Eugenie put her left fist under her left cheek. She looked across the table at the bathroom, the shower, and the little sleeping area of the camper. She didn't want to sleep here. She wanted to sleep in her own bed, in her own house, where she'd always slept. She didn't want to move. She didn't want to make new friends, she wanted to keep the old ones-not on E-mail but in real life. She wanted to be able to watch TV with her best friend Ana and videotape the plays that they put on and-
Something thumped hard against the side of the camper, just under the window. It rocked the RV back and forth and then it was quiet outside. There was no more shoomy noomy or laughing.
Eugenie listened carefully after the RV stopped moving.
"Mom?"
The young girl's mouth twisted. She picked up Blankie and slid off the bench.
"Mom?"
She walked toward the door at the front of the RV. There was no one talking at all now and she was scared. She'd seen a TV show about the world's most ordinary serial killers where people had gone to the store and parked next to killers, who seemed like friendly people until they followed them home and killed them. Serial killers probably went to campgrounds too.
She reached the door and hesitated. She turned to Blankie, who was huddled in her left arm.
"What do you think?" she asked the rabbit.
Eugenie didn't bother answering. She thought that everything was all right, that maybe another RV had arrived and backed into theirs and her father was going to inspect the damage. But why hadn't her mother come in to see if she and Blankie were all right?
Eugenie reached for the knob. As she did the door suddenly swooshed open. Her mother was standing there, the top half of her body leaning across the door of the RV, her bottom half still outside. There was blood all over her forehead and cheeks, in her long red hair, and down her green sweater.
"Mom?"
"Get back!" her mother screamed at her.
Eugenie just stood there, scared and confused, as her mother put her right foot on the first of the two steps. The woman grabbed the sides of the doorway and tried to pull herself inside. But something stopped her. Cold. The woman's mouth pulled tight on both sides and her eyes shone white beneath the blood.
Eugenie started to cry.
"Stay inside!" her mother screamed. "Close the-"
Her mother vanished as she was speaking. She just disappeared to the side, like a balloon someone had popped. Here-then gone.
The door was still open. Eugenie heard gurgles and growls and things moving, but no voices. No talking.
Eugenie was squeezing Blankie so tightly that a finger went through his scraggly neck. But she wasn't even aware of it. She was only aware of the sounds and the cool air coming through the door-
The door. Her mother had said to close it.
Eugenie sniffed back her tears as she took a tentative step toward the door, then another, and then another before she could finally reach it. She stretched out her small hand and when she did she saw outside, not because she couldn't help it but because she had to see what was there.
Eugenie nearly fell as her legs went wiggly. She had been to the San Diego Zoo many times but she'd never seen anything like the thing that was holding her mother facedown and sideways in its mouth. The woman was so limp and the animal was so large that it seemed almost like her mother was Blankie.
Eugenie screamed. And screamed. And then she turned and ran, not because her mother had told her to but because her legs got their strength back and were telling her to.
She heard a roar behind her, one that filled the RV and shook her ears, but she didn't look back. She just screamed and ran and didn't even stop when Blankie's head dropped and rolled under the Formica table…
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sheriff Malcolm Gearhart crossed the dark, deserted beach like Douglas MacArthur returning to the Philippines. At least, that's how it seemed to Grand. The sheriff was still all stride and command, despite what had to have been a long and frustrating day.
Gearhart walked directly to the ranking highway-patrol officer. Sergeant Bonnie Crellin. Hannah was also hurrying across the sands, pulling her tape recorder from her handbag as she did.
Grand walked after her, his longer steps making up for her hurried pace. He hadn't been on the beach since Rebecca's death and, now that he had a moment to think about it, he absolutely didn't want to. Feeling the sand under the rippled soles of his boots, hearing the ocean so close-it was almost as though he could reach out blindly and she'd find his hand. He held and savored the moment until it became unsettling. Until that which had been so deeply fulfilling was followed by an almost unbearable sense of loss.
Grand needed to let Rebecca go, not just for his sake but for the sake of the here and now. He needed to focus on whatever was killing people. He continued the process Rebecca had started before-
He corrected himself. It was Hannah, he thought. Hannah had started the process, not Rebecca.
Grand continued the process of assuming that saber-tooths were alive and worked backward. The size of rib cages suggested the giant cats had remarkable lung capacity, which could be used for extended running but also for holding their breath underwater. Carrying off two hundred pounds of dead weight was also possible for them. Scarring from muscle attachments on fossils indicated that the animals had very strong neck and jaw muscles. That was presumed to be for accommodating their powerful biting and gutting ability-killing prey with a single, penetrating attack of the two fangs, then ripping up chunks of flesh for consumption. But what if the neck muscles were also used for hauling the dead prey off to dens? Gutting it later?
Then there'd be no sign of a victim, except for blood.
This part of Southern California was the heart of where Smilodon fatalis had lived, from the shore to the mountains and all the way down past Los Angeles. In addition to the killing style, the geology would certainly explain everything that had happened, from the disappearance of engineers Greene and Roche to the attack on the catamaran. Not only had the rains opened new tunnels, but many of the existing caverns opened into underwater grottos, formed over the millennia by the rise and fall of the sea.
Yet while so many things made sense, the notion itself was highly improbable, if not impossible. How could saber-toothed cats have remained hidden for so many years?
By living underground and eating wild animals.
But without a sighting?
His own words came back to him: Probably because no one who ever saw one lived to paint its picture.
Gearhart was talking to Sergeant Crellin. As Grand and Hannah neared, the reporter turned.
"I want to tell Gearhart what we've found out," she said as they walked. "Are you okay with that?"
"Sure."
"He may want answers more than he wants me to just disappear," Hannah said. "Maybe we can pool what we know."
Gearhart was turning away from Sergeant Crellin just as Hannah and Grand neared. The sergeant was instructing her men to break out the yellow tape and to admit only Gearhart's lab team. The sheriff glanced at Hannah and Grand, then started toward the wreckage of the catamaran.
Hannah caught up to him. "Sheriff, we need to talk."
"Ms. Hughes, this is now officially a crime scene."
"I know."
"You'll have to leave."
"I know the drill."
"But I would like copies of the pictures your photographer took," Gearhart went on. "He can drop them off at my office. You'll be reimbursed for his time and material."
"You can have copies on me. All I want to do is talk."