According to the electronic map, that address did not exist in Orange County or anywhere else in Southern California.
The previous night, in Bibi’s kitchen, when they sought to learn why she had been spared from cancer, Calida hadn’t been able to find the correct message in the first eleven letters. She had arranged the tiles to read A FATE SO EVIL, then EAST EVIL OAF, and VIA LEAST FOE. Bibi had discerned the true message: TO SAVE A LIFE.
Likewise, in the second group of letters, Calida found SALLY BHEEL and SHELLY ABLE, but neither name felt right. Bibi spelled ASHLEY BELL, which subsequent events had proved to be the correct name.
Most likely, in the seventeen letters of this address, Calida hadn’t arrived at the pertinent combination. For some reason, logical or supernatural, Bibi—and Bibi alone—might be required to puzzle out the true location where Ashley could be found.
Of the many synonyms for the word street, only two could be formed from that combination of letters. Not AVENUE, not BOULEVARD, not HIGHWAY or PLACE or CIRCLE or DRIVE or anything other than WAY and LANE.
She tried using LANE. But working with the remaining thirteen tiles, she couldn’t form a credible word or two without leaving unused letters. Evidently, LANE was wrong, and WAY was correct.
A finger tapping lightly on a windowpane. Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum. As quiet as the previous knocking. Repeated. Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum. The window to the right of the door.
Her table stood to the left of the door. At a distance of twelve or fifteen feet from the farther of the two windows, Bibi couldn’t be certain that the cause of the noise was what it seemed to be. Maybe just a large moth bumping against the glass. But could a moth be so busy in the mist, which would quickly saturate its fragile wings and weigh it down?
To one side of the Scrabble tiles, the pistol lay ready. She put a hand on it. Although she had never fired it at anyone, she knew now that she could do the deed. She had stabbed a man to death with a knife, after all, which was a more disturbing—because more intimate—method of killing. Intellectually, she’d long known the difference between killing and murder. Now she understood it emotionally, and her sensitivity to the abomination of violence and the necessity for mercy would not dangerously restrain her if the moment came when killing was justified.
She waited for the furtive tapping at the window to come again. Nothing.
The door featured a deadbolt in the mortise lock, a second and independent deadbolt above that first assembly, and a stainless-steel security chain.
By comparison, the windows could be easily breached.
When nothing further occurred, Bibi sipped the vodka-spiked Coca-Cola. Pax, whatever mess you’ve been sent to clean up, you damn well better stay alive. I need you here, big guy, I need you.
Now that she had rejected lane and settled on WAY, the remaining fourteen letters could not be formed into a single sensible word. Nor two words that were likely to be a street name.
She decided that the number, ELEVEN, might also be correct and that only MOONRISE must be wrong. Calida had found the word because it was obvious, and perhaps she had stuck with it because it appealed to her exotic nature.
The abbreviations for south and north—So. and No.—had to be considered. Bibi started with the former and began making a list in her spiral-bound notebook: So. Remino, So. Mirone, So. Inmore, So. Emorin….If the street bore somebody’s surname and had been meant to honor a local family or a valued person, there would be perhaps a score of possibilities.
Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum. At the nearer window. Two feet from where she sat. The heavy blackout draperies prevented anyone from knowing her precise location.
After straining from the soup of letters as many possibilities as she could for the south and north lists, she quickly made another—and shorter—list using all eight letters in MOONRISE but without specifying a direction. She switched on the electronic map and began inputting the addresses, starting with the shortest list.
Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum. Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum. The sound came from both windows simultaneously. So feeble. If not moths, imagination. No reason to react until glass broke.
11 OMNI ROSE WAY.
NOT FOUND.
11 ROSE OMNI WAY.
NOT FOUND.
Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum. Then more insistent though still quiet. Tumtumtum, tumtumtum, tumtumtum.
11 ROSE MINO WAY.
NOT FOUND.
11 SIMEROON WAY.
NOT FOUND.
11 MORISOEN WAY.
NOT FOUND.
A scratching noise at the door. Like a dog standing on its hind legs and digging at the wood with its forepaws. Whatever it might be, if she opened the door, it would not be a dog.
11 SONOMIRE WAY.