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“That so?” He sounded thoughtful. “Are you safe, Miss Davins?”
“I guess. I’m inside.”
“Meaning you were out in the cold at the time of your sighting?”
“My cat escaped. Found her a few feet into the woods out back. Yes, it’s dark. Yes, I got freaked after our conversation and yes, as someone artistically inclined my imagination’s wild even when sober. But I saw something out there, either a man or a dog, being pursued by possibly a man with dogs.”
A woman on the other end of the line laughed. The sheriff hushed her and asked me to go on, but the damage was done.
“It’s stupid,” I mumbled, rubbing my red face. “Sorry.”
“Stupid doesn’t make you wrong,” he said softly.
“Lisa thinks it’s our neighbor’s son and his friends,” I admitted. “She’s probably right.”
The sheriff questioned me, but there was little commitment in my vague responses. In the end, he thanked me for my observations and told me he and a deputy were heading out now and not to be alarmed at the presence of cruisers. He didn’t need me for anything else, reminded me to check the locks, including the oft-forgot interior garage door, then drink a glass of water and head to bed.
All things considered, he was pretty nice about my encounter. I glanced toward the quiet dark of the yard.
“Sheriff?” I asked before he could hang up.
“Miss Davins?”
“There’s an old slaughterhouse near the swamp. It’s popular on the haunted Connecticut blogs. There’s no monsters in these woods, but . . . You’re carrying protection, right?”
“Not the same kind as your date,” he replied. “I’ll be fine. You stay safe now, you hear?”
A couple minutes later, waiting for my chamomile tea to steep, I busied myself scouring Igor’s unkempt fur for ticks. She was unusually well-behaved, lounging in my lap and permitting my search over the rutted scars around her neck.
“You saw it too, didn't you, girl?”
Her tattered ear flipped back and returned forward. Her jaw quivered with an eager, soft chatter reserved for hunting spiders in the garage.
Igor wasn’t behaving; she was watching.
Her attention was directed on the window above the sink, the one overlooking the backyard, the one without curtains to close. Beneath my fingertips her spine arched and the hair stiffened.
With a hiss, Samson in his fluffiest outrage hopped on the counter.
Setting Igor loose, I steeled my nerves, shut the kitchen light to minimize glare and crept to the sink. There was a soft clatter of dishes and the plop of a cat’s foot in a cereal bowl as Samson, who regularly drank from the faucet, set his paws on the sill and pressed his pink nose to the glass as if he, too, was seeing something.
His ears tickled my chin as I leaned over him.
A long, diagonal slash split the screen.
Our doorbell rang. I envisioned one pointed nail pressing the button and a fanged grin spreading below reflective, golden eyes.
“Got it!”
I turned to see Lisa on the bottom step headed for the door. “No! Don't answer!” I ran for her, slipped on the toy mouse in the hall, and caught myself on the banister too late to stop her from reaching the lock.
“Chill, Marcy.” Lisa twirled a worn Yankees cap around her finger. “Wyatt forgot his security blanket. God forbid he go six hours without his lucky hat.”
“It's not him! Don't—”
Her hand touched the doorknob and turned.
chapter 3
