“Peggy? What’s going on?”
“Steve! What are you doing here?”
The breeze had picked up in the last few minutes. It blew a strand of hair into her eyes, but not before she thought she saw someone else. A shadow moved quickly across the empty sidewalk toward the tall red tips of the photinia bushes at the far end of the park. Was it Nightflyer?
“I was worried about you. And I knew something was up. I can’t believe you lied to me! If you had to visit a park in the middle of the night, you should have told me. I would have come with you.”
“I was supposed to meet Nightflyer.” She knew it wouldn’t happen now. Even if he was here, Nightflyer wouldn’t come out with Steve standing over her, glowering. What in the world was Steve thinking, coming out at this time of night?
“Are you kidding me? You sneaked out here like this to meet some guy from the Internet? Peggy, that’s crazy! Don’t you watch the news about people who get hurt by meeting their Internet connections? You could have been killed!”
“You shouldn’t have followed me. This is exactly why I didn’t tell you about the meeting.”
“Really? Is that it? Or is this more a romantic thing with you and this guy? You wanted to meet him secretly to find out if there was really anything between you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Ridiculous? I’m not the one who rode my bike over here at this time of night to meet a stranger who’s been emailing me for the past six months.”
“Steve—” She tried to calm him down, but it was too late.
“Wait. You’re right. I
“Nightflyer,” she corrected lamely as Steve walked away from her, blended into the shadows, and was gone. He must have been waiting outside her house for her to make her move. Thinking about it, she didn’t know if she should kiss him or choke him. She was glad he cared about her, but he had ruined her meeting with Nightflyer. She might never get another chance to meet him. And she wouldn’t get the information she needed from him.
Sighing, she started to get back on her bike when a large white envelope caught her eye. It was on the park bench, and the light above her head gleamed down on it. She picked it up, hoping it was from Nightflyer, and stuffed it into her jacket before she rode home.
SLEEP WAS A LONG TIME coming. Peggy sat on her bed with Shakespeare beside her for hours, poring over the documents in the envelope.
There was a picture of Holles with a younger man who resembled him. They were standing outside a barn with a bunch of cows all around them. Peggy knew Holles’s brother, Jacob, owned a dairy farm in Stanly County. But she wasn’t sure what that meant, and she was almost too depressed to care.
She didn’t want to lose Steve because of Nightflyer. She was interested in the shadowy figure, curious about the things he did and how he knew so many answers, but she loved Steve. She had to find a way to make this right.
A new day was coming. Gray light reached out into the sleeping world. Exhausted, she lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling while she rubbed Shakespeare’s smooth coat.
Her computer chimed, and Peggy knew it was Nightflyer. She lay there, listening to the sound and not responding, feeling like a fool for letting herself get caught up in the craziness. She should have known better. Women her age didn’t do things like that. They stayed home at night and dusted their houses before their parents came to visit. They commiserated with their friends who were charged with murder, but they didn’t interfere.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t that kind of woman. She jumped up and caught the last chime.
She paused to consider his statement
She sighed
