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“You know, I think I’ll just stay way behind you. How does that sound? No one will even guess that I’m with you.”
He nodded and cast her a grateful look, then started off down the street, his limp barely noticeable. At the sixth house, he arrived at the door just as two aliens turned to leave.
His stride faltered, and Sara saw him pull back as if wary of his reception.
She moved closer and rested a shoulder against a tree at the edge of the street, out of sight but close enough to intercede.
“Hey, dude—pretty cool, you finding that dead guy,” one of them said with a note of awe. “What was it like?”
“Yeah—you saw him up close and everything?”
Josh shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
“It was pitch-black...except for a little moonlight. Harold went crazy barking—”
“That big German shepherd you had?”
“Yeah.” Warming to his story, Josh’s voice grew melodramatic. “He was going ballistic, so I thought there might be guys out there waiting to kill anyone they saw. Then I hurt my ankle and couldn’t run. I figured I was a goner for sure.”
“Wow!”
The two boys stood awhile, peppering Josh with questions, then one of them gestured down the sidewalk. “Wanna come with us?”
Josh slid a surreptitious glance in Sara’s direction and she shot back a double thumbs-up, then he grinned and joined them.
She dropped back a little farther after that, sauntering along as if just taking an evening stroll.
She smiled at Josh’s increasing animation as he and the boys stopped at each house. He deserved a good time, she thought. Things hadn’t always been easy for him.
At the next corner the boys halted, then took a right on Pine at a faster clip, passing two or three promising homes with porch lights lit and carved pumpkins displayed in the front windows.
She saw the reason as soon as she reached the same corner and spied the flashing lights of a patrol car and a group of people standing at the end of the next block.
Even from this distance she recognized Nathan’s tall, imposing silhouette.
He stood beneath a street lamp, his feet spread and his hands on his hips, and it didn’t take much guesswork to know that the group of boys in front of him had been up to no good. Finally they moved off in different directions, their steps slow.
When Josh and his friends drew closer, Nathan turned and looked at them. Then she could have sworn that he lifted his gaze beyond them and saw her, as well. Feeling more than a little foolish, she caught up to them.
“Are you going to arrest those guys?” Josh asked, staring at the shattered pumpkins strewn along the sidewalk.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“But they all left!” one of Josh’s companions exclaimed.
“I know who they are and where they live. They’re all going to show up at my office tomorrow after school with their parents.” Nathan lifted a brow. “Or else.”
Hovering a few yards away, Sara grinned.
“What do you think, guys?” he continued. “When these homeowners took all the time to buy and carve their pumpkins, is it right to come by and destroy what they did?”
Three heads shook vigorously.
He glanced at his watch, then reached into his patrol car and turned off the light bar and the street suddenly seemed dark and quiet. “The newspaper said trick-or-treating would end at seven-thirty, so you don’t have much more time. You’d better get moving!”
The boys waved and moved on to visit the houses nearby, and Sara started after them.
