The Waterfall. Carla Neggers

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      “Don’t forget to pack it.”

      She counted out shirts, pants, socks, underwear, and debated whether to bother looking in the cellar and the garage. J.T.’d had nothing to do with the bullet in her car.

      She set the clothes on his bed. “You’re good to go, kiddo. Can you shove this stuff into your suitcase, or do you need my help?”

      “I can do it.”

      “Don’t forget your toothbrush.”

      She went down the hall to her daughter’s room. The door was shut, her music up but not at a wall-vibrating volume. If Madison needed help, she’d ask for it. Lucy left her alone.

      Her own bedroom was downstairs, and on the way she stopped in the kitchen and put on a kettle for tea. She’d pack later. It was an old-fashioned, working kitchen with white cabinets, scarred counters and sunny yellow walls that helped offset the cold, dark winter nights. The biggest surprise of life in Vermont, Lucy had discovered, was how dark the nights were.

      She sank into a chair at the pine table and stared out at the backyard, wondering how many nights Daisy had done exactly this in her sixty years alone. A cup of tea, a quiet house. The Widow Daisy. The Widow Swift.

      It was dark now, the long summer day finally giving way. Lucy could feel the silence settle around her, the isolation and loneliness creep in. Sometimes she would turn on the television or the radio, or work on her laptop, write e-mails, perhaps call a friend. Tonight, she had to pack. Wyoming. Good God, she really was going.

      She made chamomile tea and took her mug with her down the hall to the front door, locked up. Shadows shifted on the old wood floors. She had no illusions the ancient locks would stop a determined intruder.

      A sound—the wind, maybe—took her into the dining room.

      She hadn’t touched it since moving in. It still had the old-fashioned button light switch for the milk-glass overhead, Daisy’s faded hand-hooked rug, her cabbage-rose wallpaper, her clunky dining room set. A 1920s upright piano stood along one wall.

      A breeze brought up goose bumps on Lucy’s arms.

      Someone had opened a window. Again.

      The tall, old windows were balky and difficult to open. Since she almost never used the dining room during the summer, Lucy didn’t bother wrestling with them. She’d meant to have them looked at before the good weather, but hadn’t gotten around to it.

      She felt along the wall with one hand and pressed the light switch. It had to be a kid. Who else would sneak into her house and open the windows?

      Light spilled into the room, casting more shadows. It could be a great room. One of these days she’d have the piano tuned, the rug cleaned, the wood floors sanded and oiled. She’d hang new wallpaper and refinish the table, and have family and friends over for Thanksgiving. Even her father-in-law, if he wanted to come.

      The floor seemed to sparkle. Lucy frowned, peering closer.

      Shards of glass.

      She jumped back, startled. The window wasn’t open. It was broken, its upper pane spider-cracked around a small hole. A triangle of glass had hit the floor and shattered.

      Lucy set her mug on the table and gingerly touched the edges of the hole. It wasn’t from a bird smashing into her window, or an errant baseball. Too small.

      A stone?

      A bullet?

      She spun around, her heart pounding.

      It couldn’t be. Not twice in one day.

      She saw plaster dust on the chair next to the piano, directly across from the window. Above it was a hole in the wall.

      Holding her breath, Lucy knelt on the chair and reached up, smoothing her hand over the hole. The edges of the wallpaper were rough. Plaster dust covered her fingertips.

      The hole was empty. There was no bullet lodged there.

      She sank onto her hands and knees and checked the floor. She looked under the piano. She flipped up the edges of the rug. She could feel the hysteria working its way into her, seeping into her pores, sending poison into every nerve ending.

      She flopped back onto her butt and sat there on the floor. So, she thought. There it is. Some bastard had shot a hole in her dining room window, sneaked into her house, removed the bullet and sneaked back out again.

      When? How? Why?

      Wouldn’t someone—Madison, J.T., Georgie, Rob, the damn mailman—have heard or seen something?

      They’d run up to Manchester last night. It could have happened then, when no one was home.

      The windows faced east across the side yard and the garage, the barn, Joshua Brook. A hunter or target shooter could have been in the woods near the brook and accidentally landed a stray bullet in her dining room, panicked, slipped inside and dug it out.

      “Ha,” she said aloud.

      This was no accident.

      Lucy was shaking, sick to her stomach. If she called the police, she’d be up all night. She’d have to explain to Madison and J.T. Rob’s grandmother had a scanner—she’d call Rob, and he and Patti would come over.

      And that was just the beginning. The police would call Washington. The Capitol Police would want to know if the incidents had anything to do with Jack Swift. He would be notified.

      She staggered to her feet and picked up her tea.

      Now was she desperate enough to ask Sebastian Redwing for help?

      She ran into the kitchen, dumped her tea down the sink and locked the back door. She went into her bedroom to pack. “You need a dog,” she muttered to herself. “That’s all.”

      A big dog. A big dog that barked.

      “A big, ugly dog that barks.”

      He’d take care of intruders, and she could train him to go fishing with J.T. Even Madison would like a dog.

      That settled it. Never mind Redwing. When she got back from Wyoming, she’d see about getting a dog.

      Two

      Sebastian slipped off his horse and collapsed in the shade of a cottonwood. He was out on the far reaches of his property where no one could find him. Still, the bastards had. Two of them. In a damn Jeep. It was bouncing toward him. He could take his horse through the river, but the idiots would probably come after him.

      He sipped water from his canteen, took off his hat and poured a little water over his head. He could use a shower. The air was hot and dusty. Dry. He hoped the dopes in the Jeep had water with them. He wasn’t planning on sharing any of his canteen. Well, they could drink out of the river.

      The Jeep got closer. “Easy,” Sebastian told his horse, who didn’t look too worried or even that hot.

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