To Darkness and to Death

  She couldn’t think what it might be. But she really, really didn’t want to consider it.

  She almost went back to her car. She would have to leave soon, to pick Deidre up on time. She examined the door, the granite step beneath it, the spotless bronze handle. Nothing out of place. Nothing odd. She took hold of the handle and turned it.

  The mudroom was dark and cramped. “Linda?” she called. There was a thump, and a rumble, like a subterranean beast waking up hungry, and Meg jumped in her skin until she realized it was just the furnace kicking in. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, impatient with her imagination. She wiped her boots off on the bristly mat and opened the door to the kitchen.

  She saw what was on the floor there.

  For a moment, none of it made sense; then the reality of what she was seeing slammed into her and her lungs and throat filled with a scream that would have torn her voice clean out of her—

  —and she heard a creak. Beyond the kitchen.

  Ohmygod he’s still here he’s still here whoever did this is still here

  Meg tumbled backwards out of the mudroom door and ran, slipping, rolling, slopping through the snow, catching herself on her car’s hood, flinging herself behind the wheel. She twisted the key so hard in the ignition she ground out the engine, then threw the stick into reverse and gunned down the drive, one arm twisted across the seat back, the other barely keeping the wagon from sliding into the snow banks lining the narrow way. She backed straight into the road without looking in either direction and slammed on the brakes, blocking both lanes of traffic.

  She stared up the driveway. There was nothing stirring. No hand or face appeared at the open mudroom door. Then, with a suddenness that made her flinch, an orange-striped cat darted through the open door and bounded over the snow toward the barn.

  Meg’s head fell forward onto her steering wheel. The cat. She had forgotten the cat. Linda visited the shelter the same day she had given her husband his walking papers. She had told Meg his allergies kept her from owning a cat for years, but they weren’t going to hold her back one minute longer.

  Her whole arm trembling, Meg reached for the phone on the passenger’s seat. It was almost too heavy for her to lift. She dialed 9-1-1.

  “9-1-1 Emergency Services. Please state your name and the nature of your emergency.”

  “I’m . . .” Meg took a breath. “I’m Meg Gilchrist. There’s been a—someone’s been killed.”

  “Where are you, ma’am? Are you safe?”

  Was that something in the window? Meg leaned forward to get a better look.

  “Ma’am? Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Yeah. I think so. I think I’m safe. I’m not in the house. I mean, I was, but now I’m in my car. Across the road. Please, you’ve got to send someone.”

  The dispatcher’s voice was both calm and authoritarian, like that of an experienced teacher. “I’m already alerting the police and ambulance service, ma’am. Tell me where you are.”

  “398 Peekskill Road.”

  There was a crackle over the phone. Then the dispatcher’s voice, this time alarmed. “Did you say 398 Peekskill Road?”

  “Yes! For God’s sake, hurry.”

  “Stay right where you are, ma’am. The first car will be there within five minutes. Don’t go back into the house.” The dispatcher sounded shaky, like someone reciting a well-worn prayer during a moment of crisis.

  “I won’t. I—”

  The dispatcher hung up. Meg stared at the phone. Weren’t they supposed to keep her on the line until someone got there? Inside her warming car, she shivered. She wrapped her arms around herself and settled in to wait for someone to deliver her from this nightmare.