She was seeing them, out of the corner of her eye, all the time now, half-seen shadows, or transparent ghost-images. Sometimes they even showed up when Rod was home, though never in the same area of the house as he was; they seemed to wait to try and catch her alone. The only time they weren’t there was when Jennie was visiting. Toni really wished they would show up then, so she could find out if Jennie saw them too, but they never obliged. Like a kid, they were never there when you wanted them. They lurked around the house to the point where she saw them at least twice or three times a night, peering in the windows, grimacing at her, and disappearing when she turned to look straight at them.

They tended to show up after dark, too, which made them pretty unnerving. She hadn’t told Jennie about them, but it was almost as if Jennie knew about them, just like she knew about Rod without being told anything.

Almost as if she knew—and understood.

Thunder growled, making them both look up.

“Cripes, where did that come from?” Jennie Talldeer said, glancing at her watch and then up at the growing storm outside. “I really have got to go, before this breaks. It looks like it’s going to be hell to drive in.”

Toni nodded, surreptitiously rubbing her sore wrist, hoping Jennie wouldn’t notice. But Jennie spotted the movement anyway, and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Arthritis?” she asked. Grateful for the “out,” Toni nodded. Rod had grabbed her wrist and yanked her around last night, shaking her; the wrist had been swollen this morning. It had gone down some, but this coming storm made it twinge.

“I guess so,” Toni replied, hoping her flush of guilt at lying didn’t show. “It was real sore this morning. I hate to think of having arthritis already, though; it makes me feel so old.”

Jennie shrugged. “My brother broke his ankle fancy-dancing on uneven ground, and it gives him all kinds of hell whenever it’s about to rain. And my fingers hurt, sometimes. Trust me, arthritis doesn’t care how old you are! But I really need to go, Toni, much as I hate to.”

Because the minute the rain breaks, Rod will be coming back home, Toni thought with a sigh. Jennie knows. But she’s too nice to say that. She doesn’t want to run into him, I’m sure. If he knows that she’s supposed to be checking him out, he’ll be nice to her but take it out on me. And if he doesn’t, he’ll be rotten to her just to get rid of her.

“Well thanks for coming over and giving me a hand with everything,” she said, instead, and smiled. “Come on, I’ll see you off.”