Rose pulled the covers up to her chin, noticing the angry red mark on her hand where Mackey’s cat had smacked her. She probably didn’t like him having visitors. Jealous old lady; she’d been gray around her whiskers and chin. Rose wondered how it would be to live alone on North Hill with a cupboard full of translucent teacups and pipes that sounded like the ocean, sitting in a chair all day and spouting Latin to a cat.

About all she could do was vigilate et orate. Watch to see whether they found Cynthia. Pray to have no more dreams.

She was almost asleep with the light still on when Jerram came back. “Mom says you’re supposed to smear this on your chest,” he said.

“Just stick it on the table,” she said.

He put the blue jar of Vicks down and hesitated.

“Are you going to stand there, checking?”

“No, no, it’s all the same to me whether you get Vapo-rubbed or not. No, I meant to tell you before. You got a phone call while you were out. I grabbed the phone quick, before Mom could.” “Okay.” Rose felt half asleep.

“It was the dingdong.”

Rose opened her eyes and felt awake again. “You’re being really rude, Jerram.”

“All right, it was Daniel.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked to talk to you.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you were out, that you wouldn’t be in till way late.”

“Oh, God.”

“I was polite, Rose, I mean it. I didn’t call him dingdong.”

“He’ll think I had a date or something.”

“So?”

“So, I’d rather that he didn’t think so, that’s all!”

“C’est la vie,” Jerram said, sounding unworried, and he went out and shut the door.

Rose let herself fantasize. Maybe it had been Daniel in the car, out looking for her? Then she sat bolt upright in bed. Was she crazy? Nancy was dead, and Cynthia was missing, and she had been followed tonight. Maybe it had been him} No, of course it hadn’t been. Just some nosy busybody. Because otherwise, she wouldn’t be here in bed, safe.

How lovely it would be to go back in time. Be a little kid whose only worries were the bogeyman in the closet and the monsters under the bed. The cat scratch throbbed, and she licked it. Could you get rabies from a scratch? No, Mackey’s cat would never have rabies; she was a police cat.

Down, down she went into sleep. Slept and dreamed, but these were fine dreams, of cats sailing the ocean in bobbing teacups painted with roses. On the far shore, someone waited, and she hoped it might be Daniel.

In the morning she woke up with the flu, just as her mother had predicted.

Part Three

Him