The footsteps were gaining, but she did not dare take another look.
Dana cut left through the front yard of a big A-frame house, zigzagged around a pair of fallen bikes, leaped over a soccer ball, jagged left again and raced down the alley between that house and the neighbor’s fence, twisted between swings on a new-looking play set, flung open a small gate, ran through it and into the backyard of the house across the shared driveway. A small dog began barking furiously at her, but she ignored it. Then a much larger dog, a husky, lunged at her and would have taken a nasty bite had it not jerked at the end of its chain. The snapping teeth missed her thigh by less than five inches. Dana left that yard at an even higher speed and tore through two more yards before taking another alley back to the street, and then screamed and jumped sideways as a car appeared out of nowhere, tires screeching, horn blaring. The driver, an old man in a checkered suit, stamped on the brakes and skidded the car to a smoking stop ten inches from her. He leaned out the window and yelled at her.
“Help,” she begged. “He’s after me!”
The driver was surprised, angry, and confused. He turned around to look where Dana was pointing.
The street was empty.
There was no sign of Angelo at all. Nothing.
“Very funny,” snarled the old man. “Why don’t you go home and grow up?”
He put his car into gear and hit the gas so hard he left five feet of smoking rubber behind him.
Dana stood there, panting, running with sweat, eyes wide and mouth opening and closing like a beached trout. She saw a cracked tree branch hanging low from the willow a dozen feet away, so she hurried over, jumped and caught it, and tore the branch free. It was still green and must have broken during one of the recent storms. Dana stripped off the dying leaves and hefted the stick. It was about twenty inches long and as thick and tapered as a pool cue. The broken end was jagged, but the green wood wasn’t sharp enough to use as a knife. Even so, she was sure that if Angelo came after her, knife or not, she was going to do some damage. She’d used wooden swords and staffs in jujutsu, and having a weapon made her feel safer.
Only about 10 percent safer, but if that was all the day was offering, she’d take it.
Clutching her weapon, she began edging toward her street. The sun was dipping behind the trees now, and shadows rolled like a dark tide toward her. Home was still a few blocks away. Dana stopped on the corner and faced back the way she’d come.
“Don’t,” she said aloud.
Maybe Angelo would hear it. Maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, saying it gave her some strength. A little, and she’d take that, too.
She turned and ran down the middle of the street toward her house.
CHAPTER 67
313 Sandpiper Lane
6:01 P.M.
The night was not done with her, though.
Dana was still two blocks from home when she saw a girl walk across the street fifty yards ahead. The girl looked familiar. She was black, pretty, and slender. Her hoop earrings bounced as she walked, and the glow from the streetlamp gleamed on the metal of a pendant hung on a silver chain. The girl wore a school team jacket but not in FSK’s blue and white colors. It took Dana a moment to recognize the jacket, and in doing so she realized who this girl was.
“No…,” breathed Dana as she jolted to a stop. “No … that’s impossible.”
The colors on that jacket were the green and yellow of a school right over the county line. Oak Valley High. The girl wearing it was Connie Lucas.
Dana was sure of it, even though the only time she had ever seen Connie’s face was on a stack of photographs taken at the place where she died.
Fear rooted Dana to the spot, but the name rose to her lips as a question.
“Connie…?”
The girl paused, glanced over at Dana, and smiled. It was such a small, sad, knowing smile that it broke Dana’s heart.
Then, without saying a word, Connie Lucas walked across the street, onto the pavement, and up the short run of flagstones that led to a wooden front porch of a house where no lights shone. Was it her house? No, it couldn’t be. If Connie lived here in Craiger, she’d have gone to FSK. She had to live on the other side of the county line. So whose house was this? Dana had no idea, but Connie walked right in without hesitation, and it was then that Dana noticed the door had been standing open. She quickened her pace and stopped in the street, the stick still clutched in her fist. The door stood open, and inside there was only a black nothing.
“Connie?” she called again.
Silence.