LITMIR.BIZ

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phone. She’d been getting a lot of interference on her phone line lately.

      Maybe she needed a new phone.

      When the long summer twilight ended, plunging the earth into dark, she lit the candles and opened a can of tuna, breaking it up into chunks with her fork as she chopped up celery and stirred in yogurt. Sitting down at her empty kitchen table, she made herself eat, but she turned on the television.

      Under the intensity of the surge-dimming studio lights, the weatherman wore rolled-up sleeves, a gleam of sweat and an apologetic smile as he slogged manfully through the news that one more hundred-degree day had made it into the record books.

      “Sorry, folks, looks like there’s no rain in the forecast for this week. We’ve had reports of brush fires in some outlying areas, so keep an eye open for smoke, hear now?” he admonished as he concluded and turned to the anchor.

      “Joel, thanks for that report!” The brunette with the stiffly sprayed hair beamed at him. The tiny line of perspiration along her upper lip caught the light as she spoke. “But at least it will be another record day for the beaches, right?”

      Joel nodded as the camera closed in on his sweating face.

      “It’s been an interesting weather year, hasn’t it? The January freeze and now this drought?” The anchor’s expression was professionally concerned, her eyes drifting to an offscreen TelePrompTer.

      “None of our computer projections suggested this kind of summer, that’s for sure, Janet.” Joel patted his shining face. “And, no, we don’t have an explanation for it. Not yet. Maybe it’s a sign that the world is ending.” His laugh was too hearty. “No, but really, folks, we think it’s probably related to the volcano eruption or to those huge gamma ray explosions reported by the NASA observatory and—”

      “Fascinating, Joel! I know our listeners will stay tuned for more background.” The anchorwoman’s chuckle was feeble. Joel had had too much airtime. Her voice dropped to a really, really serious register as she interrupted, “On to local news, Joel. Young Eric Ames is still missing. The search has been expanded to Manatee and Sarasota Counties—”

      Josie got up and silenced the perky voice with a flick of her wrist.

      Later, she lit the candles lined up along the screened-in porch one by one, a ceremony of remembrance and sorrow, their light a token in all the darkness.

      Once, sometime after midnight, an animal shrieked, caught by unseen talons. For an unsettling instant, she had the fancy that she could hear the frantic beating of that distant small heart, feel its fear pumping through her veins.

      Standing and pacing on her porch, back and forth, back and forth through the night, she watched the candles and their flickering reflections in the panes of the open windows, until the last candle sputtered out, leaving her alone in darkness.

      In the teasing cruelty of the cool that came shortly before dawn, she had the dream again.

      Even dreaming, she knew she slept, knew she wandered in some limbo of the soul.

      And in her dream she heard the ringing of the phone and knew if she answered it she would hear Mellie’s voice.

      “Mommy!” Ahead of her, Mellie danced from one foot to the other. “Hurryhurryhurry! You’ll be too late, Mommy!” Her short, sturdy legs were covered with bits of moss and leaves. Behind her and to her right, a tall shape hovered, its edges blurred and unrecognizable at first. Twisting on her bed, Josie moaned. This time, she recognized the form.

      Ryder Hayes, stalking through her dreams, his face turned away from her, only his lean shape betraying him.

      “Mommy!” Impatiently, Mellie waved Josie to her. The bangle bracelet, nothing but imitation gold, glittered with her movement. “Now, Mommy. Now!” She stamped one yellow-sneakered foot on the ground and turned to run.

      The shape drifted with Mellie, tracking her.

      Hayes? Or someone else?

      Her blood quickening, Josie twisted in her sleep.

      “Mellie, wait!” she called out. From the corner of her eye, Josie saw the shadowy figure stalking beside her now, moving with the easy fluidity with which Ryder Hayes had disappeared into the woods, and she wanted to turn and look, really look, see if its eyes were the haunted dark of Ryder Hayes’s, so that, waking, she would know.

      But Mellie was vanishing ahead of her and Josie couldn’t take time to linger. She couldn’t lose sight of her daughter. If she did—“Wait for me, sweetie!” she called. Changing, swelling to an enormous shadow, the form brushed against her, closed her in its darkness as she screamed, “Mellie!”

      She knew she screamed. Her throat was raw with the effort. But the words never came out. Strangled in her throat, they woke her every time. “Wait,” she whispered now, the early-morning sunlight a pallid yellow that hinted of the heat to come.

      The phone was still ringing.

      With a shaking hand, Josie reached for it.

      She expected static.

      “Mrs. Conrad?” Low, the voice slid over her skin like the tickle of a feather.

      She thought he hesitated momentarily over her name. “Yes, Mr. Hayes?”

      “You shouldn’t go to the police.”

      “What?” she whispered, stricken.

      “Don’t go to the police with your story about what you think you saw in my house. You’ll look foolish if you do. Your daughter’s not here. As far as I know, I’ve never seen her.”

      Josie couldn’t speak.

      “Nor are those dogs my pets. Don’t make a fool of yourself, Mrs. Conrad. Take my advice.”

      The click as he hung up sounded like a threat.

      Leaning her head on her hands, Josie sat at the edge of her bed.

      He’d known she was going to the police.

      He’d told her she would make a fool of herself if she did.

      She pulled on clean shorts and a long T-shirt that she clipped into a wad on one side. Purple, orange and red, the ring made the shape of an exotic flower when she pulled the fabric through it. A gift, too, from Mellie.

      Josie didn’t like feeling threatened by Ryder Hayes.

      Would Stoner have called Hayes? Would Stoner have had any reason to warn Ryder Hayes? Complications. Puzzles within a puzzle, but she hadn’t changed her mind about talking with Stoner.

      As she poured a glass of milk and snagged the piece of toast that popped up, she heard the heavy thump of the weekend paper landing at her front step. Carrying the milk in one hand, she walked barefoot over the wood floor to the front door. She would read the comics, the sports pages, the editorial.

      She couldn’t read the front-page headlines anymore.

      Opening the inside front door, she reached for the latch on the screen door.

      Even without his implied threat, Ryder Hayes made her uneasy in ways she couldn’t identify.

      He had been in her dream, an unsettling darkness moving through the mist toward her. He’d become the haunting shape in her dream. The figure was always there, just out of sight, and each time she had the dream, she was left frustrated, feeling that if she could only once remember to turn and look straight at that shadowy shape, she would know—

      She flicked the latch up as she glanced down at her stoop.

      Through the glare of sunlight coming through the mesh of the screen, she saw the rattlesnake coiled on top of the thick mat made by the folded-over newspaper.

      Stretching toward her and following the movement of her arm behind the screen, its head was flat and triangular. The ropy body was thicker than her arm, its diamond shapes iridescent in the sun. Underneath those gleaming

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