Bogeyman. Gayle Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ that she still held the flashlight in her hand, she pushed the switch forward, pointing the beam outside the window. Rain streaked the glass, but there was nothing out there. She leaned forward as much as she could, directing the flashlight in a circle—above, to the right, below the window and then to the left. Nothing.

      She straightened, trying to understand how she could have been wrong about the direction of the sound. It had come from here.

      Obviously, it didn’t. You were wrong. So what else is new?

      Her thumb had already begun to apply pressure to the off switch when the tapping came again. This time there was no mistake. The sound was right in front of her. She could even see the glass tremble slightly in its frame.

      The cone of light from the flashlight was focused directly on the window. With a growing sense of horror she realized that there was nothing out there. Nothing touching the window. Nothing moving against it. Nothing that could move against it. Nothing.

      Even as she came to that realization, the beam blinked out, leaving her looking at an empty blackness beyond the glass. Despite her success downstairs, she didn’t even try to shake the thing back on.

      She backed away from the window instead. Then, without being conscious of having made a decision, she ran across to the bed and pulled back the covers. She scooped Maddie up and had already started to carry her across the room when the little girl’s eyes opened.

      “What’s wrong?”

      “Nothing,” she lied. “I thought you might like to sleep in my bed. Because of the storm.”

      Her voice trembled, but she prayed that, roused from a deep sleep, her daughter wouldn’t notice. The wide blue eyes looked over her shoulder, seeming to fasten for a moment on the window above the secretary.

      Then Maddie turned her head, looking up at her. “Don’t be frightened, Mama. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s only the rain.”

      Unable to speak, Blythe nodded.

      No doubt there was a perfectly logical explanation for what had just happened. Whatever that might be, right now she wasn’t interested.

      All she was interested in at this moment was getting Maddie out of this room. And maybe even out of this house.

      2

      As he entered his utility room, Cade Jackson struck his rain-soaked uniform hat against his leg before he hung it on one of the row of hooks by the back door. Then, sitting down on the bench, he removed his lowtopped boots and socks, both of which were even wetter than the rest of his attire.

      The Sheriff’s Department had been asked to help the state troopers work a tanker-trailer wreck out on the interstate. Cade and his deputies had done little more than direct traffic around the area of the possibly toxic spill. The thunderstorm, which had grown in intensity while the highway crews had worked to clean up the mess, had complicated things, dragging out the final all-clear for several hours.

      As a result, Cade was cold and tired and hungry. And right now he wasn’t sure which of those pressing needs should take precedence.

      Shower first, he decided, standing again to slip out of his yellow slicker. The hotter the better. To be followed by a couple of packets of aspirin powder to put a dent in the headache that had developed as he’d squinted through the driving rain at the oncoming headlights. Once those two things were accomplished, then he could think about taking something from freezer to microwave and out again in a matter of minutes.

      He walked into the kitchen, fingers working over the buttons on his shirt. The light on the answering machine that sat on the counter was blinking.

      Whatever this was, given the night he’d had, it couldn’t be good. Still, delaying wouldn’t make the news any better. Blowing out a breath, he stabbed Play.

      While he waited for the message to begin, he pulled his shirt out of his pants to undo the last of its buttons. He was in the act of shrugging out of the damp garment when Teresa Payne’s voice, with its distinctive nasal drawl, came through the speaker.

      “Hey, Cade. Just touching base. When you get in, give me a call about tomorrow night.”

      Returning this particular call was way down on his list of priorities. He had run out of excuses to avoid Teresa’s invitations. And he wasn’t up to coming up with anything creative tonight.

      So tell her the truth. Tell her you aren’t interested. And that you aren’t ever going to be.

      There was enough of his good-ol’-boy upbringing left that he knew he was incapable of being that blunt. At least at this point. If Teresa didn’t figure it out pretty soon, he wouldn’t have much choice. As for tonight…

      Carrying the balled-up shirt in his hand, he walked down the hall, not bothering to turn on a light. He’d grown up in this house. He knew every crack and crevice of it. Every squeak of the cross-sawn oak floorboards.

      He flipped on the overhead in the bathroom. Dropping the shirt onto the floor, he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his uniform pants. He stepped out of those, leaving them on the tile beside the discarded shirt.

      With one hand, he reached back and gripped the fabric between his shoulders to pull his T-shirt over his head. He pitched it to lie on top of the pants and shirt. Seconds later, his boxers had joined the growing pile.

      He shivered a little in the cold. He should have turned up the thermostat, he realized. If he had, by the time he’d finished his shower, the house would be habitable.

      Nude, he stepped out into the hall and pushed the lever up with his thumb. The furnace in the basement came to life with a whoosh, sending heated air through the vents.

      He went back into the bathroom, reaching into the shower to turn on the hot water. Given the location of the heater, it would take longer for that to get warm.

      Since Maria had come today, the racks had all been stripped bare for the washing machine. As he reached for a clean towel from the stack above the john, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

      Dampness from the rain had spiked his hair. It glistened like jet in the light of the fluorescent. Even the twin swatches of gray at his temples were darkened by the moisture.

      He had shaved around five this morning, but the ever-present afternoon stubble now made him look slightly sinister. And the shadows under his eyes made him look old.

      Hell, you are old. Thirty-seven going on a hundred. Especially on nights like this.

      As he turned away from the image in the mirror, exhaustion in every aching muscle, he wondered if he could be coming down with something. Probably not that lucky, he decided. The luxury of a couple of days off, spent inside a warm house, would work wonders. Both the cold and the rain were supposed to continue well into next week, and he would have no choice but to be out in them.

      He slid back the glass door and stepped in, turning his back to the water. For several seconds he didn’t move, letting the force of the spray pound the bunched muscles between his shoulders. After a couple of minutes, he leaned his head back, eyes closed, to let the shower slough the cold moisture of the rain from his hair.

      As his body began to lose the bone-deep chill, СКАЧАТЬ