was no more room for hoping. Sarah let the brick fall among the dead leaves that had drifted against the wall, tore up her sketch and gave the shreds to the wind and the rain. She might as well go home.
That was when she realized she was not alone. Sarah didn’t know who or what was in the woods with her, she wasn’t sure she’d seen or heard anything, she simply knew. It might be a tramp or a deer or some neighbor’s dog or an old male raccoon, but it was big and it was not far away and she didn’t want to stay here any longer.
Hampered by bad going, poor visibility, and clingy wet garments, Sarah began to run. She ought to have known better. She hadn’t gone a hundred feet before she tripped and skinned her knee on a rock. Worse than that, she broke the flashlight.
There was nothing she could do but get up and keep going, relying on instinct and memory to keep her on the path, praying she’d get to the car before anybody or anything got to her. The knee hurt a great deal and she could feel a warm stickiness trickling down into her boot, but she couldn’t bother about that now. Once something grabbed her and she thought her heart was going to stop, but it was only a squirrel briar. She tore herself loose and fought her way on.
After an eternity, she could make out the great bulk of the house against the gray-black sky. Then the car wasn’t too hard to find. She got in, locked the door, and began to shake. Then she began to scold. A grown-up, married woman going into a blind panic, thinking the bogeyman was after her simply because she got upset at having proved what she’d known all along. That brick meant no more now than it had before she came.
And no less. Sarah started the car with a jerk. The sore knee was making it hard for her to work the clutch and brake. She ought to fix it up from Alexander’s first aid kit before she tried to drive.
Later. Somewhere down the road, where there were lights and people. Fool or not, she wasn’t going to sit here one more second. She began to swing out of the parking area before she realized the headlights weren’t on. That was an easy way to commit suicide. Sarah flipped the switch, lighting the path from which she’d just emerged, catching a glint from something metallic, something tiny and square, with a tall, dark shape around it
Something like the belt buckle on a man’s raincoat. Perhaps she was not a total fool, after all.
9
S ARAH WAS FAIRLY BRAVE as a rule, and she’d dealt with trespassers before. She knew she ought to swing around and try to get a proper look at the man, but she just couldn’t. Her only impulse was to get down that precipitous drive without cracking up the Studebaker.
She was probably alarmed over nothing. The man might be an owl watcher out for a stroll. She and Alexander often went tramping in the rain, and these big estates were always declared open country once the summer people cleared out. He’d have to be an awfully dedicated outdoorsman to enjoy walking in this weather, though, and he must have come from some little distance.
To get this far, he’d have to come up the drive. For almost a century, the Kellings had been letting the underbrush grow up around the perimeter of their extensive property for the express purpose of discouraging sightseers and picnickers. By now, anybody would need a machete to hack a path through. The only alternative was to climb the long wooden ladder that came straight up the cliff face from the rocky beach some thirty feet below, and who’d attempt that in a citified raincoat on a night like this?
Sarah began to wonder about the car that had tagged her so persistently. Might it not be parked just up the road? The driver, knowing where she’d turned off, could easily have walked back and followed her slow progress up the bad path on foot, then tracked her to the Secret Garden by the light from her flashlight, though why he’d want to was a puzzle.
He might be one of those nuts who followed
That was when she realized she was not alone. Sarah didn’t know who or what was in the woods with her, she wasn’t sure she’d seen or heard anything, she simply knew. It might be a tramp or a deer or some neighbor’s dog or an old male raccoon, but it was big and it was not far away and she didn’t want to stay here any longer.
Hampered by bad going, poor visibility, and clingy wet garments, Sarah began to run. She ought to have known better. She hadn’t gone a hundred feet before she tripped and skinned her knee on a rock. Worse than that, she broke the flashlight.
There was nothing she could do but get up and keep going, relying on instinct and memory to keep her on the path, praying she’d get to the car before anybody or anything got to her. The knee hurt a great deal and she could feel a warm stickiness trickling down into her boot, but she couldn’t bother about that now. Once something grabbed her and she thought her heart was going to stop, but it was only a squirrel briar. She tore herself loose and fought her way on.
After an eternity, she could make out the great bulk of the house against the gray-black sky. Then the car wasn’t too hard to find. She got in, locked the door, and began to shake. Then she began to scold. A grown-up, married woman going into a blind panic, thinking the bogeyman was after her simply because she got upset at having proved what she’d known all along. That brick meant no more now than it had before she came.
And no less. Sarah started the car with a jerk. The sore knee was making it hard for her to work the clutch and brake. She ought to fix it up from Alexander’s first aid kit before she tried to drive.
Later. Somewhere down the road, where there were lights and people. Fool or not, she wasn’t going to sit here one more second. She began to swing out of the parking area before she realized the headlights weren’t on. That was an easy way to commit suicide. Sarah flipped the switch, lighting the path from which she’d just emerged, catching a glint from something metallic, something tiny and square, with a tall, dark shape around it
Something like the belt buckle on a man’s raincoat. Perhaps she was not a total fool, after all.
9
S ARAH WAS FAIRLY BRAVE as a rule, and she’d dealt with trespassers before. She knew she ought to swing around and try to get a proper look at the man, but she just couldn’t. Her only impulse was to get down that precipitous drive without cracking up the Studebaker.
She was probably alarmed over nothing. The man might be an owl watcher out for a stroll. She and Alexander often went tramping in the rain, and these big estates were always declared open country once the summer people cleared out. He’d have to be an awfully dedicated outdoorsman to enjoy walking in this weather, though, and he must have come from some little distance.
To get this far, he’d have to come up the drive. For almost a century, the Kellings had been letting the underbrush grow up around the perimeter of their extensive property for the express purpose of discouraging sightseers and picnickers. By now, anybody would need a machete to hack a path through. The only alternative was to climb the long wooden ladder that came straight up the cliff face from the rocky beach some thirty feet below, and who’d attempt that in a citified raincoat on a night like this?
Sarah began to wonder about the car that had tagged her so persistently. Might it not be parked just up the road? The driver, knowing where she’d turned off, could easily have walked back and followed her slow progress up the bad path on foot, then tracked her to the Secret Garden by the light from her flashlight, though why he’d want to was a puzzle.
He might be one of those nuts who followed
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