Second trip through the phone park, and her fingers had done the walking. Her intent had been to make some kind of peace and find out what he was doing, but that had quickly devolved into more half-assed accusations in a language that appeared to be one part pig latin and one part charades.

The former working only slightly better than the latter over the connection.

As her omelet sizzled softly and she took a sip from her wineglass, a gust of wind hit the back of the house, whistling through the shutters, and fondling the wind chimes by the door. Frowning, she looked over her shoulder. Hell of a breeze, she thought, the subtle music of the clay pieces for once not calming her.

Which was what happened when you were being paranoid. Everything went creepy, even the—

A huge shape jumped up to the back door and filled the glass panes. As she let out a scream and leaped for the panic button on the security system remote, Isaac’s face was illuminated out of the darkness by the motion-activated light he triggered.

He started pounding with his fist, but he didn’t do that for long. He wheeled around to face the backyard, flattening against the house as if something were coming at him.

As she rushed over, she disarmed the system, and he all but fell into the kitchen when she opened up. He was the one who slammed them in together, locking the dead bolt and then putting his body against the panels as if someone were going to try to get in.

Between breaths, he commanded, “The system . . . put it back on. . . .”

She did so without hesitation—

Everything went dark.

Except for the blue glow of the flame under the pan on the stove and the yellow halo of the light over the stoop, the kitchen went utterly black—and it took her brain a second to catch up to the fact that he’d canned the lights.

The gun he brought up by his chest didn’t throw much reflection or shadow, but she knew exactly what was in his palm as he shifted over and settled against the wall by the door. He didn’t point the weapon anywhere near her—he wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were trained on the rear garden.

When she tried to come over to look, he put his heavy arm out and held her back. “Stay away from the glass.”

“What’s going on?”

A blast of wind hit the house, the chimes going haywire to the point where they were twisting around on their strings, all but screaming in pain.

And then a strange creaking noise beat out the racket.