He didn't tell anyone, ever.
But when he heard that they'd found George Conway the afternoon after his mother died, hanging from the magnolia tree behind his house, still clutching the knife he'd used to tear his own belly open, Jake heard something.
He heard his mama laughing.
He'd known right away why she was laughing. It was because even though Conway had killed her, she'd still won. But he'd still never understood what she meant when she talked about feeling the evil.
Not until last night when the hounds started up.
For the first time, he'd known exactly what his mama had meant.
He had felt something.
Something evil.
Something outside in the darkness, lurking somewhere just beyond the circle of yellow light cast by the lantern.
Usually, he would have turned the dogs loose, but not last night. Something held him back, something whispered to him to keep them inside the cabin.
This afternoon, though, when he'd left the cabin to take the little boat out, he chained them up outside-couldn't keep them inside all day long. But even as he'd tossed his fishing pole, bait, and bucket into the boat and shoved it out onto the water, he wondered if maybe he shouldn't put them back in the cabin.
Or maybe even take them along.
In the end he told himself that whatever had been skulking around the cabin last night was long gone. And in the bright light of the afternoon sun, he was pretty sure he'd just imagined it anyway. Probably just feeling jumpy after his own midnight outing. Not that he'd done anything wrong-in fact, he'd been doing that whole family a favor. If they had any smarts at all, they'd pack up and move themselves right back to wherever they came from. And there sure wasn't any way they'd know who it was nailed the cat skin on the back of their carriage house. Even if anyone suspected, they couldn't prove it.
No, he'd just been jumpy.
Finally letting himself relax for the first time since he'd opened his mother's trunk last night, Jake lay back on the bottom of the boat, holding his fishing pole loosely in his right hand, his feet propped up on the bench across the middle, his head resting comfortably in the bow. He tipped his straw hat down over his face and closed his eyes.
And then the dogs began baying.
Jake jerked bolt upright, recognizing the sound at once. It was his hounds that had set to wailing, no question about it-even from a mile, maybe two miles away-he could recognize the sound of his dogs. And they were letting out with the same howling they'd set up last night-not all excited, like when they caught the scent of a 'coon or a rabbit. Just like last night, they sounded mad.
Worried, and mad.
Jake reeled in his line, stowed the pole, and started rowing back toward shore. He'd been drifting quite a while, and the cabin looked to be nearly a mile away now, though the dogs' baying carried so clearly over the water they sounded like they weren't more than a couple hundred yards away.
He'd only pulled a few strokes on the oars when the baying died away. He stopped rowing; shipping the oars for a minute while he listened.
Nothing but a fish jumping off to the left, and the whining of a mosquito as it zeroed in on his neck. Then, just as he slapped at the mosquito, he heard it.
Jake knew what the sound meant the second he heard it. A high-pitched howl of pain, cut off so quickly that Jake knew exactly what had happened.
One of his dogs had died.
The mosquito forgotten, Jake lowered the oars back into the water and began pulling hard in a steady rhythm that sent the boat slicing through the water.
Twice he paused, feathering the oars over the lake's rippled surface as he listened, but it wasn't until he was within a few yards of the shore that he finally heard it.
A single dog-he was almost sure it was Lucky-was whimpering.
The boat slid up onto the beach, and Jake jumped out of the bow, pulling the craft out of the water until half of it rested in the hard-packed mud that formed the bank. Leaving everything in the boat, he hurried up to the cabin.
At first glance, nothing looked different. But then, when he got around to the back, he saw that he'd been right. Lucky was at the end of his chain, whimpering as he sniffed the ground around the end of the other chain.
Red was gone.
Jake strode forward and dropped down on one knee. "What happened, Lucky?" he asked. "What's been going on around here while I been gone?"
The dog whimpered eagerly, and wriggled under Jake's touch, but then went back to sniffing the ground around the end of Red's chain. Frowning, Jake picked up the chain and tested the clasp he'd attached to Red's collar.
Nothing wrong with it.
Nor was there any sign of the collar.
"Where is he, Lucky?" he asked. "Where'd he go?"
Snapping the chain off Lucky's collar, Jake stood up. "Find Red," he instructed softly. "Show me where he is."
The dog dashed around the corner of the cabin, and a moment later Jake found him sniffing and scratching at the door.
Mounting the porch, Jake hesitated. Why would Red be inside the cabin? If something had killed him-
Then he remembered. Not something. Someone. An icy chill came over Jake, but he crossed his sagging porch and opened the door to his house.
And there was Red.
The dog lay on the table, its belly slit, its entrails spilling over and hanging nearly to the floor.
At Jake's feet Lucky whined softly and pressed close.
"Oh, Jesus," Jake whispered. "Oh, Jesus Lord, who did this?" His stomach heaving, Jake moved closer, reached out and gently stroked the dog's muzzle, as if to comfort it. Then his eyes fell on the dog's right foreleg.
The paw was missing, severed neatly, leaving the leg to end in a bloody stump.
Too late, Jake thought.
It's already too late.
CHAPTER 19
Janet glanced fretfully at her watch for what must have been the dozenth time. Quarter to six. Fifteen more minutes.
She'd give Jared fifteen more minutes, then-then what?
Call the police? Call the hospital?
"There's nothing to worry about," Ted had assured her an hour ago. "He's almost sixteen." Then, reading perfectly the thought that had popped unbidden into her mind, he grinned. But it wasn't the kind of ridiculing sneer that had so often twisted his lips in the early stages of his binges. This time it was just a friendly grin, and when he spoke, his voice held no hint of sarcasm. "Hey, Jan, come on. He's not me-he's not out getting drunk somewhere. He's probably just hanging out with a buddy or something." He'd put his arms around her then, and nuzzled her hair the way he had years ago.
But hadn't for how long? Five years? Ten? So long ago, anyway, that she couldn't even remember. But his breath had no trace of alcohol now, and when she felt his arms around her and he ruffled her hair, the years fell away and it was as familiar as if he'd held her like this yesterday. "Let's not go looking for trouble until we know it's out there, okay?"
The tension had drained out of her, and she'd gone back to work, peeling the potatoes that were now simmering on the stove while Ted played with Molly, both of them sitting on the kitchen floor, pushing Molly's favorite red and yellow ball back and forth.
Scout was curled up in the corner by the refrigerator.
Kim was up in her room, struggling with her homework.
Like a normal family, Janet thought. We look like a normal family. But as the minutes crept by and Jared didn't come home, her worries had once more started to build. Habit. It's just habit, she told herself. I'm so used to worrying about Ted that if I don't have to worry about him for even one day, I find someone else to worry about. But it hadn't even been one day since Ted came home, she reminded herself. Tomorrow, even tonight, it could all change. For all she knew, he might have a case of vodka hidden away in the house. And yet, all day, as she watched Ted work-and work far harder than he had since they were first married-she'd seen the change in him. Even when he didn't know she was watching, when she stood far back in one of the upstairs rooms so he couldn't possibly see her, he'd kept at it, his torso glistening with sweat, his muscles straining with the unaccustomed labor. And when he finally finished in the backyard, he hadn't rewarded himself with a beer. Instead, he poured himself a glass of the iced tea she'd made before lunch, then taken a shower and played with Molly.