he was almost able to believe that all the things The Owl had done had been a dream. Other times, though, like now, he could feel it living inside him. He could see The Owl's head, its dark eyes surrounded by pools of yellow. He could feel how its talons grasp the limb of a tree. He could feel the touch of its soft velvety plumage, causing him to shiver inwardly. He could feel the rush of air beneath its wings as it swooped down on its prey.
Seeing Laura had brought The Owl rushing from its perch. Why had he waited so long to come to her? The Owl demanded to know, but he was afraid to answer. Was it, he wondered, because when Laura and Jean were finally destroyed, The Owl's power over life and death would vanish with them? Laura should have been dead twenty years ago. But that mistake had liberated him.
That mistake, that accident of fate, had transformed him from the stuttering crybaby-'I ammm th-th-the oooooowwwwwlllll and I liwvwe in aaaa…'-into The Owl, the predator, powerful and unflinching.
Someone was studying his ID, a guy with glasses and thinning hair, dressed in a reasonably expensive dark gray suit. Then the man smiled and held out his hand. 'Joel Nieman,' he said.
Joel Nieman. Oh, sure, he had been Romeo in the senior play. He was the one Alison had written about in her column: 'To everyone's surprise, Romeo, a.k.a. Joel Nieman, managed to remember most of his lines.'
'Did you give up on acting?' The Owl asked, smiling back.
Nieman looked surprised. 'You have a good memory. I thought the stage could do without me,' he said.
'I remember the review Alison wrote about you.'
Nieman laughed. 'So do I. I was going to tell her she did me a favor. I took up accounting, and it was a better way to go. Terrible shame about her, isn't it?'
'Terrible,' The Owl agreed.
'I read that initially there was some question of a possible homicide investigation, but the police now pretty much believe that she passed out as she hit the water.'
'Then I think the police are stupid.'
Joel Nieman's expression became curious. 'You think Alison was
The Owl realized suddenly that perhaps he looked and sounded too vehement. 'From what I read, she made a lot of enemies along the way,' he said carefully. 'But who knows? The police are probably right. That's why they always say that no one should go swimming alone.'
'Romeo, my Romeo,' a voice squealed.
Marcy Rogers, who had been Juliet in the school play, was tapping Nieman's shoulder. He spun around.
Marcy still wore her chestnut hair in a mass of tangled curls, but now it was highlighted with random streaks of gold. She struck a theatrical pose. 'And all the world shall be in love with night.'
'I can't believe it. It's Juliet!' Joel Nieman exclaimed, beaming.
Marcy glanced at The Owl. 'Oh, hi.' She turned back to Nieman. 'You've got to meet my real life Romeo. He's over at the bar.'
Dismissal. Just the way he'd always experienced it at Stonecroft. Marcy hadn't even bothered to look at his ID. She simply wasn't interested in him.
The Owl looked around. Jean Sheridan and Laura Wilcox were standing next to each other on the buffet line. He studied Jean's profile. Unlike Laura, she was the kind of woman who got better looking as she aged. She looked decidedly different, although her features certainly hadn't changed. What had changed was her poise, her voice, the way she held herself. Oh, sure, her hair and clothes made a difference, but the change in her was more interior than outward. Growing up, she had to have been embarrassed by the way her parents carried on. A couple of times the cops had been exasperated enough to cuff them.
The Owl walked over to the buffet line and picked up a plate. He realized that he was beginning to understand his ambivalence toward
Jean. During the years at Stonecroft, a couple of times, such as when he didn't make the football team, she'd gone out of her way to be nice to him. In fact, in the spring of senior year he'd actually considered asking her for a date. He had been sure she wasn't going out with anyone. Sometimes, on warm Saturday nights, he would hide behind a tree in lovers' lane and wait for the cars to drive there after the movies. He never saw Jean in one of them.
Positive thoughts aside, it was too late to change course now. Only a couple of hours ago, seeing her come into the hotel, he'd finally made up his mind to kill her, too. At this moment he understood why he had made that irrevocable decision. His mother used to say 'still waters run deep.' Jeannie may have acted nice to him a couple of times, but she was probably just like Laura underneath, snickering about the poor dope who had wet his pants and cried and stuttered.
He helped himself to salad. And so what if she hadn't been in lovers' lane with one of the jerks in their class, he reflected. Instead, Miss 'Butter-Wouldn't-Melt-in-Her-Mouth' Jeannie had been romancing a West Point cadet-he knew all about that.
Fury lashed through him, alerting him that soon he would have to release The Owl.
He skipped the pasta, selected poached salmon and green beans with ham, and looked around. Laura and Jean had just settled at the honoree table. Jean caught his eye and waved him over. Lily looks just like you, he thought. The resemblance is really striking.
The thought sharpened his hunger.
11
At two o'clock, Jean gave up the attempt to sleep, turned on the light, and opened a book. But after reading for an hour and realizing that she had not absorbed one word, she restlessly put the book down and turned off the light again. Every muscle in her body felt wired and taut, and she had the beginning of a headache. She knew that the effort to socialize all evening, despite the constant gnawing worry that Lily might be in danger, had exhausted her. She realized that she was counting the hours until ten o'clock when she would visit Alice Sommers and tell her about Lily.
The same thoughts kept racing through her mind. In all these years I've never mentioned her to a soul. The adoption was private. Dr. Connors is dead, and his records were destroyed. Who could have found out about her? Is it possible that her adoptive parents know my name and have kept track of me? Maybe they told someone else, and that person is the one contacting me now. But
The window facing the back of the hotel was open, and the room was getting cold. After a moment's debate Jean sighed and pushed back the covers. If I have any hope of getting some sleep, I'd better close it, she thought. She got out of bed and padded across the room. Shivering as she cranked in the open panel, she happened to glance down. A car without its lights on was pulling into the self-parking area of the hotel parking lot. Curious, she watched as the figure of a man stepped out and began walking quickly toward the back entrance of the hotel.
His coat collar was up, but when he opened the door to the lobby, his face was clearly visible. Turning away from the window, Jean thought, I wonder what in the name of God one of our distinguished dinner partners found to do until this hour of the night.
12
The call came into police headquarters in Goshen at 3:00 A.M. Helen Whelan of Surrey Meadows was missing. A single woman in her early forties, she had last been seen by a neighbor. Whelan had been walking her German shepherd, Brutus, at or about midnight. At 3:00 a.m. a couple living a few blocks away at the edge of the county park were awakened by the howling and barking of a dog. They investigated and found a German shepherd trying to struggle to its feet. It had been savagely beaten on the head and back with a heavy instrument. A woman's size seven shoe was found on the road nearby.
