The Fiend by Margaret Millar Page A

want you to see it.”
    â€œI’ve seen quite a few of them in my day,” Mac said. “They’re all the same, sick and rotten.”
    â€œI want you to see it,” she repeated, “because I’m pretty sure it’s from Sheridan. If it is, he’s further gone than I imagined. He may even be—well, committable.”
    â€œThat’s a big word in these parts, Kate. Or in any parts, for that matter.”
    â€œPeople are committed every day.”
    â€œNot on the word of a disgruntled spouse. . . . All right. Bring the letter down to my office. I’ll be here until I leave for court at 1:30.”
    â€œThank you, Mac. Thank you very much.”
    She dressed hurriedly but with care, as if she were going to be put on exhibition in front of a lot of people, one of whom had written her the letter.
    Before leaving the house she made sure all the windows and doors on the ground floor were locked, and when she had backed her car out of the garage she locked the garage doors behind her. She had nothing left to steal, but the locking habit had become fixed in her. She no longer thought of doors as things to open; doors were to close, to keep people out.
    She usually handled her small car without thinking much about it, but now she drove as she had dressed, with great care, as though a pair of unfriendly eyes was watching her, ready to condemn her as an unfit mother if she made the slightest mis­take, a hand signal executed a little too slowly, a corner turned a little too fast.
    She headed for the school playground, intending to tell the girls that she would be late picking them up. She had gone about three blocks when she stopped for a red light and saw, in the rear-view mirror, an old green coupe pull up behind her. Kate paid more attention to cars than most women, especially since she’d been living alone, and she recognized it instantly as the car she’d noticed parked outside her house the previous after­noon.
    She tried to keep calm, the way Mac had told her to: Don’t jump to conclusions, Kate. If you thought Sheridan was driving that car, why didn’t you go out and confront him, find out why he was there? If it happens again—
    Well, it was happening again.
    She opened the door and had one foot on the road when the light changed. The left lane was clear and the green coupé turned into it and shot past her with a grinding of gears. Its grimy windows were closed and she could see only that a man was behind the wheel. It was enough. Sheridan was following her. He may even have been waiting outside the house while the postman delivered his letter, eager to watch its effect on her. She thought, Well, here it is, Sheridan, here’s the effect.
    She didn’t hesitate even long enough to close the door. She pressed down on the accelerator and the door slammed shut with the sudden forward thrust of her car. For the next five min­utes she was not in conscious control either of herself or of the car. It was as though a devil were driving them both and he was responsible to no one and for no one; he owned the roads, let others use them at their own risk.
    Up and down streets, around corners, through a parking lot, down an alley, she pursued the green coupé. Twice she was al­most close enough to force it over to the curb but each time it got away. She was not even aware of cars honking at her and people yelling at her until she ran a red light. Then she heard the shrieking of her own brakes as a truck appeared suddenly in front of her. Her head snapped forward until it pressed against the steering wheel. She sat in a kind of daze while the truck driver climbed out of the cab.
    â€œFor Chrissake, you drunk or something? That was a red light.”
    â€œI didn’t—see it.”
    â€œWell, keep your eyes open next time. You damn near got yourself killed. You woulda spoiled my record, I got the best record in the company. How they expect a