“I don’t know.” I paused. “But you can’t keep running. You can’t live this way. Maybe, I don’t know, you’ve got something to trade? What do you know about the drug trade, that other biker gang in Canborough? Maybe, you tell the cops everything you know, help them clear some cases, you can cut some sort of deal.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll have to give that some sort of thought. Regardless, I have to move on. I stay here one more night, and I’m gone.”
“Trixie,” I said, stopping and taking her elbow, looking her in the eye. “Face up to it. Do what you have to do, try to start over.”
She pulled away from me, gently. Katie burst out the door, jumped off the porch, and ran toward her mom, shouting, “Chicken chicken chicken chicken!”
Trixie scooped her up into her arms, rubbing noses with her daughter, and the two of them disappeared into the house, the screen door slamming behind them. I stood outside a moment, alone, wondering how this would all play out.
I took the couch.
Trixie had a double bed in the third bedroom upstairs, and she’d whispered to me that if I wanted to share it with her, she’d be a perfect lady if I could be a perfect gentleman.
I thanked her for the offer, but told Claire the couch would be fine. She got out some sheets, even though I told her not to bother, tucked them into the sofa cushions and found me a cushy pillow. I was upstairs, coming out of the bathroom, when I heard Trixie in Katie’s bedroom. The door was open an inch, and the room was dark but for a bedside lamp, and Trixie was sitting on the edge of the bed, up close to Katie, who was under the covers, her head pressed into the pillow, her eyes wide.
“Tell me more about the princess,” Katie said.
“Well,” said Trixie, “once upon a time, there was a princess, with very curly hair, who was only five years old, and she could do anything she wanted.”
“Even stay up late to watch TV?”
“Not that sort of anything. Anything that was hard, that took a lot of work, anything that the other princes and princesses thought would be too much trouble, that was the sort of anything she could do. Like, if she wanted to be a scientist, she could do that. Or if she wanted to be a doctor, or a painter, or a dancer, whatever she wanted to be, she could do it.”
“Was she magic?” Katie asked.
“Some people thought so, but mostly, she was just special. And she was special because so many people loved her.”
“How many people?”
Trixie thought a moment. “Seventeen,” she said.
“That’s a lot,” said Katie. “So what did the princess decide she wanted to be?”
“What do you think she decided to be?”
Katie mulled this one over. “I think she decided to be a dog doctor.”
“Really?” said Trixie. “A dog doctor. You mean, she wanted to be a dog, who becomes a doctor, or she wanted to be someone who took care of sick dogs?”
“She wanted to be someone who wanted to take care of sick dogs.”
“That makes sense,” said Trixie. “I think that’s a good choice.”
“I like dogs,” said Katie. “But I don’t like dragons. If a dragon got sick, I wouldn’t try to make it better.”
“Dragons are scary,” Trixie agreed.
“I don’t want there to be any dragons,” Katie said.
“Neither do I,” Trixie said, and leaned over to give Katie a kiss goodnight.
I slipped away down the stairs.
“Zack.”
When I opened my eyes, it took me a couple of seconds to realize where I was. On the couch, in the living room of the Bennet house. Trixie, in a robe, the sash knotted in front of her, was kneeling over me in the darkness. I could smell her hair as it hung down her face toward me.
“Zack,” she said again, whispering.
“Yeah, Trixie, it’s the middle of the night.” Instantly, I wondered what her intentions were. Here we were, alone, Trixie in a robe, me mostly undressed, in a darkened room.
“Shhh,” she said.
“What is it?”
“I think there’s someone out there.”
I blinked hard, several times, getting the sleep out of my eyes and getting them adjusted to the dark. “Out where?”
“Outside. Around the house.”
“What? How, what, you probably just heard something. An animal or something.” I’d swung my legs out from under the covers and was in a sitting position, in socks, boxers, and a T-shirt.
“I came down to the kitchen,” Trixie whispered, “for a glass of water, and I thought-” She stopped abruptly, put her index finger to her lip. Neither of us breathed.
I thought I heard a board creak. On the porch, at the front of the house.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
I nodded. Merker, I thought. Somehow, I’d fucked up, led him here. But how was that possible? How could Merker have followed me through the countryside without my noticing? Even an amateur detective like myself would have picked up a tail.
“Have you woken up the others?” I asked. Trixie shook her head. “Get them up, get Katie.”
Trixie didn’t have to be told twice. She disappeared, padding back up the stairs on bare feet. I stood and moved silently to the front door. The door window was curtained, but there was enough of a slit to peer outside. Out on County Road 9, a van with high beams on drove past. I couldn’t make out anything between the house and the road, no people, no unfamiliar vehicles, no-
Someone moved past the window, momentarily blocking my view.
My heart nearly burst out of my chest, but I managed to stay very still. I moved away from the door, pressed myself up against the wall. I inched my way toward the stairs and mounted them as noiselessly as possible.
A dark figure met me at the top.
“Zack?”
It was Don. No one, wisely, had turned on any lights.
“Yeah,” I said. “There’s at least one. I just saw him move past the front door.”
Claire and Trixie were behind them. “Stay with Katie,” he told them, and they both slipped into the girl’s room. “Who is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But he was going around the south side of the house.”
“I’ve got a rifle, but it’s in the back of my pickup,” Don said. “Shit.”
I thought of the small garden shovel by the front door, the one Claire had swung at me, but we’d have to go outside to get it, too.
“There’s an old baseball bat in the basement,” Don said. “If I can see to get down there.”
We both went back down to the first floor. I tapped Don’s arm, pointed to the front door. The shadow was moving the other way, past the door and then the living room window. Then it crouched down, disappeared below the frame.
“Call the police,” I whispered.
“But if they, if they come and find Miran…”
“Don.”
“Jesus, I know.” I followed as he crept into the kitchen, took hold of the receiver from its wall mount, and put it to his ear. “Oh God,” he said.
“What?”
“There’s nothing. No dial tone.”
I took the receiver from him, put it to my own ear, then hit the receiver button a couple of times. I hung the
