His stomach heaved and he barely made it to the toilet before his mouth filled with vomit.
When the nausea passed, he took a deep breath, steeled himself, and then finally looked down.
Looked at his hands.
Nothing.
No blood.
Eric raised his hands to eye level and looked first at his palms and then at the backs.
He examined his fingernails.
Clean. No trace of blood at all.
Yet he could so clearly remember the feeling of plunging them inside her—
“Stop!” he whispered out loud. “It was only a dream.”
He splashed cold water on his face, filled the water glass and drank it down, then closed the lid on the toilet and sat for a moment.
The cold hard tile on the floor felt solid beneath his feet, and finally his pulse began to slow.
He waited, putting off the moment when he would have to go back into the bedroom where the nightmare might be waiting to torture him once more.
But it hadn’t been real, he told himself. It had only been a dream.
Yet even as he silently reassured himself, he could almost feel the cold steel of the scalpel in his right hand.
But it had only been a dream, he told himself once more. It couldn’t have been real, any of it.
Could it?
THE SMELL FROM the kitchen greeted Eric as he opened his bedroom door. He stood at the top of the stairs, rubbing his eyes, listening to his parents talking with his sister as they made breakfast.
A breakfast of waffles.
His stomach rumbled just at the thought, and he headed down to heed its call.
“’Morning, sleepyhead,” his mother said as he came into the kitchen.
“’Morning.” He kissed her on the cheek.
“Please, Daddy?” Marci was pleading in the dining room. “Can’t we look for Tippy now?”
“This place is paradise for a cat, honey,” Eric’s father replied. “She just went hunting last night, that’s all. She’ll be back. Cats always come back.”
“What’s going on?” Eric tipped his head toward the dining room as he poured himself a glass of orange juice.
Merrill handed him a plate of waffles, hot off the iron. “Tippy didn’t come home last night.”
Eric carried the plate to the dining room, where the morning sun streamed in through the big windows. At the foot of the lawn, the lake appeared to be paved with sparkling diamonds, and ski boats were already out taking advantage of the perfect morning.
In an hour, he thought, he would be out there, too, fishing with Kent and Tad.
“Tippy comes in every morning for breakfast,” Marci pronounced, clearly on the verge of tears. “What if she got lost? What if she’s on her way back to our house in Evanston?”
“If she’s not here by lunchtime, we’ll go look for her,” Dan said. “Okay?” He took the plate of waffles from Eric and forked two of them onto his plate. “Hey, sport. Great morning, huh?”
Eric grunted a greeting as he took a chair.
“I can’t believe there was a waffle iron here,” Merrill said as she came in with the coffeepot, refilled Dan’s cup, and then set it on the table. “What a treat.”
“Do you have to go back today, Daddy?” Marci asked.
“Yep, tomorrow’s a workday. The float plane’s coming to pick us up this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?” Marci echoed, her eyes now glistening with tears. “You said you were going to help me look for Tippy!”
“And we’ll find her,” Dan reassured her. “And if she’s not back by the time I have to leave, Eric will help you look.” He fixed Eric with a look that Eric knew would brook no argument. “Right, Eric?”
“Sure,” Eric said, pouring warm syrup on his waffles. He didn’t want to wander around in the woods calling the cat all day, but he knew there was no point in trying to get out of it, either.
By the time he had consumed two waffles and refused a third, Marci was already outside, calling Tippy. His father kissed his mother’s cheek, dropped his napkin next to his plate, and sighed heavily.
“Guess I’d better get out there and give Marci a hand,” he said, looking longingly at the thick Sunday paper that was lying untouched on a sideboard.
Merrill shrugged sympathetically, picked up two empty plates, took them to the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher.
Eric finished his juice, then took the remaining plates to the kitchen and gave them to his mother. In exchange, she handed him a white plastic bag of garbage. “Please?”
“No problem.” Eric took the bag out the back door and around to the side of the house, where a steel trash container with a bear-proof lid housed two big garbage cans.
He lifted one of the covers, then stopped short.
All the shop rags—at least a dozen of them—lay on top of the trash from last night.
Had his dad cleaned up the boathouse and thrown away all the rags they’d used while working on the motor?
But his father had told him to clean up the boathouse. And why would he throw the rags away? He never threw anything away, not even a broken TV that had been in the garage in Evanston for as long as Eric could remember. And the rags were still good—they’d looked practically brand new when he found them last week, even though they’d been in the boathouse for years.
Frowning, Eric put the bag of trash on the ground and picked up one of the rags. There was some kind of dark stain on it, but it didn’t look like oil. He pulled out more of the rags.
They were all stiff and sort of a dark brown. Whatever had been cleaned up with it had dried.
But they could still be washed, and the way the motor was acting, he was pretty sure he was going to need them.
Eric reached deeper into the barrel and came up with a wad of others, all stuck together.
He pulled them apart.
In the center was what looked like a fresh piece of liver, and his stomach churned as he realized what the rags were covered with.
Blood!
Every one of the rags was soaked with blood.
Feeling his breakfast rise in his gorge, Eric dropped the lot back into the can, put the garbage bag his mother had given him on top, then replaced the cover and closed the lid.
Without thinking, he wiped his hands on his pants.
And suddenly the dream came back to him full force.
The dream in which he’d been standing over a young girl.
A young girl whose belly he’d ripped open.
His bloody hands were deep inside her, the scalpel cool and smooth to his touch.
But what did that have to do with these bloody rags?
Nothing.
It was just a dream.
Right?
No.
Somehow, in some way he didn’t understand, these rags had something to do with his dream.
With him.
And with the scalpels in the carriage house.
Eric looked at his hands again. They were clean. No blood.
And there was no way he could have been anywhere but in his bed all night long.
So somebody else had put these bloody rags in here.
Somebody else had wrapped them around the piece of liver, or whatever it was.
His first impulse was to tell his father.
Maybe this was somebody’s idea of a joke.
It wasn’t very funny.
“Tippy!” Marci’s voice came to him from the woods on the far side of the carriage house. “Tippy, come here.”
And then the bloody rags and their disgusting contents assumed a brand new meaning.
And he knew this wasn’t something he’d tell his father. This wasn’t something he’d tell anybody.
He walked quickly back into the house to wash his hands.
KENT STAPLED A copy of Marci’s flyer to a pole by the pavilion, a pole that looked like it was covered with confetti, it had seen so many flyers before. “How many more?” he sighed, sil
ently thanking his parents for never having inflicted a little sister on him, at least not one who would get so upset over a cat running away that she’d make him spend the whole day putting up posters when he could have been doing something else.
Anything else.
Tad riffled through the dwindling stack of missing-cat flyers. “Six.”
“What a waste of time,” Kent muttered under his breath. “That cat didn’t come all the way into town.”
“You think I don’t know?” Eric sighed, taking another flyer from Tad and stapling it to the other side of the pole. “But the sooner we’re finished with this, the sooner we can do something else.”
“Maybe we could get Mrs. Langstrom to put one in the window of her shop,” Tad said.
“Good idea,” Kent said. “And the ice cream shop, too. That way at least Marci’ll see the poster every time she has an ice cream cone.” He looked at Eric and grinned slyly. “Now, I wonder which one of us should go in there and ask?”
“I’ll do it,” Eric said at once, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t hoping Cherie might be at the counter again.
Taking a couple of the posters, he headed across the street, but when he looked through the window, he saw a different girl in a pink apron serving the ice cream. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to ask if he could put up a flyer anyway.
Or maybe they should call the job done and just throw the rest of the posters in the trash. But even as he looked around for a barrel, he remembered his father’s lecture on that exact temptation and the consequences he’d face if he succumbed to it.
A full week without access to the boat.
With another sigh, Eric headed for the door to the ice cream parlor, and came face-to-face with Adam Mosler, flanked by Ellis Langstrom and Chris McIvens.
“What’s this?” Mosler grabbed the posters out of Eric’s hand. “Oooohhh,” he said in mock sadness. “Somebody’s missing a little kitty cat.” His two friends snickered.
“Give me those,” Eric said, and snatched them back again as Tad and Kent started across the street.
“You losers are wasting your time,” Adam said. “If your cat’s gone, it’s dead.”
“You don’t know that, jerk,” Kent said, falling in on one side of Eric as Tad flanked his other side.
“Yeah, I do know that, asshole,” Adam said. “Know how many things out in the woods eat cats?”
“A pine marten got ours,” Ellis Langstrom said.
“Plus there’s weasels, raccoons, bears, wolverines, and a dozen other things,” Chris McIvens added, grinning as Tad Sparks’s face paled.
“Yeah,” Adam chimed in. “This is the Northwoods, coneheads. You really think some dumb cat who’s never seen anything worse than a squirrel is going to survive more than an hour?” Eric started to turn away, but Mosler added, “’Course, even a cat would last longer than any of you pussies.”
Kent took a step toward Mosler, his eyes narrowing, his fist clenched, but Eric reached out and took his arm. “Let’s just go, okay?” he said, his voice low.
Kent hesitated, and Eric could almost feel him making his decision as some of the tension left the other boy’s arm.
As the three of them crossed the street, leaving the local boys behind, Kent said, “I hate that punk.”
“I know,” Eric replied. “But let’s just finish this and get out of here.” He took two more flyers from Tad and handed them to Kent. “We each get rid of two and we’re done.”
Kent took his two, but his gaze followed Adam Mosler and his friends as they moved through the parking lot toward the dock. “You think maybe those guys took your cat?”
Eric shivered, the memory of his dream and of what he’d found in the garbage can that morning still fresh.
His stomach churned.
“No,” he said. “They wouldn’t do that. Anyway, I don’t think they would. Besides, it doesn’t matter, because even if they did, we’d never find out. Let’s just get these flyers up and be done with it.”
“They’d do it, all right,” Kent said, his eyes glinting. “They’d take her, kill her, and love every second of it.”
“C’mon,” Tad said, and pulled Kent toward the antiques shop. “The cat probably just took off. It could be back by the time we get home.” He led Kent into the shop, but Eric didn’t follow.
Instead, he stood on the sidewalk, feeling a dark knot of guilt forming in his belly.
But he had nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing!
And yet the memory of the dream didn’t go away.
In his dream, he’d used that scalpel on a girl.
He’d taken her, and killed her.
And he’d loved every second of it.
THE FLOAT PLANE was waiting at the dock when the Brewsters pulled into the parking lot by the pavilion. The Newells and the Sparkses were already there, talking with the pilot, and as Merrill walked down the dock to join them, she wished there were some way she could convince Dan to stay a few days longer, at least until they knew what had happened to Tippy. If the cat wasn’t back by this evening, Marci would be crying herself to sleep, and Dan had always been better at comforting their daughter than she was. But all her arguments had fallen on deaf ears. “Everything’s going to be fine,” Dan had told her only an hour ago. “Tippy’ll come back, you’ll have a great week, and I’ll be back on Friday night or Saturday morning.”
Now he was looking at his watch and smiling at her. “This guy doesn’t mess around,” he said, waving at the pilot. “Right on time.”
Merrill managed a wan smile, and a moment later they came to the plane.
“Looks like we got everyone,” the pilot said, taking Dan’s computer case and putting it in the back of the tiny plane. “Two of you in the back, one up front riding shotgun with me.”
Dan squatted down for a hug from an unhappy Marci. “Look at that lip,” he said to her. “You better watch out or you’ll trip on it.”
“Don’t go!” the little girl begged.
“I don’t want to, honey, but I have to.” He drew Marci close. “Tomorrow you’ll be back at Summer Fun, getting ready for the Fourth of July parade.” He pulled back and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Before you know it, it’ll be Friday and I’ll be back. And next weekend we’ll do something special. I promise.” Jeff Newell and Kevin Sparks were already boarding the little orange plane, which rocked gently at its mooring, and Dan straightened up to give his wife one more kiss.
“Call me when you get home,” Merrill said, hugging him tightly.
“I will.” Dan reached roughly for Eric and gave him the kind of uncomfortable hug that was all his teenage son would accept from him right now. “You’re the man of the house this week.”
Eric nodded.
“Take care of your mother and your sister, okay?”
Eric nodded again. “Don’t worry, Dad.”
“I won’t.” He kissed Merrill one last time. “And don’t you worry, either.” He gave them a final wave, then climbed the two-step ladder into the plane.
The pilot cast off the single line that held the float plane to the dock, pushed the little aircraft away, then went in and pulled the door closed. A moment later the engines started and the plane taxied slowly out into the lake.
A wave of panic came over Merrill at the thought of spending the evening at Pinecrest with Dan nowhere close, and she turned to Ellen Newell and Ashley Sparks. “You two doing anything tonight?” she asked.
“I’m driving over to my cousin’s for dinner,” Ashley said. “Her son’s talking about joining the army, and she’s hoping I can talk him out of it.” She rolled her eyes. “The problem is, of course, being that he’s such a jerk, the army would be the best thing for him. But what can I do? She’s my cousin.”
“I’ve got tennis this afternoon, and I promised I’d have dinner with my doubles partner,” Ellen Newell said. “How about we all get together tomorrow?”
Merrill tried not to let her disappointment show. “Okay.”
The plane’s engine roared then, and it picked up speed and rose into the air. After looping once around the lake, it headed south toward Chicago.
AS THE SUN set and the shadows of the evening crept over Pinecrest, Merrill moved methodically through the house, closing all the draperies, turning on all the lights, and locking every door and window.
An hour later Eric was sprawled on a large but lumpily uncomfortable easy chair, halfheartedly watching reruns on television, while Marci kept fidgeting on the couch as her mother read her a book. Except Merrill read the book only sporadically. Every time she heard any kind of sound she couldn’t instantly identify, she put it aside and prowled through the house.
“I think it’s bedtime,” she finally announced at ten o’clock.
Eric shrugged, more than ready to go upstairs and spend some time on the Web, maybe talking with Kent and Tad.
“Can I sleep with you tonight, Mommy?” Marci asked.
Merrill nodded. “Of course.”
“We should put some food out first, though, in case Tippy comes home,” the little girl went on. “She’ll be hungry.”
“Good idea,” Merrill said. “Eric will go out with you.”
“Why can’t she go by herself?” Eric groaned. “All she has to do is open the door and set a bowl of food out on the steps.”
“But it’s dark out there,” Marci objected, not quite able to keep her voice steady.
When his mother gave him a look that reminded him that he was supposed to be the man of the house—at least while his father was gone—Eric sighed and hauled himself up off the chair. “Come on, then.”
Marci poured a cup of dry cat food into a small bowl, and Eric held the door open while she carried the food and a bowl of water out onto the patio.
The sky was full of stars, and a soft, warm breeze tinkled the wind chimes his mother had hung at the corner of the boathouse that morning.
Then Eric’s eyes were drawn to the carriage house, which sat silent and dark. He felt an urge to go over there, or maybe to sneak out of bed after his mother had gone to sleep and open up the hidden room to see what else might be there. He’d have nobody to tell him when to leave, nobody to distract him from his exploration.