the edge of his property were hidden behind a curtain of black that erased all boundaries.
It was a quiet evening, and the ocean seemed unusually close. The cars on PCH were loud enough for him to differentiate individual vehicles, and he could make out male and female voices from the sidewalk in front of the bar and shops. He could not hear the sound of waves, but he could hear the cries of gulls, and the air was tinged with the briny scent of the sea.
It occurred to him that he was standing very near the edge of the continent and that, beyond that, water continued halfway around the world, traveling so far that at the other end it was already tomorrow.
Water.
He thought of Wolf Canyon.
There was a sound from the bushes beyond the perimeter of house light, a crack of twig that made him jump. He nearly dropped his cigarette but caught and kept it at the last moment, immediately bringing it to his lips to take a long calming draw
An apple came rolling out of the darkness.
Goose bumps appeared instantly on his arms and the skin at the back of his neck. He looked out across the lawn toward the section of blackness from which the apple had come, and another one rolled across the grass toward him, bumping to a stop on the concrete edge of the patio. He heard laughter on the wind, a low giggle barely discernible in the slight breeze that had suddenly materialized.
He dropped the cigarette, ground it into the cement with his shoe, and turned, reaching for the door handle. He tried to slide the door open, but it was stuck, and though he wiggled it back and forth, jerked it with all his might, the door remained closed, almost as though someone had locked it from inside.
This was it, he realized. This was the night he was going to die.
He wanted to cry out, but his throat was constricted, and instead he tried to run around the house to the side yard. If he could just get out to the front, he could dash over to one of his neighbors' houses.
Or get in the car and drive away.
But he had not even gotten off the patio before another apple flew out of the darkness. This one did not roll across the lawn but came sailing through the air, hitting him on the side of the face. His head was rocked back by the impact, and the stinging pain made his eye immediately tear up. He looked down at the apple, and it split open at his feet. The individual pieces wriggled off the cement and onto the grass, burrowing into the dirt.
His heart was thumping wildly in his chest. He had to get out of here before she showed herself, before she emerged from the shadows and attacked him.
She? How did he know it was a she?
Because it was a she, just as in his dream, and he thought of the woman's voice harassing him over the phone
I'll pull your cock out through your asshole
--thought once again that he ought to know who she was, that he should understand why this was happening and why she was coming after them.
The laughter came again, and though it was an evil, unnatural sound, he recognized it as definitely female. He held a hand over his burning left eye and dashed across the grass, past his bedroom window, toward the side of the house.
She floated toward him out of the darkness.
She came from the spot toward which he was running rather than the area that had been the source of the
