insistent about it, actually.”
“Well, she would be,” Red said heavily.
“What do you mean by that?” Mitch asked.
Red gazed out the window at the approaching darkness. “Not that it’s anything you should be concerned about-because, well, we are talking about someone who was clinically deranged-but Tuck’s father, old Roy Weems…”
The madman who had shot his wife and himself in Mitch’s bedroom. Mitch leaned forward in his seat. “Yes…? What about him?”
“In the weeks leading up to the incident,” Red Peck said, “Roy kept claiming he heard footsteps.”
Now was when Mitch had his second nightmare.
This one was a doozy. This time Mitch was back in Dolly’s study with those three men. Only now their eyes were red and their teeth very sharp, like the vampires in those garish Hammer Films horror flicks with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. And Maisie was in this one. In fact, she was one of them. She was trying to kill him. To get away from her he fled back down into the crawl space-only they followed him. They all did. Their eyes glowed at him in the darkness. And they had him surrounded. And they were edging closer and closer and…
He awoke screaming. His heart was racing. His T-shirt was drenched with sweat. And his little house was shaking. A wicked storm had blown in. The wind was howling. Lightning crackled in the sky. Thunder rumbled. And the Sound had come to life, pounding angrily against the rocks.
As Mitch lay there in the darkness, listening to this, he heard footsteps again. At first, he felt he might be letting his imagination get the best of him. But he wasn’t. These footsteps were real. And they were in the house. Downstairs. Now they were on the stairs. He could hear the stairs creak. Each creak was a footstep, each one louder than the last. Someone was moving steadily, stealthily toward him in the darkness. Growing closer. And closer…
“Who’s there?” Mitch demanded to know.
Silence. Only silence.
He fumbled for matches. Lit his hurricane lamp, bathing the upstairs loft in a golden light.
Dolly Seymour stood there at the top of the stairs.
She wore a long white nightgown and an utterly blank expression. She was barefoot. She was shivering. She stood with her hands clasped behind her, rather like a child posing for a class picture. Except she was no child. She was a mature, lovely woman. And her nightgown was very nearly sheer. Mitch could make out the fullness of her breasts, the rosy hue of her nipples, the darkness of her pubic hair.
“What is it, Dolly?” he asked her huskily. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t answer him. Just stared at him, her gaze eerily unfocused. She seemed to be in a kind of trance. Was she sleepwalking? Drugged? He couldn’t tell. Her lips were moving, a low murmur coming out of her mouth. But no words. At least, none he could comprehend.
He raised his voice. “Dolly, can you hear me?!”
“The mother,” she said in a soft little sing-song voice. Saliva bubbled from her lips.
“What about the mother?”
“The mother is hurt.” Now she started across the loft toward Mitch, unclasping her hands, raising one of them over her head.
She held a carving knife in her hand. A long carving knife. And she was coming right at him with it.
Mitch clambered from the bed and grappled with her, wrestling the knife from her hand. Dolly relinquished it with little resistance. Their brief struggle seemed to rouse her from her trance. She blinked her eyes several times now. And she looked around at the loft, wide-eyed. Then she let out a gasp of utter horror and fainted dead away in Mitch’s arms. He stood there holding her for a moment. He thought about putting her right to bed here in his bed. But then he thought better of it. He carried her sideways down the narrow stairs, hugging her to his chest, feeling the aliveness, the animal warmth of her in his arms and his hands. He carried her out his open front door into the darkness, the wind howling, the trees rustling. Fat raindrops were beginning to patter down. Soon it would pour. He started down the gravel path with her toward her place. It was a long way to carry someone but she was as light as a feather. He made it through the laundry room door with her and managed to flick on the kitchen light. Several drawers were open, the contents strewn on the floor as if the place had been burgled. He carried her up to her bedroom and set her down gently on her bed. He turned on the nightstand light. Dolly was stirring now, her eyes flickering. Her tiny hands and feet were frozen. He began rubbing them for her.
That was when she came to. She panicked at the sight of him there. “Why, Mitch!” she cried, pulling her nightgown tightly around herself. “Wh-What are you doing here in my…?”
“You were wandering in the night, Dolly. You were in my house.”
“That’s not possible!”
“I assure you it is. You came all the way upstairs to my room.”
“Oh, dear.” She swallowed, reddening. “I’m so sorry, Mitch. I do sleepwalk from time to time. I-I’m sorry to have put you to so much trouble.”
“Not a problem. That’s what neighbors are for.”
“Thank you for being so kind.” Her eyes softened now, her gaze holding his. She reached out for his hand and took it, gripping it tightly. She seemed very frightened and alone at that moment, very vulnerable.
And, suddenly, Mitch was keenly aware of just how awkward the silence was becoming. He remembered how she had felt in his arms. He realized how long he had gone without a woman. But he was also aware that it was a genuinely bad idea to go down this road. So he said, “Can I get you anything-a glass of water, another blanket?”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m just so sorry I bothered you. Imagine what you must have thought…” She yawned. She suddenly seemed overwhelmingly sleepy. “Good night, Mitch,” she mumbled, burrowing under the covers. “And thank you.”
Mitch shut off the light and went back downstairs, only to discover he was not alone.
Bud Havenhurst was standing there in the kitchen in a silk bathrobe, glowering at him. “I saw the light,” he said to Mitch accusingly. “Just exactly what do you think you’re doing here?”
“She was sleepwalking. She came into my bedroom. I brought her home.”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”
“I honestly don’t care what you believe,” Mitch shot back. “But that’s what happened. I didn’t invite it. I didn’t enjoy it. And I sure as hell don’t appreciate where you and your dirty mind are going. So back off, understand?”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Havenhurst said hurriedly. “You’re absolutely right. I had no call to…” He ran a hand over his face, slumping against the kitchen counter. “I was out of line. My apologies.”
Mitch stood there studying him. “Are you always up at three in the morning watching your ex-wife’s house?”
“Old habits die hard. I learned to sleep lightly when she and I were married.”
“Meaning what, she does this often?”
“Look, she’s fine, all right?” Bud said wearily. “Everyone’s fine. So just go home.”
Mitch didn’t budge. “That woman nearly stabbed me in my own bed.”
Bud drew his breath in. “She had a knife with her?”
“She did.”
“I wondered, when all I saw all of the drawers open…” A horrible thought seemed to cross his mind now. “You aren’t planning to call Tal Bliss about this, are you?”
“I will if you don’t tell me what the story is.”
“Fair enough,” Bud agreed reluctantly. “Dolly has episodes. They come and go. There have been stretches where she’s fine for three, four years. And then-” He snapped his fingers. “She’s off to the races again. No one knows why. The shrinks at Yale-New Haven never could come up with anything concrete. ‘It’s an inexact science,’ was how they kept putting it. Care for a glass of milk, Mitch?”
“No, thanks.”
“I think I may have one.” He fetched it from the refrigerator. It came in a glass bottle from a nearby dairy in Salem. He poured himself some and sipped it thoughtfully. “This storm might have set her off. Wind scares her. Always has. Or she might still be upset about Niles. Hard to say. Apparently it all dates back to when she found the
