She felt weak with relief as she turned the water on.
The sprinkler began its sweep back and forth across the lawn. Elizabeth ran through it, screaming. Robbie, however-the one who had suggested this-hung back. "Go on!" DeAnne said. "Just run through it and get wet.
The water won't hurt."
Robbie still hesitated.
Then Stevie came out, walked over to where Robbie was, took him by the hand, and said, "OK, they're about to drop the bomb on us, let's run!" And, screaming, he and Robbie ran through the water.
DeAnne went back in the family room and brought out the folding chair she always used when she sat in the back and watched the kids play. She sat there, watching, and thought, Somebody wants me to think that he's watching, too. Somebody wants me to sit out here in my back yard and be afraid.
Well, it's working.
Step knew that something was bothering her, so when he woke up at three in the morning and found her side of the bed empty, he was not surprised. He knew why she couldn't sleep. The letter from the mortgage company had laid things out in no uncertain terms. "Your single payment was insufficient to keep this account open. If we do not receive in our office all back payments and late fees, along with the July payment currently due, for a total payment of $3,398.40, by 22nd July, we will begin foreclosure proceedings against the property." It was only then that Step discovered that DeAnne had not paid the back payments in June, when the first check from Agamemnon arrived. She hadn't spent the money on anything else; it was still there, ready to be paid. But it had been strange, to say the least, for DeAnne simply not to pay. It wasn't as if they didn't owe the money. It was their moral obligation to pay it. They had decided together that they would pay it. And yet the money still waited in the bank.
DeAnne had obviously been unwilling to discuss it with Step last night. She agreed at once that she would send the payment tomorrow, but she seemed distracted, as if she wasn't paying attention. She told him twice about Stevie playing with the other kids in the sprinkler, and she seemed jumpy. Now she couldn't sleep. Well, neither can I, thought Step. He got up and went in search of her. He found her in the family room and started reassuring her about the mortgage.
"It's not the house, Step," she said. "But you were so worried about it tonight that I didn't want to pile on anything more."
"You were protecting me? That's not how it's supposed to go."
"I'm sorry," she said. "We depend so much on your being able to concentrate on your work. But I can't handle this alone." She gave him the record and the envelope it came in. "It was waiting at our front door."
As soon as it started playing, he recognized it. He had the car--radio habit as DeAnne did not, and the song was hot right now. He had even liked it, the cleverness of it, the nastiness. But not when someone sent it anonymously to his family. He took it off the stereo before it finished playing. Then he broke it in half and carried the pieces outside to the garbage. There was nothing he could say that would reassure DeAnne. He could only take her to bed and hold her until finally she fell asleep.
He slept badly the rest of the night, and the next day at work, the question kept nagging at him. Who could have sent it? Who would want to disrupt their lives, fill them with fear?
DeAnne had figured that whoever it was knew Step better than DeAnne-but that didn't really leave anybody out, because it seemed as though Step had made all the enemies they had anyway. Who, after all, would want them to think that they were being watched? It might be Lee Weeks, of course, punishing them for the baptism thing. Or Gallowglass, after the Fourth of July pic nic-he had been cool and distant at work ever since, and who knew what might be going through his mind in response to the clear accusation in Step's actions that day?
There were others who might harbor ill feelings, too. It might conceivably be Mrs. Jones, who had missed her last month of teaching and, according to Dr. Mariner, would not be coming back next year. Could she have sat at home, brooding, until she thought of sending that record to make the Fletchers suffer a little, too? It could even be Sister LeSueur, though that seemed beyond possibility- it was hard to imagine her ever hearing a rock song, let alone buying one, even as a satanic weapon.
Dicky? It couldn't be Dicky. He was a vindictive man, Step already knew that, and they had already had one confrontation too many. But surely Dicky would confine his vengeance to bureaucratic infighting at work.
Wouldn't he?
It was an appalling list, really: Lee, Glass, Mrs. Jones, Dicky Northanger, Sister LeSueur-these were the people who definitely felt they had cause to hate or fear or resent Step Fletcher after he had lived in Steuben, North Carolina, for less than five months. Just think how many enemies he could make by New Year's! Yet he hadn't set out to make any enemies at all. He had come to Eight Bits Inc. expecting to be friends with Dicky Northanger-he had liked him well enough during interviews. It was Dicky who decided to be Step's enemy. It was Sister LeSueur who intruded into their lives, not the other way around. It was Mrs. Jones who singled out Stevie and mistreated him-should Step have let it go on, in the effort to be a "peacemaker"? What kind of peacemaker would he be, how blessed exactly would he be, if he pursued peace at the expense of his children's happiness?
As for Glass and Lee, well, standards of reasonable behavior clearly did not apply. No one could blame him for their enmity, surely.
By ten o'clock he realized that he was not going to get anything meaningful done this morning. He might as well go hang out in the pit and see if he could pretend to be useful there.
On the way he passed the spare office where unused equipment was stored and noticed that someone had left the light on. Step opened the door just enough to snake his arm in and flipped off the light.
Someone inside the room bellowed.
Step flung the door open and flipped the light back on, already apologizing as he did. "I'm sorry, I just assumed somebody had left the light on, I didn't know anybody was using it."
He had already closed the door when he realized that it was Dicky who was in that room, sitting at a cleared-off desk, and the computer he was using was not a 64 or an Atari or any machine Step had seen before.
He opened the door again. "Excuse me, is that the Lisa? We haven't got a Lisa here, have we?"
Dicky had already covered the machine with a tarpaulin and he was halfway to the door. Step's having opened it yet again clearly unnerved him. "Dammit, you sneaky son-of-a-bitch, haven't you spied enough for one day?"
"Since when is it spying to open the storage room?" asked Step. "Is this some sort of top secret project?"
"No, it's a Boy Scout computer, and it likes to sleep in a tent," said Dicky.
But by now Step had already seen what Dicky had carelessly left uncovered-the large empty box on the floor with the name Compaq emblazoned on it.
"Sorry, Dicky," said Step. "Perhaps a locked door would do the job.
"I was just getting up to lock it when you barged in for the third time-I hope you'll forgive me for counting."
"Sorry," Step repeated. "I'll never switch off another light at Eight Bits Inc., I promise." He drew the door shut behind him.
As he walked down the corridor, he heard Dicky open the door again and then slam it shut. Oof, Dicky, feel better now?
Step got to the door of the pit, set his hand on the handle, and then turned around and headed back to his office. He picked up the phone and called DeAnne. "Have you mailed that check to the mortgage company?"
"Not yet," she said.
"Don't."
"Why not? What happened?"
He told her about what he had seen, and how secretive Dicky had been about it. She didn't get it.
"The Compaq computer is an IBM clone. And Dicky is working on it secretly"
"Oh," she said. "The agreement..."
"If Eight Bits Inc. is supporting the PC when I quit, I can't do any programming for the PC for a year. I'll already be cut off from the 64 and the Atari as it is. I have to quit today, DeAnne. It may already be too late."