Winter Moon

Heather began to think the suspicious sound had been part of a

nightmare, after all.

She seldom slept well any more, but usually she remembered her

dreams.

They were more often than not about Arkadian's service station, though

she'd driven by the place only once, on the day after the shootout.

The dreams were operatic spectacles of bullets and blood and fire, in

which Jack was sometimes burned alive, in which she and Toby were often

present during the gunplay, one or both of them shot down with Jack,

one or both of them afire, and sometimes the well-groomed blond man in

the Armani suit knelt beside her where she lay riddled with bullets,

put his mouth to her wounds, and drank her blood. The killer was

frequently blind, with hollow eye sockets full of roiling flames.

His smile revealed teeth as sharp as the fangs of a viper, and once he

said to her, I'm taking Toby down to hell with me--put the little

bastard on a leash and use him as a guide dog.

Considering that her remembered nightmares were so bad, how gruesome

must be the ones she blocked from memory?

By the time she had circled the living room, returned to the archway,

and crossed the hall to the dining room, she decided that her

imagination had gotten the better of her. There was no immediate

danger. She no longer held the Korth in front of her but held it at

her side, with the muzzle aimed at the floor and her finger on the

trigger guard rather than on the trigger itself.

The sight of someone outside, moving past a dinningroom window, brought

her to full alert again. The drapes were open, but the sheers under

them were drawn all the way shut.

Backlit by a streetlamp, the prowler cast a shadow that pierced the

glass and rippled across the soft folds of the translucent chiffon. It

passed quickly, like the shadow of a night bird, but she suffered no

doubt that it had been made by a man.

She hurried into the kitchen. The tile floor was cold under her bare

feet.

Another alarm-system control panel was on the wall beside the

connecting door to the garage. She punched in the deactivating code.

With Jack in the hospital for an unthinkably long convalescence,

herself out of work, and their financial future uncertain, Heather had

been hesitant to spend precious savings on a burglar alarm. She had

always assumed security systems were for mansions in Bel Air and

Beverly Hills, not for middle-class families like theirs. Then she'd

learned that six homes out of the sixteen on their block already relied

on high-tech protection.

Now the glowing green letters on the readout strip changed from SECURE

to the less comforting READY TO ARM.

She could have set off the alarm, summoning the police. But if she did

that, the creeps outside would run. By the time a patrol car arrived,

there would be no one to arrest. She was pretty sure she knew what

they were--though not who-and what mischief they were up to. She

wanted to surprise them and hold them at gunpoint until help arrived.

As she quietly disengaged the dead-bolt lock, opened the door--NOT

READY TO ARM, the system warned-- and stepped into the garage, she knew

she was out of control. Fear should have had her in its thrall. She

was afraid, yes, but fear was not what made her heart beat hard and

fast. Anger was the engine that drove her. She was infuriated by

repeated victimization and determined to make her tormentors pay

regardless of the risks.

The concrete floor of the garage was even colder than the kitchen

tiles.

She rounded the back end of the nearer car. Stopping between the

fenders of the two vehicles, she waited, listened.

The only light came through a series of six-inch-square windows high in

the double-wide garage doors: the sickly yellow glow of the

streetlamps. The deep shadows seemed contemptuous of it, refusing to

withdraw.

There. Whispering outside. Soft footfalls on the service walkway

along the south side of the house. Then the telltale hiss for which

she'd been waiting.

Bastards.

Heather walked quickly between the cars to the mansize door in the back

wall of the garage. The lock had a thumb-turn on the inside. She

twisted it slowly, easing the dead bolt out of the striker plate

without the clack that it made if opened unthinkingly. She turned the

knob, carefully pulled the door inward, and stepped onto the sidewalk

behind the house.

The May night was mild. The full moon, well on its westward course,

was mostly hidden by an overcast.

She was being irresponsible. She wasn't protecting

Toby. If anything, she was putting him in greater jeopardy. Over the

top. Out of control. She knew it. Couldn't help it. She'd had

enough. Couldn't take any more. Couldn't stop.

To her right lay the covered rear porch, the patio in front of it. The

backyard was lit only patchily by what moonlight penetrated the ragged

veil of clouds. Tall eucalyptuses, smaller benjaminas, and low shrubs

were dappled with lunar silver.

She was on the west side of the house. She moved to her left along the

walkway, toward the south.

At the corner she halted, listening. Because there was no wind, she