no, not yet. Any more words coming out her mouth would just stumble and bump together like her thoughts, same kind of babble as her conversation with Vonda. Too wired to make sense. Too wired to keep on sitting here like this worrying about how wired she was.
Do something!
Next thing she knew, she was out of the car again and locking the door. And then up on the sidewalk, heading straight for 1109.
Oh, listen now, you better not do this, you don’t know what you might be walking into…
Random thought, bumped away by all the others. Didn’t even put a hitch in her stride. Up the front path, remember to go slow and look straight ahead like she belonged here. Climb the porch steps, step up close to the door. Quiet inside, nobody moving around that she could hear. Thumb on the bell… here we go.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Relief and disappointment in equal measures. She left the porch, hesitated at the foot of the steps to look both ways along the street. No cars, no people walking around in the dark. She sidestepped to her right, into the empty drive. Between the house and the garage was a narrow, shadowed areaway that led to the rear of the property. Her legs carried her that way, into the areaway and halfway along to where a side door opened into the garage. She paused long enough to turn the knob: locked. Relief and disappointment again, and another random thought- Don’t go any farther! — that got bumped away. She kept on going into the backyard.
Big shade tree, heavy shadows that moved and rustled in the breeze. Shrubs, dead grass that crunched under her shoes. Crooked board fence at the back end. Lights in the house on the other side, but no lights in the one here. Her mouth felt dry as toast; she tried to work up some spit, but her saliva glands wouldn’t cooperate. Man oh man.
She went a few steps to her right, across more dead grass toward a platform porch tacked onto the rear of the house. She wasn’t thinking at all now, and too deep into her prowl to quit on instinct. Half a dozen warped steps led up to the back door; she stopped at the foot of them, squinting, holding her breath. Door was sure to be locked, and even if she could get inside she didn’t dare do it. Breaking and entering, criminal trespass What was that?
Noise inside somewhere. Sounded like…
There. Again.
She moved away from the steps, in close to where a window made a black rectangle down low in the pale white wall, almost at ground level. Stood still again and flapped her ears, hard. And the hair went up on her neck, her scalp crawled, her pulse kicked and fluttered.
Crying.
Child crying in there.
Tamara squatted and leaned an ear against the cold glass. No mistake. And not just any kind of crying-lost, scared, maybe hurt. Little girl? Couldn’t be sure. She tried to peer through the window, couldn’t even see her own reflection, and realized that the blackness was more than just night-dark-it was paint, there was black paint all over the glass. Her fingers dug at the bottom of the sash; it wouldn’t budge. Nailed or painted shut, might also be barred in some way.
Now what? Make some noise, try to attract the child’s attention? What good would that do? Little kid left alone this way, must be locked up in a room.
Flash of herself breaking in, rescuing the kid. Oh no you don’t. Who you think you are, Superwoman? Movie stuff, Hollywood bullshit. No clue what’s going on, blunder in there and you’re liable to make a bad situation worse. And it was bad. She could feel the bad coming out from behind that black-painted window, negative energy as heavy as pulses of heat. Her skin tingled and crawled with it.
Smart thing was to stay cool. Get off this property, fast. Then.. talk to the next-door neighbors, use some pretext to make sure that kid in there didn’t belong to a new girlfriend of Robert Lemoyne’s. And then quit the neighborhood, get hold of Bill and convince him, and after that go find the nearest cop house. She’d have to talk long and hard, and downplay the trespassing thing, but with the boss man for backup she’d convince the law too. Then…
Yeah, then. Better be right about this, Tamara.
I am. Listen to that kid crying, remember the way things went down last night. Bad, all right. Bad as it can get.
She stood and backed off from the window, retraced her route across the dry grass toward the garage. Full of purpose now. Hurrying some as she headed into the areaway.
Car on the street.
She was opposite the side door to the garage when she heard it. Couldn’t see it or its lights yet, but it was in this block-engine sound getting louder. She pulled back against the wall of the house, where the shadows were deepest. Nothing to worry about. Early yet, cars passing by all the time. The street brightened ahead with the approaching lights. Just stand still, wait for them to pass by.
They didn’t pass by. Without any slowdown they arced around fast, high and bright, into the driveway.
She went stumbling headlong back to the rear corner of the house, away from the lights. A long narrow section of dead lawn leaped into brightness ahead of her as she ducked around the corner. He saw me! No, stay cool, he didn’t, stay cool. Hide! She looked around wildly. Nowhere to hide, fences at the back and far side too high to climb; oh, Lord, nowhere to go The funnel of light coming through the areaway vanished, plunging the yard into heavy shadow again.
Car door slammed.
Her breath caught in her throat. She froze, looking back over her shoulder, poised to run again. If he came back here, chased her and she couldn’t get away, she’d start screaming. She could scream like a banshee, Pop always said that, scream like a banshee and bring out the whole friggin’ neighborhood.
Shaky-legged, she went forward again. The crunch of the grass under her shoes seemed loud in the silence. Past the porch stairs, still looking over her shoulder, her breath hot and tight in her chest.
Another door slammed. Front door to the house?
He didn’t see me! He went inside!
She quickened her pace to the corner, turned it slow. On that side a ten-foot-wide section of grass and dirt and straggly plants separated the house from the lot-line fence. Dark along there, but she could see the street ahead, the shape of Horace’s Toyota parked under the curbside tree, part of a lighted house on the far side. She crept beneath two darkened windows, straining to listen. Nothing to hear except the thud of her heart. Light in that window up toward the front? Looked like it… yeah, pale and diffused, probably from a lamp in the room next to it. He’d gone inside, all right. All she had to do was keep easing along, be careful not to make any noise. Another minute or two and she’d be out on the sidewalk.
She edged forward to the window with the light showing, ducked under it to the front corner. Tall, thick jasmine shrub growing there, sweet-smelling in the darkness. Nobody on the street, nobody in sight. Okay, go He was waiting, hidden, along the wall behind the jasmine. He came out at her cat-fast, jammed one hand over her mouth, wrapped the other around her, and dragged her in against the solid bulk of his body.
No!
She couldn’t tear loose, couldn’t yell, could barely breathe. Something hard jammed against her rib cage-gun, he had a gun! Words and hot breath filled her ear.
“Don’t fight me, don’t make any noise. You do and I’ll hurt you like you never been hurt before.”
10
When I left the office, I drove out to Monterey Heights to pick up Emily. Some days after school she went straight home on the bus; most days, like this one, she spent two or three hours at the home of her best friend, Carla Simpson, and either Kerry or I fetched her after work. My turn today, and I was glad of it. Glad, too, that it was one of Kerry’s late days at Bates and Carpenter. Otherwise, she’d have wanted to go with me to see her mother, and been even more annoyed at me when I refused. As it was I’d probably take additional flak for not
