They didn’t pass by. Without any slowdown they arced around fast, high and bright, into the driveway.
She went stumbling headlong back to the rear corner of the house, away from the lights. A long narrow section of dead lawn leaped into brightness ahead of her as she ducked around the corner. He saw me! No, stay cool, he didn’t, stay cool. Hide! She looked around wildly. Nowhere to hide, fences at the back and far side too high to climb; oh, Lord, nowhere to go The funnel of light coming through the areaway vanished, plunging the yard into heavy shadow again.
Car door slammed.
Her breath caught in her throat. She froze, looking back over her shoulder, poised to run again. If he came back here, chased her and she couldn’t get away, she’d start screaming. She could scream like a banshee, Pop always said that, scream like a banshee and bring out the whole friggin’ neighborhood.
Shaky-legged, she went forward again. The crunch of the grass under her shoes seemed loud in the silence. Past the porch stairs, still looking over her shoulder, her breath hot and tight in her chest.
Another door slammed. Front door to the house?
He didn’t see me! He went inside!
She quickened her pace to the corner, turned it slow. On that side a ten-foot-wide section of grass and dirt and straggly plants separated the house from the lot-line fence. Dark along there, but she could see the street ahead, the shape of Horace’s Toyota parked under the curbside tree, part of a lighted house on the far side. She crept beneath two darkened windows, straining to listen. Nothing to hear except the thud of her heart. Light in that window up toward the front? Looked like it… yeah, pale and diffused, probably from a lamp in the room next to it. He’d gone inside, all right. All she had to do was keep easing along, be careful not to make any noise. Another minute or two and she’d be out on the sidewalk.
She edged forward to the window with the light showing, ducked under it to the front corner. Tall, thick jasmine shrub growing there, sweet-smelling in the darkness. Nobody on the street, nobody in sight. Okay, go He was waiting, hidden, along the wall behind the jasmine. He came out at her cat-fast, jammed one hand over her mouth, wrapped the other around her, and dragged her in against the solid bulk of his body.
No!
She couldn’t tear loose, couldn’t yell, could barely breathe. Something hard jammed against her rib cage-gun, he had a gun! Words and hot breath filled her ear.
“Don’t fight me, don’t make any noise. You do and I’ll hurt you like you never been hurt before.”
10
When I left the office, I drove out to Monterey Heights to pick up Emily. Some days after school she went straight home on the bus; most days, like this one, she spent two or three hours at the home of her best friend, Carla Simpson, and either Kerry or I fetched her after work. My turn today, and I was glad of it. Glad, too, that it was one of Kerry’s late days at Bates and Carpenter. Otherwise, she’d have wanted to go with me to see her mother, and been even more annoyed at me when I refused. As it was I’d probably take additional flak for not calling and letting her know Russ Dancer was gone. Lose-lose situation no matter what I did. So I’d just go ahead and handle it the way I’d been asked to.
Still, I didn’t particularly relish driving over to Marin County and facing Cybil alone. I liked Cybil, she was one of my favorite people, but delivering bad news along with Dancer’s legacy was bound to be a little strained. What I needed was a buffer.
In the car I said to the buffer, “Emily, how’d you like to go visit Grandma Cybil before we go home?”
“Sure! But how come?”
“Well, I have to talk to her.”
“What about?”
“Something private. It won’t take long.”
Emily didn’t try to probe. She was as inquisitive as any eleven-year-old, but also accepting of the fact that there were adults-only issues not meant for her ears and that private meant private. One of her many sterling qualities.
So we crawled out Nineteenth Avenue to the Golden Gate Bridge, Emily chattering the whole way about her schoolwork. She was writing an essay on Firebell Lillie Coit, the woman whose fascination with firefighting had led to the construction of one of the city’s landmarks, Coit Tower, and she regaled me with all sorts of obscure facts she’d dug up in her Internet and book research. Amazing how she’d blossomed psychologically and socially in the past year and a half. When I’d first met her, during the course of a case involving her now-deceased birth mother, she’d been shy, vulnerable, lonely, and deeply withdrawn. Some of the shyness remained, but she was no longer the scared little introvert. She’d learned to trust people, trust herself and her feelings. Kerry’s and my doing, in part-plenty of the love and encouragement her selfish parents hadn’t provided-and a source of pride to both of us.
She’d begun to blossom physically as well. Almost twelve now, and the too-slender little girl had grown three inches and filled out into an attractive young lady approaching puberty. Already in it, for all I knew. If she wasn’t wearing a bra yet-I hadn’t asked Kerry because I didn’t want to know-it was all too obvious she’d have to start pretty soon. Her mother had been a beauty-flawless compexion, perfect features, great luminous eyes, dark silken hair, and a long-legged, high-breasted figure-and Emily looked just like her, with the additional attributes of character and intelligence. She was going to be a knockout by the time she was fifteen or sixteen. Boys were sure to swarm around her, and that worried me already. When she started dating, I was going to have a lot of sleepless nights and a lot more gray hairs. Served me right for becoming a father at my age, with my jumbled code of contemporary and neo-Victorian ethics.
Traffic wasn’t too bad after we got past the toll plaza; we were in the quiet little town of Larkspur before six o’clock. Redwood Village, the seniors’ complex where Cybil had lived the past few years, was tucked back against a grove of ancient redwoods-five acres of duplex cottages, plus a rec room, dining hall, swimming pool, and putting green set among rolling lawns and other greenery. Pretty nice place for those who could afford it. And Kerry’s father, Ivan, who’d made a lot of money writing radio and TV scripts and books on occult and magic themes-and who’d been something of a jerk-had left her well fixed after his death a few years ago. Not even the shaky state of the economy had harmed her finances much; Ivan’s stock portfolio had been extensive and conservative, built and nurtured to weather just about any economic downturn.
She’d been in a bad way for a while after his death. Depressed, lonely, obsessed with a feeling that her own life was all but over. Kerry had talked her into selling her L.A. home and moving in with her-this was before our marriage-but that hadn’t worked out too well for any of us logistically, or improved Cybil’s mental health. Enforced dependence for a woman who had been independent-minded for seventy-some years was not the answer. The answer was for her to take control of her life again, and the move to Redwood Village had accomplished that. In a way it was like a rebirth. She’d flourished in the new environment; she was past eighty now and still going strong.
In the forties and early fifties she’d been almost as prolific a contributor to the detective pulps as Russ Dancer; her Samuel Leatherman byline had appeared on dozens of stories, the bulk of them about a tough L.A. detective named Max Ruffe. When paperback novels and the emergence of television killed off the pulp markets, she’d decided to abandon fiction writing altogether rather than make the transition to full-length novels. Writing had been an avocation with her; Ivan’s success meant she didn’t need to make a living and she’d preferred to devote her time to her family and other pursuits. So Kerry and I were both amazed when Cybil announced one day, six months or so after taking up residency in Redwood Village, that she was writing again. Her first novel, no less. And she hadn’t just dabbled at it; she’d worked as intensely as she had in the old days and produced a finished manuscript in seven months. Eroded skills after a forty-year layoff? Not Cybil’s. The novel, Dead Eye, set in the fifties and embroiling Max Ruffe in the Communist witch hunts in the Hollywood film industry, was pretty good; it had sold on its fourth submission, to a small New York publisher. Strong reviews and decent sales had brought her a contract for a sequel, Glass Eye, which she’d finished in November and which was scheduled for publication this coming fall.