letâs get down there.â
âIâm telling you, I heard something beep.â
âWhat? You think we have a bomb?â Frazier demanded.
âI think somethingâsâ¦not right,â Scooter said.
âPlease,â Jamie begged. âCan we just go back downstairs?â
Kat willed herself to be perfectly still. She prayed her heartbeat wasnât as loud as it sounded to her own ears.
The floorboards creaked as Scooter kept walking around her room. It felt like forever, though it was certainly only seconds, before the closet door was flung open once again and he started pushing the hangers around.
Any second now, he would find her, and then they would all be dead.
Kat could almost feel him as he reached for the comforter on top of her. She felt the pressure as his fingers closed around it, and then she heard a scream as the entire house was pitched into darkness.
The power had gone out at last.
SIX
âH ell of a night,â Deputy Sergeant Sheila Polanski said, rubbing her hands together in a vain attempt to warm them.
The power at the sheriffâs office had gone out long ago. They had switched over to their emergency generator smoothly enough, but since everything was run at taxpayer expense, the emergency generators didnât allow for much heat.
And they called it Tax achusetts.
Hell, she called her beloved home state Taxachusetts herself, but even so, the state budget didnât kick in much to supply heat for this particular sheriffâs office out in the country. They were small and located in an area where there was seldom trouble, so they were expected to run on a shoestring.
There was only one person answering to her tonight: Tim Graystone. Tim had managed to pull the Christmas Eve gig by being their newcomer. Young and raw, only on the job for a month. And honestly, it wasnât as if his inexperience mattered. This area was sparsely populated and too far east to share the crimes that faced their neighbors in ski country, where an abundance of tourists made an appealing target for theft. And they were too far west to run into the troubles that Springfield, with its larger population, had to deal with.
Then again, Sheila had learned in her twenty years of duty, anything could happen. Three years ago, Barry Higgins, as mild mannered as they came under most circumstances, drank too much and shot up the civic center, killing his own minister in the process. In â95, Arthur Duggan had murdered his wife. That had been sad, but bound to happen. The best minds and hearts in social services had tried to get her to swear out a warrant against her husband, not to mention leave him. Theyâd told her over and over again that he would kill her one day, and finally he had.
But those were the only two violent crimes that had ever come their way. So even though they were a skeleton crew, it didnât seem likely that young Tim would have much to deal with tonight. The phone and electric lines were down, and the storm continued to rage. There wasnât much for them to do other than sit around and bitch about the weather.
Tim grinned. He was a good-looking fellow, just turned twenty-seven. Despite a hitch in the service, heâd gone through the academy and college before joining the force here, reporting to Sheriff Edward Ford. All told, there were only twelve officers working the county, six by day and six by night, though the schedule didnât mean much, because they were always subbing for one another. Edward, as the boss and the only duly elected official, usually stepped up to the plate and took Christmas Eve duty, but he had just remarried and the new Mrs. Ford, though forty, had decided to procreate. So Edward and his bride were already checked into one of the many offshoots of U Mass Medical, awaiting the new little Ford.
As a result, Sheila was working with Tim tonight. He was working here because, after his time in the service, he had come home to
âIâm telling you, I heard something beep.â
âWhat? You think we have a bomb?â Frazier demanded.
âI think somethingâsâ¦not right,â Scooter said.
âPlease,â Jamie begged. âCan we just go back downstairs?â
Kat willed herself to be perfectly still. She prayed her heartbeat wasnât as loud as it sounded to her own ears.
The floorboards creaked as Scooter kept walking around her room. It felt like forever, though it was certainly only seconds, before the closet door was flung open once again and he started pushing the hangers around.
Any second now, he would find her, and then they would all be dead.
Kat could almost feel him as he reached for the comforter on top of her. She felt the pressure as his fingers closed around it, and then she heard a scream as the entire house was pitched into darkness.
The power had gone out at last.
SIX
âH ell of a night,â Deputy Sergeant Sheila Polanski said, rubbing her hands together in a vain attempt to warm them.
The power at the sheriffâs office had gone out long ago. They had switched over to their emergency generator smoothly enough, but since everything was run at taxpayer expense, the emergency generators didnât allow for much heat.
And they called it Tax achusetts.
Hell, she called her beloved home state Taxachusetts herself, but even so, the state budget didnât kick in much to supply heat for this particular sheriffâs office out in the country. They were small and located in an area where there was seldom trouble, so they were expected to run on a shoestring.
There was only one person answering to her tonight: Tim Graystone. Tim had managed to pull the Christmas Eve gig by being their newcomer. Young and raw, only on the job for a month. And honestly, it wasnât as if his inexperience mattered. This area was sparsely populated and too far east to share the crimes that faced their neighbors in ski country, where an abundance of tourists made an appealing target for theft. And they were too far west to run into the troubles that Springfield, with its larger population, had to deal with.
Then again, Sheila had learned in her twenty years of duty, anything could happen. Three years ago, Barry Higgins, as mild mannered as they came under most circumstances, drank too much and shot up the civic center, killing his own minister in the process. In â95, Arthur Duggan had murdered his wife. That had been sad, but bound to happen. The best minds and hearts in social services had tried to get her to swear out a warrant against her husband, not to mention leave him. Theyâd told her over and over again that he would kill her one day, and finally he had.
But those were the only two violent crimes that had ever come their way. So even though they were a skeleton crew, it didnât seem likely that young Tim would have much to deal with tonight. The phone and electric lines were down, and the storm continued to rage. There wasnât much for them to do other than sit around and bitch about the weather.
Tim grinned. He was a good-looking fellow, just turned twenty-seven. Despite a hitch in the service, heâd gone through the academy and college before joining the force here, reporting to Sheriff Edward Ford. All told, there were only twelve officers working the county, six by day and six by night, though the schedule didnât mean much, because they were always subbing for one another. Edward, as the boss and the only duly elected official, usually stepped up to the plate and took Christmas Eve duty, but he had just remarried and the new Mrs. Ford, though forty, had decided to procreate. So Edward and his bride were already checked into one of the many offshoots of U Mass Medical, awaiting the new little Ford.
As a result, Sheila was working with Tim tonight. He was working here because, after his time in the service, he had come home to
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