Mercy died shortly afterward, mostly from bitterness and jealousy and pure meanness, people claimed. She was barely in the ground when Zebediah married Ariel. Most citizens had forgiven her in light of her bravery and did not object when Zebediah changed the name of the town in her honor. Together they had two more children. Zeb died long before Ariel and she had a large monument built to him in the town square. Although she lived to be eighty, she never remarried.
As children Tamara and Lily were entranced by the story of Ariel who had lived alone on the windy shore of Lake Erie, tormented yet strong and loving. They thought she was beautiful, wonderful, courageous, and all that a woman should be. Unbeknownst to their parents, they used to dress up and play for hours in the Saunders house, taking turns at pretending to be Ariel. Sometimes Natalie St. John played with them. Tamara had seen pictures of Ariel and thought that with her long black hair and dark eyes, Natalie made the best Ariel, but she never told Lily. Natalie was the only one of their friends with whom they shared the secret of the game. Natalie could always be trusted with a secret.
For just a moment Tamara had an impulse to forge ahead and take a look at the decrepit house. Then she glanced up. Dark clouds billowed. The summer storm was blowing in faster than she'd expected. She had no time for exploring now. She'd left several of her windows up and her new car in the driveway beneath a tree instead of in the garage.
Tamara turned and took several hurried steps down Hyacinth Lane. Tree limbs swayed and creaked. A silvery shaft of lightning ripped the gray sky. Tamara's ponytail blew wildly in the wind and a piece of dirt flew into her right eye. She stopped, rubbing at it gently. Damn. It had lodged under a contact lens.
A tear ran down her cheek. Lord, it hurt. She shut her eye and took a few more hurried steps. A scrabbling sound pulled her up short. She jerked her head to the right. What on earth was that? It sounded as if it were rushing at her.
"Happy Face?" she called. "Happy, is that you?"
The rushing sound stopped. Now there was silence, but a sinister silence. Something was watching her. She could feel the gaze running up and down her body. Her hands turned icy. She took a deep breath. Don't be silly, Tamara, she told herself sternly. What would be watching you? A chipmunk? A squirrel? Still, a dark wing of fear fluttered inside her. "Happy Face?" she called again, hopefully, uncertainly.
But it wasn't the dog. Suddenly footsteps pounded through the underbrush, snapping vines, then smacking against the bare dirt. Tamara whirled blindly, not sure in which direction to run. It didn't matter. In a flash an arm shot out from a slick, dark mass. Some kind of plastic coat. Tamara yelped in fear as the arm clenched around her neck and yanked backward. She dropped the violets she'd picked earlier. Her heels dragged the ground. She clawed uselessly at the sinewy arm locked directly under her chin. Her neck felt as if it were going to snap. Her eyes bulged in fear and shock as she gasped for air. "Wha-"
A long steel razor with a bone handle flicked open. In one cold, frozen moment Tamara saw the blade glint in a flash of lightning before it slashed viciously across her throat and around her neck, cutting the vocal cords, severing the carotid artery. Blood spurted straight out, then cascaded down, drenching the sleeve of her white sweater.
"Their throat is an open tomb," a voice whispered caressingly in her ear as Tamara's slender body jerked grotesquely in its death throes.
The arm released Tamara. She fell in a heap, still twitching, her eyes wide, her blood soaking the dirt. The figure kneeled beside her and tucked a note into the fold of her sweater. Then it stood, bowed in a grotesque imitation of servitude, and wafted silently back into the dark, swaying forest.
Rain had begun to fall when the dog returned five minutes later. It loped toward Tamara, then abruptly stopped, dropping the stick. It whimpered unhappily. Finally it warily approached the body of the woman who earlier had greeted it so joyously. When it smelled blood, the hair on its back stood up and it crouched, half-crawling to Tamara. It stared at her with warm amber eyes, the smiling look gone from its face. Gently, almost reverently, it lay down and stretched its sleek neck across the gaping slash in hers, protecting her from further harm. As rain poured, the dog howled mournfully into the lonely night.
2
Natalie slowly opened her eyes. Morning sun filtered dimly through delicate willow-patterned curtains. A beautiful green coverlet lay over her drowsy body. She drew a deep, lazy breath, then shot up in bed, her dark gaze frantically searching for the clock. Nine! She was due at Anicare an hour ago. She was on the Sunday morning shift. What had happened to the alarm?
Reality rushed back. She closed her eyes in relief and leaned back against the pillows. She wasn't at Anicare because she was officially on vacation-on vacation from her job, on vacation from Kenny Davis. She was back in Port Ariel in her old room and unless her nose deceived her, she smelled bacon and eggs frying.
Natalie stretched, yawned, considered going back to sleep for a few minutes, then thought of the breakfast being prepared for her. Under normal circumstances breakfast consisted of a bagel or an English muffin eaten on the run.
She was swinging her legs out of bed when her father yelled, "Natalie, breakfast! Hurry up before I eat it all!"
She smiled wryly. He'd been saying the same thing since her mother left twenty-three years ago when Natalie was six. He'd always seemed to think cooking breakfast for her could make up for any emotional trauma-a runaway mother, a faithless lover.
"Be right there, Dad," she called, looking around the room for her robe. It lay on the white bedroom chair, a beautiful splash of pale green-and-pink silk. She wished desperately she had brought another robe. She'd grabbed this one be cause it fit neatly into the suitcase, but just looking at it caused her pain. She'd been so touched when she'd opened the package last Christmas morning and found the exquisite kimono-style robe she'd admired in a store a month before. She didn't think Kenny had been paying attention.
Tears pressed behind her eyes. "Stop it," she told herself firmly. "You're not going to sit around weeping and wailing all day."
She shrugged hurriedly into the robe and brushed her long, black hair back into a ponytail that hung halfway to her waist. A close inspection in the mirror showed that her large dark brown eyes-the eyes with the slight almond slant she'd inherited from her Eurasian mother-showed tiny red lines. She reached for the Visine. Just four margaritas last night at Panache with Lily Peyton and now she had bloodshot eyes. Four was over her limit. After her second, though, it had seemed so good to see Lily again she didn't want the evening to end. After the third, she'd reached the maudlin stage and began describing in what she now realized was excruciating detail the demise of her relationship with Kenny Davis and how she'd come back to Port Ariel "just for a couple of weeks" to get her bearings. Natalie shook her head. What a thrilling night for Lily, but she'd understand.
"Everything is going to be ice-cold if you don't get out here," Natalie's father threatened.
"Coming?" Natalie rushed from her bedroom into the roomy country kitchen filled with morning light. Sunshine bounced off the copper bottoms of cookware hanging above an island range, and plants cascaded from pots sitting around the many windows. Exercising his amateur interest in architecture, Andrew St. John had designed the house for his bride Kira and had it constructed on a beautiful piece of land running down to Lake Erie. Natalie had always loved it. She thought it reflected her father's personality-big, strong, open. The place was built of solid stone to stand up to the heavy northern winds, and glass expanses showed off the spectacular lake view. When she'd first left home and begun living in apartments, she'd felt as if she couldn't get her breath.