Текст книги "Illusion"

Автор книги: Фрэнк Перетти

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

chapter

19

She drove back the way she came, kicking herself for getting all wound up and full of hope like a believer in fairy tales until she put her foot deep in poop and lost her shoe.

She felt sick. Stupid. Juvenile. She should have known better.

She heard a hiss-hiss-hiss from her right front tire and then it started flopping and shaking the whole car.

She pulled over, moaning, whining, pounding the steering wheel, and trying to think of words that weren’t too dirty, the little car growling and wobbling to a halt on the gravel shoulder. She pushed her door open and struggled from the car as if she were tangled up in it. Getting out was very uphill because the car was leaning forlornly toward the right.

She opened the trunk—in front of the car, she always loved that—and pulled out the spare and the jack.

She jacked up the car to take the weight off the wheel but keep the tire touching the ground so it wouldn’t spin when she twisted off the lug nuts. The spare lay on the ground beside her, ready to go. Good enough. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d changed a tire. Things could have been worse. It could have been raining.

A big SUV came by, slowed down, then pulled over just ahead of her.

She wilted a little. Not that she didn’t appreciate the help, but right now she wasn’t in the mood. “Oh, got a flat tire, huh?” she mimicked to herself. “Yeah, sure is flat, all right. Hey, but it’s only flat on one side! You live around here?”

A nice-looking guy got out the passenger side. Young and studly. Olive complexion, black, wavy hair. “Hello,” he said. “Looks like you have a problem.”

“Oh, guess it happens.”

“Can I give you a hand?”

Well … “Okay. Sure. I appreciate it.”

The man extended his hand. “Lemuel.”

She shook it. “Eloise.”

He squatted by the lame tire. “Oh, you need to jack it up more.”

So she had to tell him, “You need to get the lug nuts off while the tire’s touching or the tire will spin.”

He went for the jack handle. She decided to let him find out for himself. Klinka klinka klinka, he pumped the jack up farther and the wheel came off the ground.

The first lug nut he went for, the tire spun.

She would have had the spare on by now.

Lemuel pointed. “What kind of lugs are these?”

Eloise squatted down beside him. “What do you mean?”

Lemuel had a friend, the driver of the truck. She heard him get out and walk along the street side of the Bug to circle around the end.

“They metric?”

“That’s right.”

“Right– or left-hand threads?”

“Rightsy-tightsy, lefty-loosie.”

He broke into a grin. “I like that.” He tried turning the wrench again. The tire spun again.

“You gonna lower the tire?”

“Well, I guess I’d better.”

The friend came alongside them. Quiet, wasn’t he?

Lemuel lowered the tire so it touched the ground. The first nut twisted off easily. He had the concept now. She looked up at the friend.

The man was blond and must have had terrible pimples growing up.

“Hey! You’re, um …”

He crouched down beside her and smiled.

“Clarence! You were at—”

She didn’t see what was in his right hand. She felt only a bolt of lightning enter her neck and shoot out her fingers and toes and she couldn’t stop trembling, as if her whole body was a funny bone that got whacked. He met her eyes. Misdirection, and she fell for it.

She teetered and slumped to her side on the ground and couldn’t help it, couldn’t do a thing about it. They were on her, taking hold of her and she couldn’t kick, couldn’t hit. She could scream—Lemuel, or whatever his name was, clamped his hand over her mouth.

A hornet stung her neck, hurting and hurting more! She twisted her head in time to see Clarence withdrawing a needle. She screamed into Lemuel’s hand.

Dane’s pencil sketched and scribbled, expanding the drawing, trying out ideas. Seal the cocoon with rigged bolts? A little obvious, but how else would we—

His mind switched so suddenly it jarred him. Mandy. He could think of only Mandy.

Mandy … what? What about her?

His eyes went to the photos and posters. She was smiling in her pictures, looking great, but he felt troubled when he looked at her, as if, behind those great looks, she wasn’t doing great; behind that beaming smile, she wasn’t happy but afraid.

I’m losing it.

He looked out the windows, at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but those images. What was this, some kind of seizure? Was he having a flashback? A drug reaction?

He gripped the edges of the table and tried breathing, just breathing.

Dr. Kessler? Maybe you should call …

I can handle this.

What was that? He held still and listened. Somebody was in the house. Shirley? But Shirley wasn’t working today, and she never came in without announcing herself.

Maybe he didn’t hear anything. Maybe he feltit.

They were strong, holding her down and patiently, ruthlessly waiting for her strength, her fear, her mind to slip into chemical-induced surrender. Only her mind was still free, her terror keeping her alert for so very few, extra, precious moments. She concentrated even as she whimpered in fear, reaching, reaching for the other arms, the other hands, the other Eloises that could still grab, kick, hit, run.

She couldn’t see the lug wrench with her own eyes, but somehow, through time and tea-stained, wavering space she knew where it was, propped against the spare tire, glinting in the sun. She could feel the cold steel in a hand she didn’t have. With anger, with animal viciousness, she yanked the wrench aloft and toward him.Maybe she was only dreaming …

CLANG! She didn’t see the wrench hit the back of Lemuel’s head but she heard it and some distant, separate part of herself felt the shock ring through the metal. His grip loosened. He teetered, his eyes rolling, going blank. She kicked her legs loose—all six or eight of them, she couldn’t count—while someone somewhere named Eloise took the wrench to Clarence. He saw it coming at him like an angry insect and held up his arms, trying to block the blows, trying to grab it, but she was in a different realm of time, could move faster, and fully intended to work through those arms to reach his head and body. The steel rang and she could feel the shock of the blows, but her grip never tired.

One man was stunned, the other was fighting off a wild lug wrench. Eloise was doped and fading, but free. She wriggled, crawled, then dug in with her feet and bolted away, staggering, weaving, disconnected from her feet, barely understanding what her eyes may have been telling her.

But somewhere in her mind she could see the gate, the white fence, the three aspens, the big house on the heavenly hill …

“Hello?” he called. There was no answer save for the ring of his voice off the vaulted ceiling.

He looked over the rail into the house below, listening again for a stirring, a creak, a rustle, whatever may have clued him in that he was not alone. He looked out the south windows, searching the front acreage, the driveway, the distant gate. No, not out there.

She came to mind. Eloise Kramer! Every time he saw her, every time she showed up in his life …

He caught something in his peripheral vision, looked toward the east windows—gasped with a start, then froze.

There was a woman standing by the windows, looking out, her back toward him. Her hair was golden blond with a sheen of silver, teased, layered, and draping her shoulders. She wore a blue bathrobe that reached nearly to her feet and had a cup of coffee in her hand.

After forty years, he knew who she was. He didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, was afraid to breathe lest anything scare the vision away. Please. Just let me look at you, just for a moment. Please.

She turned, every feature of her face more alive, real, and lovely than he ever could have remembered, and he almost said her name. She was looking straight at him, but she looked puzzled, alarmed.

He didn’t say it but thought it, his face and body carrying the question What is it?

She immediately looked out the window again with intent and alarm, enough to make him approach.

What is it?he thought, and then he whispered it, “What is it?”

He could have touched her. He could smell the scent of her hair. She was looking out over the meadow. He followed her gaze.

What in the world was this? At very first glimpse he took it to be some kid traipsing across his land, but his next impression was the right one: it was Eloise Kramer, just coming around the pond and up the meadow, staggering, falling, crawling, walking again, looking seriously injured and crazy with fear.

And—who was that guy rounding the pond?

He looked at the woman.

She was gone.

But she’d reached him. He thundered down the stairs, bounded through the living room, grabbed a sword off the mantel—it was a stage prop that wasn’t sharp and would probably break, but it was all he could think to grab—and burst out the back door.

She was so small, so far away. It would take so long to reach her. The man coming after her was closing fast, running like an athlete, definitely not sixty. Nagging little thoughts squeaked in Dane’s brain: You don’t know what you’re doing. That guy could kill you.

The girl may have seen Dane coming. She staggered one step in his direction, then another, then crumpled, half disappearing in the yellow grass. From there she tried to crawl, reaching and pulling with one feeble arm and then the other.

Dane stopped listening to little thoughts and charged, wielding the sword, animal rage sending strength to his legs and a war cry from his throat, a maniacal, high-pitched scream.

The other guy kept coming, but Dane didn’t slow down. He passed the barn—it was only a blurred flash of a shadow on his right—and galloped down the narrow trail into the meadow, sword waving above his head, teeth bared, a crazy, screaming barbarian.

It didn’t seem to be working. The other guy was still coming at him, and the way things looked, he and Dane would reach the fallen girl at the same time.

Well then, there’d be a fight even though Dane didn’t know anything about fighting. He’d just have to bite the guy’s ear off first chance he got.

But then the guy stopped, just came to a halt about thirty yards away and stood there, sizing Dane up through impenetrable sunglasses.

Dane reached the girl and positioned himself between her and the stranger, holding that sword out with murder and mayhem in his eyes and not the slightest idea of what threatening thing he ought to say.

The girl was still trying to crawl away, her hands too weak now to grip anything, her arms only swimming over the top of the ground, flattening the snow-wearied grass. Her speech was so slurred she could have been talking in her sleep, “I’m Eloise … I’m … driver’s license …”

Only now did Dane notice how hard he was breathing, how tired and sore he was. If that guy wanted a fight … well, maybe the girl could still get away.

But the man only looked at him with a tilt to his head, the trace of a smile on his lips. What, he was amused? He thought this was funny?

He looked familiar. Blond hair. Steely expression. That guy from the other night? Hard to tell from this distance. But he didn’t look well, even for him. His face might have been a little puffy in places, and Dane thought he might have a streak of red by his right ear.

The man looked down for a moment as if thinking things over, then wagged his head with resignation, gave both hands a little flip as if to say, “Well, so much for this,” and turned. Putting his hands in his pockets, he walked away. He didn’t run, he just walked.

Dane stole quick, precautionary glances at the girl. She’d fallen silent, her eyes closed, and after two final twitches of her hands, she was motionless. He knelt and checked her pulse. Still strong. She was breathing.

His eyes remained on the stranger, his stage sword ready to bounce harmlessly off flesh. The sinister stranger never checked behind him. He just walked across the meadow, climbed through the fence, crossed to the road, and disappeared over a rise.

What had he gotten himself into?

Eloise Kramer couldn’t tell him. She lay on the wet grass, her hair smeared across her face, unconscious—right where he’d scattered the ashes, he realized.

But he didn’t dwell on that. He knew only what he had to do next, and after that …

He stooped and gathered her up. She stirred a little, then clung to him like a frightened child, her arms around his neck.

“Dad … dy,” she said, and she may have been crying.

He carried her into the house.

chapter

20

She was a svelte, young-bodied girl and should have been easy to carry, but she went totally limp and offered no more help—no arms around his neck to support some of her weight, no curling against him as he supported her behind her back and under her knees. No, she just hung over his arms like a big sack of dog food, arms dangling like empty sleeves from a laundry basket and her head—oh, her head! It was like trying to balance a bowling ball against his shoulder with no free hand to hold it there. He feared for her neck and had to stop and lurch rearward several times to get it back in place. By the time he reached the side door his arms and back were sending him warnings.

Then he discovered he had no way to grab and turn the doorknob. Somehow—and it did not go smoothly—he got her flopped over his left shoulder so he could open the door with his right hand and get inside, trying not to bang her dangling arms and head against the door frame or the walls.

He made it through the kitchen, his wet soles squeaking on the tile floor, then into the living room, where he gingerly let her unfold from his shoulder and flop on the couch, cradling her head lest she hurt her neck. He put a pillow under her head. One leg still hung off the side of the couch. He lifted the leg as if it were crystal and set it neatly next to the other. Her clothes were wet from lying in the grass. Her shoes were smudging the couch. Little running shoes. Size six, probably. Cute.

Was she breathing okay? He placed his fingers under her nose and felt little puffs of warm air. Okay. Alive. Breathing.

Pulse? He felt her neck. Yeah, her heart was pumping away, not too rushed.

He backed away, eyes scanning the girl for anything amiss. Her right arm was jammed between her side and the back of the couch. He lunged forward, lifted the arm out, and placed it on top of her.

He backed away again. Well. She lookedcomfortable. Now what?

Shirley. Right.He should call her. There should be a woman here and not just him. What about an aid car? But what would he tell them?

Just get Shirley on the phone!

He crossed the room to the phone, sidestepping and peering sideways to keep his eyes on the girl. “Hi, Shirley. This is Dane. Uh, could you come right over, right now? Well, I’ve got a girl on the couch and she’s unconscious and … Well, I don’t know. She was running from a—well, you’re an EMT, aren’t you? Do you have your tool kit, all that EMT stuff with you? Yeah, yeah, bring it. I’ll tell you when you get here. Yeah, okay, I’ll call ’em.”

Call the aid car, she said. He tapped out 911.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” The lady’s voice was calm. She could have been working for an insurance brokerage.

Dane knelt by the couch, peering at the restful face. He felt as if he were doing a scene from Sleeping Beauty.“Uh, I have a young lady here asleep on the couch and, uh, I wanted to be sure she’s okay.”

“A young lady, sir?”

“Uh, yeah, right.”

“Are you calling from the McBride residence?”

“No, this is Dane Collins.”

“You’re not calling from the McBride residence at twelve-fifty Robin Hill Road?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah I am. I forgot. I just bought the place.”

“So this is twelve-fifty Robin Hill Road, Hayden, Idaho.”

“Yes, yes, it is.”

“And what’s your emergency?”

“I just brought a girl into the house and she’s unconscious.”

“Is she breathing normally?”

He listened, leaning close. “She’s snoring a little.”

It wasn’t a loud, rude snore, just one of those cute little ones that Mandy used to do when her head was tilted a certain way and her mouth dropped open.

“So she’s breathing normally?”

He raised her head slightly and adjusted the pillow. The snoring stopped and she breathed in sleepy little sighs. “I would say she’s breathing just fine.”

“How old is she?”

Young. So very young. “Umm … I don’t know. Early twenties, I guess.”

“Is she injured?”

“I don’t know. She might be.”

“And what’s your name, sir?”

I wonder if she has Mandy’s teeth? “Dane Collins. Uh, Daniel.”

“Duane Collins Daniel?”

He peered into her slightly open mouth. “No, no, Dane. I mean, well, Daniel, just Daniel.”

“Why don’t you just say your first and last name for me.”

Well. He could only see the sides of a few molars. Maybe they looked like Mandy’s teeth, but was that because he wanted them to? They were nice teeth, but teeth are teeth, even nice teeth—

“Sir?”

“Huh? I’m sorry, what did you ask me?”

“I need you to say your name.”

“Okay, right. Daniel Collins. Dane is a nickname.”

“Okay, got it.”

“Are you going to send somebody?”

“They’re already en route, sir. Now, you don’t know of any injuries?”

None that he could see. Of course, she was wearing a coat. Oh, brother. Shirley, where are you?

“Did she hit her head? Is she bleeding anywhere?”

He swept his eyes over her small shoes, her slender jeans, her blue shirt tail hanging out, her hooded jacket, and then her neck up to behind her ear where the brown hair had fallen aside. “There’s a … a little scratch or something on her neck, just a little bit of blood.” What about her hair right there? Were those blond roots?

There was a knock, and the side door opened. Dane spun away from the girl on the couch. “Hey! Shirley!”

Shirley strode on her short legs into the living room, lugging her big orange EMT kit.

“Okay,” Dane said into the phone, “we have an EMT here.”

“Oh, the crew is there already?”

“No, my neighbor is an EMT. I called her.”

“Oh, very good. Well, the aid crew should be arriving any minute.”

Dane told Shirley, “The aid car’s on its way.”

Shirley was already checking Eloise’s breathing and pulse. “Better open the gate.”

Dane said good-bye to the dispatcher and entered the gate open code into the phone.

Shirley struggled trying to remove Eloise’s coat. “Give me a hand here.”

He helped her get the coat off. That didn’t go so smoothly either, but he felt better with Shirley doing it and him helping. Eloise’s shirt was damp with sweat. Shirley rolled up the left sleeve and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around the arm. “Better bring us one of those blankets in the upstairs hall closet. Bring the purple one.”

By the time he returned with the blanket the aid car had arrived, lights flashing, and two paramedics came to the front door. One was a big-bellied, balding everybody’s neighbor, and the other could have been a high school basketball coach, young, tall, and buzz cut. Shirley knew both of them. The big-bellied guy was named Ron, the young guy Steve. Steve got out an oxygen bottle while Ron shined a penlight into Eloise’s eyes.

“Is she on any drugs?” Ron asked.

The phone rang. “I don’t know,” Dane said, then picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Dane? Dane Collins?” It was a woman. He didn’t recognize the voice.

“Did she hit her head?” Ron asked. “Do you know?”

To the phone, “Uh, yes,” and to Ron, “I don’t know.”

The woman said, “Dane, this is Dr. Kessler, from Las Vegas.”

She could have punched him in the jaw. His mind went into little blips and flashes that didn’t connect to anything. “Uh. Dr. Kessler?”

“Do you remember me?”

Ron asked, “What’s her name?”

Dane covered the phone and answered, “Eloise.” He uncovered the phone. “Yeah, sure, I remember you.”

“And how are you doing?”

“Uh …” He looked toward the couch.

Ron was gently shaking Eloise by the shoulders. “Eloise? Wake up. Eloise? You hear me? Wake up.”

Dane lowered his voice, he wasn’t sure why. “I’m, I’m not sure this is a good time right now.”

“Sounds like you have someone there with you,” Kessler said.

He was watching Eloise. They’d put an oxygen mask on her. “She’s …”

Eloise made a little whimper, beginning to stir. Ron signaled for Shirley to step in. “It’s all right,” said Shirley. “You’re all right.”

“Who was that?” asked Kessler.

“That was …” Why’d she need to know? “Uh, Dr. Kessler, could we start over? Hello, how are you doing, and why are you calling me?”

Eloise’s eyes half opened and she jolted, still dopey. Her little yelp was muted inside the oxygen mask. She blinked at Shirley and the paramedics like a dazed, cornered animal.

Kessler was saying something. “… to find out how you were doing. You remember the conversation we had?”

Oh, yeah. He remembered it. “Sure.” His eyes were on Eloise. She didn’t seem to be focusing yet, but being hemmed in by paramedics was troubling her.

“I was wondering if you were having any problems such as those we talked about.”

He didn’t want to tell her how much Eloise Kramer looked like Mandy, very much when she was knocked out—she even snored like Mandy—and almost perfectly when she was awake, a fact that was overwhelming him this very moment. “Such as?”

Kessler wasn’t having an easy time of this either. He could imagine her consulting her invisible notes again and shifting in her chair. “Umm … we would call it a delusional disorder, in this case, your thinking you see Mandy.”

“How about some for instances?”

He could tell she didn’t want to humor him. “Well, for instance, you might think you actually see her, or you could even see someone else and think she looks just like Mandy.”

Eloise’s eyes focused—on him. Oh, good grief.

He looked away from her and spoke into the phone, “What exactly makes you think I would see something like that?”

“Dane?”

“Dane?” said Shirley.

“What?” he asked Kessler as he looked in Shirley’s direction.

Kessler said, “You have someone there with you now, don’t you?”

Shirley, Ron, and Steve were watching Eloise look at Dane. Eloise was staring as if trying to make sure who he was. Dane gave her a weak little wave and smiled. He couldn’t see her smile through the oxygen mask, but her eyes smiled with relief and she sank back against her pillow.

Kessler asked, “Who does she look like?”

Dane studied Eloise’s face. “She looks … What the heck kind of question is that?”

“Does she look like Mandy? Be honest.”

“I don’t think this is a good time—”

“This is a very good time. It gives you a chance to see exactly what I warned you about.”

They were taking off the oxygen mask—he’d lived with that image, but this time she was young and alive, not burned and dying. She and the medics were talking.

“Dane? Can you hear me?”

“I need to get off the phone.”

“What’s her name?”

Okay. Kessler had crossed the line. “That is none of your business.”

“Dane, she isn’t Mandy. You have to realize that.” She didn’t sound as if shebelieved it. “She doesn’t even look like Mandy. You just think she does. Did you hear me?”

Gal, either you’re crazy or … I think it’s you.“I’ll call you later.”

He hung up.

“No! No hospital!” Eloise said with a moan, still under the heavy influence of whatever it was.

“We just need to be sure you’re okay, just get you checked over,” said Ron.

That upset her more. “Oh, no you don’t!” she muttered, her eyes barely open, her neck like a rag doll. “I know who why yam! I’m Meloise Kramer and I’ve live here all my life and you cann take me to da hosp’al!” She groped about blindly, trying to find something. “Where my wallet?”

Dane stepped up while Shirley handed Eloise her coat. “She’s Eloise Kramer. She works at McCaffee’s, that little coffee shop in Coeur d’Alene.”

“Has she taken any drugs?” Ron asked.

Eloise dug out her wallet and flashed her driver’s license at them. “I’m Meloise Kramer. Says so ride ’ere.”

Ron checked her license and told Steve, “She’s nineteen.”

Steve gave a nod of acknowledgment.

Dane asked Ron and Steve, “Is she all right?”

Ron answered, “Her vitals are fine, but she’s doped to the gills on something.”

“Booze?”

Ron shook his head. “Some kind of sedative. That could be a needle mark on her neck. Did yougive her anything?”

Well now, how was that for a blunt question? Dane could feel himself bristling, but he held himself in check. “No. I wouldn’t know what to give her. She was like this when I found her.”

“Found her where?”

“Outside in my pasture.”

“How’d she get there?”

“She ran. Some guy—”

“No!” said Eloise, waving dazedly in Dane’s face. “Doan! Doan lettem take me.”

Don’t let them take me.The look in her eyes broke him open, her fear knifed through him as if it were his own, as if she could have cried those words the last time but no one listened; as if he should have cried out for her but didn’t because Dr. Kessler and her white coats knew so much better, controlled everything, pronounced her dead, and wheeled her through a door that closed between them forever.

He’d never known the man he was right here and now, never felt this kind of anguish. He suspected that seeing her face and hearing the echoes of Kessler’s voice could be making him irrational, but in this moment he wasn’t about to trust a doctor or a hospital. He leaned, lifted her chin with a fingertip, and met her eyes. “Eloise, you do not have to go to the hospital if you don’t want to.” He looked at Ron and Steve. “Isn’t that right?”

They were hesitant to say it, but they both did. “That’s right.” Then Ron added, “But this could be a matter for the police.”

“No!”Eloise was even more vehement about that. “No police! Doan call ’em, I doan want ’em!”

“Easy, girl, easy,” said Shirley.

Dane asked Shirley, “Can you stick around a little while?”

She nodded with a half shrug.

He told Ron and Steve, “Thanks, guys. Really appreciate it. Looks like we’ll need to talk to her for a while. Is she out of danger?”

“As near as we can tell,” said Ron.

“Okay. Thanks, we’ll keep an eye on her. Shirley’ll be right here.”

They weren’t happy about it. They gave in, but didn’t leave before pulling Shirley into a private discussion outside the door. Dane could imagine the subject matter. “Eloise?”

She turned her head just enough to see him.

“You are nineteen, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Ron was sneaking sideways glances at Dane through the door’s window. Well. This would all have to resolve in its own good time.

Shirley came back inside. Dane pulled a chair closer for her, then another for himself. Eloise tried to sit up, but her eyes rolled and she rested on her pillow again. She groped and touched Dane’s hand. “Thank you.”

Shirley arranged the blanket under her chin. “You warm enough?”

Eloise nodded.

Dane asked, “I suppose you’ve met Shirley?”

Eloise looked at Shirley and nodded.

“Shirley works for me. She takes care of the place.”

Eloise seemed glad to know that. “’Ello.”

“Hello, Eloise,” said Shirley, patting her hand.

“Cute girl, isn’t she?” Dane asked.

Shirley gave Eloise a smile. “Oh, yes.”

“You like her shoes?”

Shirley looked quizzical, but checked out one shoe poking out from under the blanket. “They’re okay. Nice.”

Dane craned to look. “What kind of shoes are they, anyway?”

Shirley leaned. “I don’t know. Running shoes.”

“Silver and gray? Nice color choice.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And what do you think of her hair? Cut kind of like yours.”

Shirley examined Eloise’s simple, short hairstyle, definitely not looking its best at the moment. “Well, kind of. Her hair’s straighter and there’s no frosting.”

“Brown, and yours is …”

“Brown with blond highlights.” She put her hand to her hair, playfully showing it off. So far she seemed to think he was just making calming conversation. Good enough.

He asked Eloise, “Who cut your hair?”

“Rhea,” she answered. “A girl frien’.”

“Nice color.” He told Shirley, “It sets off her brown eyes.”

Shirley gave him a look. “Her eyes are blue.”

Dane took a second look and feigned enlightenment. “Oohhhh … excuse me.”

“So,” said Shirley, “are we gonna talk about what happened?”

Eloise tried to sit up and slurred, “I havuh go to the bathroom.”

Dane helped Shirley get her up, and Shirley took her around the corner and down the hall.

Got to make sure, got to make sure.Dane made a quick circuit around the living room. He found a vase of dried flowers knocked over but not broken. A stack of magazines on the end table had slid off onto the floor. The celestial globe he kept against the window next to his telescope had hopped off its stand. So he did hear real noises down here. He replaced everything with little time to wonder about it before Shirley returned with a towel and started wiping down the couch.

“Dane? Her clothes are wet. I could put them in the dryer and maybe she could wear …” She let her face ask the question as her eyes looked upstairs.

He knew what she meant. Mandy’s things, tucked and folded away in drawers, hanging in the closet, safe on shelves. Inviolable. Sacred. “Sorry. No.” He felt guilty but couldn’t bend.

“What about a bathrobe? Do you have a bathrobe?”

Fair enough. He bounded up the stairs to the bedroom to get it, tossed it over the railing, and Shirley took it down the hall. He hurried back down to wait.

When Shirley and Eloise returned, the young girl wobbled, hanging on Shirley’s arm with one hand and clutching his robe about her with the other. It hung from her like it was melting, and the hem almost touched the floor. She shuffled to the couch and sank into it, checking up and down herself for any breach of modesty. Her eyes had progressed from dopey to early morning drowsy and she didn’t seem too happy about having to wear that robe. “So here we go again,” she muttered.

Shirley started packing up her gear. “Okay, guess I’ve got an elk to cut up.”

Dane wasn’t ready for this. “You’re going?”

Shirley cocked an eyebrow Eloise’s direction and answered, “I understand you have a meeting.”

“But …”

“She’s all right for now. If she keels over, call me.” She extended a hand, and Eloise gave it a shake. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Eloise.”

“So nice to meet you,” said the girl.

“Her clothes’ll dry pretty quick.” Shirley grabbed her coat and kit, then paused in the kitchen door to ask Eloise, “You’re sure now?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Eloise, her head still a little too heavy for her neck.