· · · ·

  On the floor above, Charity was getting Robbie ready for bed. “You’re a brave boy, I know. Aren’t you a brave boy, darling? Say it, please. It always helps to say it.”

  “I’m a brave boy,” Robbie told her dutifully.

  “You are. I know you are. You won’t let that silly man downstairs fool you. You’ll stay in your own bed, in your own room, and get a good night’s sleep. We’ll do some sight-seeing tomorrow, forests and lakes and rugged hills where the worked-out mines hide.”

  Charity hesitated, gnawing with small white teeth at her full lower lip. “There’s no night-light in here, I’m afraid, but I’ve got a little flashlight in my purse. I could lend you that. Would you like it?”

  Robbie nodded, and clasped Charity’s little plastic flashlight tightly as he watched her leave. Her hand—the one without rings—reached up to the light switch. Her fingers found it.

  There was darkness.

  He located the switch again with the watery beam of the disposable flashlight, knowing that he would be scolded (perhaps even spanked) if he switched the solitary overhead light back on but wanting to know exactly where that switch was, just in case.

  At last he turned Charity’s flashlight off and lay down. It was hot in the too-large, too-empty room. Hot and silent.

  He sat up again, and aimed the flashlight toward the window. It was indeed open, but open only the width of his hand. He got out of bed, dropped the flashlight into the shirt pocket of his pajamas, and tried to raise the window farther. No effort he could put forth would budge it.

  At last he lay down again, and the room felt hotter than ever.

  When he had looked out through the window, it had seemed terribly high. How many flights of stairs had they climbed to get up here? He could remember only one, wide carpeted stairs that had curved as they climbed; but that one had been a long, long stair. From the window he had seen the tops of trees.

  Treetops and stars. The moon had been out, lighting the lawn below and showing him the dark leaves of the treetops, although the moon itself had not been in sight from the window.

  “It walks across the sky,” he told himself. Dan, his father, had said that once.

  “You could walk…” The voice seemed near, but faint and thin.

  Robbie switched the flashlight back on. There was no one there.

  Under the bed, he thought. They’re under the bed.

  But he dared not leave the bed to look, and lay down once more. An older person would have tried to persuade himself that he had imagined the voice, or would have left the bed to investigate. Robbie did neither. His line between palpable and imagined things was blurred and faint, and he had not the slightest desire to see the speaker, whether that speaker was real or make-believe.

  There were no other windows that might be opened. He thought of going out. The hall would be dark, but Dan and Charity were sleeping in a room not very far away. The door of their room might be locked, though. They did that sometimes.

  He would be scolded in any event. Scolded and perhaps spanked, too. It was not the pain he feared, but the humiliation. “I’ll have to go back here,” he whispered to himself. “Even if they don’t spank me, I’ll have to go back.”

  “You could walk away…” A girl’s voice, very faint. From the ceiling? No, Robbie decided, from the side toward the door.

  “No,” he said. “They’d be mad.”

  “You’ll die…”

  “Like us…”

  Robbie sat up, shaking.

  · · · ·

  Outside, the horror writer was hiking toward the old, rented truck he had parked more than a mile away. The ground was soft after yesterday’s storm, and it was essential—absolutely essential—that there be tracks left by a strange vehicle.

  A turn onto a side road, a walk of a hundred yards, and the beam of his big electric lantern picked out the truck among the trees. When he could set the lantern on its hood, he put on latex gloves. Soon, very soon, the clock would strike the children’s hour and Edith with the golden hair would be his. Beautiful Kiara would be his. As for laughing Allegra, he neither knew nor cared whose she might be.

  · · · ·

  “Wa’ ish?” Kiara’s voice was thick with vodka and sleep.

  “It’s only me,” Robbie told her, and slipped under the covers. “I’m scared.”

  She put a protective arm around him.

  “There are other kids in here. There are! They’re gone when you turn on the light, but they come back. They do!”

  “Uh huh.” She hugged him tighter and went back to sleep.

  · · · ·

  In Scales Mound, the horror writer parked the truck and walked three blocks to his car. He had paid two weeks’ rent on the truck, he reminded himself. Had paid that rent only three days ago. It would be eleven days at least before the rental agency began to worry about it, and he could return it or send another check before then.

  His gun, the only gun he owned, had been concealed in a piece of nondescript luggage and locked in the car. He took it out and made sure the safety was on before starting the engine. It was only a long-barreled twenty-two; but it looked sinister, and should be sufficient to make Kiara obey if the threat of force was needed.

  Once she was down there… Once she was down there, she might scream all she liked. It would not matter. As he drove back to the house, he tried to decide whether he should hold it or put it into one of the big side pockets of his barn coat.

  · · · ·

  Robbie, having escaped Kiara’s warm embrace, decided that her room was cooler than his. For one thing, she had two windows. For another, both were open wider than his one window had been. Besides, it was just cooler. He pulled the sheet up, hoping she would not mind.

  “Run…” whispered the faint, thin voices.

  “Run… Run…”

  “Get away while you can…”

  “Go…”

  Robbie shook his head and shut his eyes.

  · · · ·

  Outside Kiara’s bedroom, the horror writer patted the long-barreled pistol he had pushed into his belt. His coat pockets held rags, two short lengths of quarter-inch rope, a small roll of duct tape, and a large folding knife. He hoped to need none of them.

  There was no provision for locking Kiara’s door. He had been careful to see to that. No key for the quaint old lock, no interior bolt; and yet she might have blocked it with a chair. He opened it slowly, finding no obstruction.

  The old oak doors were thick and solid, the old walls thicker and solider still. If Dan and his wife were sleeping soundly, it would take a great deal of commotion in here to wake them.

  Behind him, the door swung shut on well-oiled hinges. The click of the latch was the only sound.

  Moonlight coming through the windows rendered the penlight in his shirt pocket unnecessary. She was there, lying on her side and sound asleep, her lovely face turned toward him.

  As the horror writer moved toward her, Robbie sat up, his mouth a dark circle, his pale face a mask of terror. The horror writer pushed him down again.

  The muzzle of his pistol was tight against Robbie’s head; this though the horror writer could not have said how it came to be there. His index finger squeezed even as he realized it was on the trigger.

  There was a muffled bang, like the sound of a large book dropped. Something jerked under the horror writer’s hand, and he whispered, “Die like my father. Like Alice and June. Die like me.” He whispered it, but did not understand what he intended by it.

  Kiara’s eyes were open. He struck her with the barrel, reversed the pistol, and struck her again and again with the butt, stopping only when he realized he did not know how many times he had hit her already or where his blows had landed.

  After pushing up the safety, he put the pistol back into his belt and stood listening. The room next to that in which he stood had been Robbie’s. Presumably, there was no one there to hear.

  The room beyond that one—the room nearest the front stair—was Dan’s and Charity’s. He would stand behind the door if they came in, shoot them both, run. Mexico. South America.

  They did not.

  The house was silent save for his own rapid breathing and Kiara’s slow, labored breaths; beyond the open windows, the night-wind sobbed in the trees. Any other sound would have come, almost, as a relief.

  There was none.

  He had broken the cellar window, left tracks with the worn old shoes he had gotten from a recycle store, left tire tracks with the old truck. He smiled faintly when he recalled its mismatched tires. Let them work on that one.

  He picked up Kiara and slung her over his shoulder, finding her soft, warm, and heavier than he had expected.

  The back stairs were narrow and in poor repair; they creaked beneath his feet, but they were farther—much farther—from the room in which Dan and Charity slept. He descended them slowly, holding Kiara with his right arm while his left hand grasped the rail.

  She stirred and moaned. He wondered whether he would have to hit her again, and decided he would not unless she screamed. If she screamed, he would drop her and do what had to be done.

  She did not.

  The grounds were extensive, and included a wood from which (long ago) firewood had been cut. It had grown back now, a tangle of larches and alders, firs and red cedars. Toward the back, not far from the property line, he had by merest chance stumbled upon the old well. There had been a cabin there once. No doubt it had burned. A cow or a child might have fallen into the abandoned well, and so some prudent person had covered it with a slab of limestone. Leaves and twigs on that stone had turned, in time, to soil. He had moved the stone away, leaving the soil on it largely undisturbed.

  When he reached the abandoned well at last, panting and sweating, he laid Kiara down. His penlight showed that her eyes were open. Her bloodstained face seemed to him a mask of fear; seeing it, he felt himself stand straighter and grow stronger.

  “You may listen to me or not,” he told her. “What you do really doesn’t matter, but I thought I ought to do you the kindness of explaining just what has happened and what will happen. What I plan, and your place in my plans.”

  She made an inarticulate sound that might have been a word or a moan.

  “You’re listening. Good. There’s an old well here. Only I know that it exists. At the bottom—shall we say twelve feet down? At the bottom there’s mud and a little water. You’ll get dirty, in other words, but you won’t die of thirst. There you will wait for me for as long as the police actively investigate. From time to time I may, or may not, come here and toss down a sandwich.”

  He smiled. “It won’t hurt you in the least, my dear, to lose a little weight. When things have quieted down, I’ll come and pull you out. You’ll be grate-ful—oh, very grateful—for your rescue. Soiled and starved, but very grateful. Together we’ll walk back to my home. You may need help, and if you do I’ll provide it.”

  He bent and picked her up. “I’ll bathe you, feed you, and nurse you.”

  Three strides brought him to the dark mouth of the well. “After that, you’ll obey me in everything. Or you had better. And in time, perhaps, you’ll come to like it.”

  He let her fall, smiled, and turned away.

  There remained only the problem of the gun. Bullets could be matched to barrels, and there was an ejected shell somewhere. The gun would have to be destroyed; it was blued steel; running water should do the job, and do it swiftly.

  Still smiling, he set off for the creek.

  · · · ·

  It was after four o’clock the following afternoon when Captain Barlowe of the Sheriff’s Department explained the crime. Captain Barlowe was middle-aged and heavy-limbed. He had a thick mustache. “What happened in this house last night is becoming pretty clear.” His tone was weighty. “Why it happened…” He shook his head.

  The horror writer said, “I know my house was broken into. One of your men showed me that. I know poor little Robbie’s dead, and I know Kiara’s missing. But that’s all I know.”

  “Exactly.” Captain Barlowe clasped his big hands and unclasped them. “It’s pretty much all I know, too, sir. Other than that, all I can do is supply details. The gun that killed the boy was a twenty-two semi-automatic. It could have been a pistol or a rifle. It could even have been a sawed-off rifle. There’s no more common caliber in the world.”

  The horror writer nodded.

  “He was killed with one shot, a contact shot to the head, and he was probably killed for being in a room in which he had no business being. He’d left his own bed and crawled into his big sister’s. Not for sex, sir. I could see what you were thinking. He was too young for that. He was just a little kid alone in a strange house. He got lonely and was murdered for it.”

  Captain Barlowe paused to clear his throat. “You told my men that there had been no cars in your driveway since the rain except your own and the boy’s parents’. Is that right?”

  The horror writer nodded. “I’ve wracked my brain trying to think of somebody else, and come up empty. Dan and I are old friends. You ought to know that.”

  Captain Barlowe nodded. “I do, sir. He told me.”

  “We get together when we can, usually that’s once or twice a year. This year he and Charity decided to vacation in this area. He’s a golfer and a fisherman.”

  Captain Barlowe nodded again. “He should love our part of the state.”

  “That’s what I thought, Captain. I don’t play golf, but I checked out some of the courses here. I fish a bit, and I told him about that. He said he was coming, and I told him I had plenty of room. They were only going to stay for two nights.”

  “You kept your cellar door locked?”

  “Usually? No. I locked it when I heard they were coming. The cellar’s dirty and the steps are dangerous. You know how small boys are.”

  “Yes, sir. I used to be one. The killer jimmied it open.”

  The horror writer nodded. “I saw that.”

  “You sleep on the ground floor. You didn’t hear anything?”

  “No. I’m a sound sleeper.”

  “I understand. Here’s my problem, sir, and I hope you can help me with it. Crime requires three things. They’re motive, means, and opportunity. Know those, and you know a lot. I’ve got a murder case here. It’s the murder of a kid. I hate the bastards who kill kids, and I’ve never had a case I wanted to solve more.”

  “I understand,” the horror writer said.

  “Means is no problem. He had a gun, a car, and tools. Maybe gloves, because we haven’t found any fresh prints we can’t identify. His motive may have been robbery, but it was probably of a sexual nature. Here’s a young girl, a blonde. Very good-looking, to judge by the only picture we’ve seen so far.”

  “She is.” The horror writer nodded his agreement.

  “He must have seen her somewhere. And not just that. He must have known that she was going to be in this house last night. Where did he see her? How did he know where she was going to be? If I can find the answers to those questions we’ll get him.”

  “I wish I could help you.” The horror writer’s smile was inward only.

  “You’ve had no visitors since your guests arrived?”

  He shook his head. “None.”

  “Delivery men? A guy to fix the furnace? Something like that?”

  “No, nobody. They got here late yesterday afternoon, Captain.”

  “I understand. Now think about this, please. I want to know every-body—and I mean everybody, no matter who it was—you told that they were coming.”

  “I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it a great deal, Captain. And I didn’t tell anyone. When I went around to the golf courses, I told people I was expecting guests and they’d want to play golf. But I never said who those guests were. There was no reason to.”

  “That settles it.” Captain Barlowe rose, looking grim. “It’s somebody they told. The father’s given us the names of three people and he’s trying to come up with more. There may be more. He admits that. His wife…”

  “Hadn’t she told anyone?”

  “That’s just it, sir. She did. She seems to have told quite a few people and says she can’t remember them all. She’s lying because she doesn’t want her friends bothered. Well by God they’re going to be bothered. My problem—one of my problems—is that all these people are out of state. I can’t go after them myself, and I’d like to. I want to have a good look at them. I want to see their faces change when they’re asked certain questions.”

  He breathed deep, expanding a chest notably capacious, and let it out. “On the plus side, we’re after a stranger. Some of the local people may have seen him and noticed him. He may—I said may—be driving a car with outof-state plates.”

  “Couldn’t he have rented a car at the airport?” the horror writer asked.

  “Yes, sir. He could, and I hope to God he did. If he did, we’ll get him sure. But his car had worn tires, and that’s not characteristic of rentals.”

  “I see.”

  “If he did rent his car, it’ll have bloodstains in it, and the rental people will notice. She was bleeding when she was carried out of her bedroom.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Not much, but some. We found blood in the hall and more on the back stairs. The bad thing is that if he flew in and plans to fly back out, he can’t take her with him. He’ll kill her. He may have killed her already.”

  · · · ·

  Captain Barlowe left, Dan and Charity moved into a motel, and the day ended in quiet triumph. The experts who had visited the crime scene earlier reappeared and took more photographs and blood samples. The horror writer asked them no questions, and they volunteered nothing.

  He drove to town the next morning and shopped at several stores. So far as he could judge, he was not followed. That afternoon he got out the binoculars he had acquired years before for bird-watching and scanned the surrounding woods and fields, seeing no one.

  At sunrise the next morning he rescanned them, paying particular attention to areas he thought he might have slighted before. Selecting an apple from the previous day’s purchases, he made his way through grass still wet with dew to the well and tossed it in.