In the Dark of the Night by John Saul

cocked his head. “Looking for tackle,” he said.
    His father snorted. “It was in the basement—I found it half an hour ago. And I’ve been yelling for you ever since! Have you suddenly gone deaf?”
    “Half an hour?” Eric echoed, staring at his father in disbelief. “I just went in there a couple minutes ago—”
    “It wasn’t a couple of minutes ago. It was—” He raised his wrist and looked pointedly at his watch. “—exactly thirty-two minutes ago. And Jeff Newell just called. They’re going to be here in less than an hour, so if we’re going to take that boat out, we’ve got to do it and get back so I can start the barbecue.”
    “I’m sorry,” Eric said, his head suddenly swimming. “I can’t believe I was in there—”
    “Daydreaming!” his father finished for him. “So if we’re going, let’s go. Come on.”
    Eric took the poles from his father and followed him down to the boathouse.
Half an hour? He’d been in that storeroom for half an hour?
It didn’t seem possible.
    Dan stepped into the boat, set the tackle box on the middle seat, laid the rods on the floor, then sat in the bow. A moment later Eric had settled in the stern.
    The motor started on the first pull, and as Eric released the stern line from its cleat, his father untied the bow line. Putting the engine in gear, Eric nosed the little skiff out of the boathouse.
    As his father opened the tackle box and began searching through the jumble of hooks, lures, and sinkers inside, Eric headed onto the lake, but found himself turning to look back at the old carriage house.
    Half an hour? He’d been inside for half an hour?
    Even now it seemed he hadn’t been in the place more than five minutes. Ten at the most. He’d taken a quick look in the garage and the workshop—it couldn’t have taken more than two minutes. Then he’d gone into the storeroom and—
    —and suddenly he couldn’t quite remember what he’d been doing. Just looking at stuff.
    And touching some of it.
    The fingers of his right hand tingled slightly at the memory of it.
    But that was all.
    And it had been only a few minutes—he felt sure!
    Except that now, as he gazed at the carriage house that was growing smaller as they motored out onto the lake, he wasn’t so sure.
    A moment later the building disappeared behind a screen of trees, and his father’s voice once again pulled him out of his reverie.
    “She’s running fine,” Dan said. “Why don’t we hook up a couple of lures?”
    But even as he began fishing, Eric’s mind was still on the storeroom in the carriage house. Kent and Tad would be here soon, and maybe after dinner tonight he’d take them down there.
    Suddenly, the idea of exploring the storeroom and finding out exactly what might be inside it was far more exciting than fishing.
    With fishing, all he’d get was the occasional trout or bass or muskie.
    But in that strange storeroom, there was no telling what he might find.

    E LLIS LANGSTROM DROPPED the last weed in the bucket, rubbed his aching shoulders, and finally stood up to assess his afternoon’s work. The entire border of flowers around the Islers’ summer house was weed free, the soil dark with fertilizer, and the flowers—whatever they were, which Ellis neither knew nor cared to know—actually seemed to be a few shades brighter now that there were no weeds around them.
    More to the point, Mrs. Henderson would be happy, and so would the Islers, when they arrived tomorrow.
    The yard cleanup had been a bigger job than he’d thought, and now he tried to stretch the pain out of his back as he searched for anything he might have forgotten.
    There didn’t seem to be anything—the place looked great, and even Rita Henderson would have to admit it.
    Ellis pulled off his gloves and tossed them into the bucket on top of the weeds just as Adam Mosler—stripped to the waist and streaked with sweat and dust—came around the corner of the house, using a filthy bandanna to wipe a smear