“A boy? In his room? Alone? Secretive? Suspicious?” Daniel smiled. “Hmmm. I wonder what he could be doing.”

She hit his shoulder. “Knock it off.”

“You might check the stiffness of his sheets.”

“You can be a real jerk sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s perfectly normal—”

“It’s not normal. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I know about that. I do wash his underwear, you know. But this is… different.”

“What? Drugs? Shoplifting? Gangs?”

“Nothing like that.”

“What then?”

“I don’t know. But it’s kind of… spooky.”

Spooky.

He didn’t say anything, pretended to watch TV. She went off to take her shower, returned and climbed into bed next to him, and soon afterward, he felt her body relax, felt the pattern of her breath change as the even rhythm of sleep overtook her.

He waited for a few moments, then carefully extricated himself from her arms, moved closer to the edge of the bed. He stared at her while she slept, gently touched her hair. She was so beautiful and he was so happy with her, but the chilling thought that it would not last forced itself into his mind and would not be dislodged. It was the same feeling he’d had this morning an anxious, maddening sense that something was going to happen to her and Tony, and he found himself thinking again of the shadow.

Spooky.

He rolled over, onto his back, and closed his eyes, forcing himself to think of nothing, forcing himself to fall asleep. It took a long time. On the television, he heard a talk show give way to an infomercial, heard the infomercial end and a movie begin.

It was halfway through the movie before he finally drifted off.

He dreamed, and in his dream, the small shadow was in his house, and he sat in a chair, paralyzed, in the living room, as it roamed down the hall looking for his wife, looking for his son.

TWO

Laurie

Laurie Mitchell looked across the boardroom at the other department heads dutifully making notes on their legal pads.

Boardroom.

Bored room was more like it.

She glanced surreptitiously at her watch. Hoffman was still droning on about maximizing the division’s profits, some generic claptrap he’d picked up at an executive seminar, and it didn’t appear that he would be concluding his filibuster anytime soon.

God, she hated these meetings.