“Where’d you get that orange, Vicky?”

Gia noted the “Vicky” immediately. Jack never called her by that name. She was always “Vicks” to him.

“In… in my playhouse.”

Jack jumped up and began pacing around the kitchen, frantically running the fingers of both hands through his hair. Finally he seemed to come to a decision:

“All right—we’re getting out of here.”

Gia was on her feet. “What are you—?”

“Out! All of us! And no one eat any thing! Not a thing! That goes for you, too, Eunice!”

Eunice puffed herself up. “I beg your pardon?”

Jack got behind her and firmly guided her toward the door. He was not rough with her but there was no hint of playfulness about him. He came over to Gia and pulled Vicky away from her.

“Get your toys together. You and your mommy are going on a little trip.”

Jack’s sense of urgency was contagious. Without a backward glance at her mother, Vicky ran outside.

Gia shouted angrily: “Jack, you can’t do this! You can’t come in here and start acting like a fire marshall. You’ve no right!”

“Listen to me!” he said in a low voice as he grasped her left biceps in a grip that bordered on pain. “Do you want Vicky to end up like Grace and Nellie? Gone without a trace?”

Gia tried to speak but no words came out. She felt as if her heart had stopped. Vicky gone? No—!

“I didn’t think so,” Jack said. “If we’re here tonight, that might happen.”

Gia still couldn’t speak. The horror of the thought was a hand clutching at her throat.

“Go!” he said, pushing her toward the front of the house. “Pack up and we’ll get out of here.”

Gia stumbled away from him. It was not so much what Jack said, but what she had seen in his eyes… something she had never seen nor ever expected to see: fear.

Jack afraid—it was almost inconceivable. Yet he was; she was sure of it. And if Jack was afraid, what should she be?

Terrified, she ran upstairs to pack her things.

4

Alone in the kitchen, Jack sniffed his fingers again. At first he had thought he was hallucinating, but then he had found the needle puncture in the orange skin. There could be no doubt—rakoshi elixir. Even now he wanted to retch. Someone—Someone? Kusum!—had left a doctored orange for Vicky.

Kusum wanted Vicky for his monsters!

The worst part was realizing that Grace and Nellie had not been accidental victims. There was purpose here. The two old women had been intended targets. And Vicky was next!

Why? In God’s name, why! Was it this house? Did he want to kill everyone who lived here? He had Grace and Nellie already, but why Vicky next? Why not Eunice or Gia? It didn’t make sense. Or maybe it did and his brain was too rattled right now to see the pattern.

Vicky came up the back steps and hurried through the kitchen carrying something that looked like a big plastic grape. She walked by with her chin out and her nose in the air, without even once glancing Jack’s way.