“He’s coming around to the front!” she whispered, suddenly frantic. “If I don’t get out there before he reaches the door—”
Then there would be nothing to keep the man from coming in when she opened the door. And she had to open the door, or the opportunity to catch her brother’s killer would be gone. Understanding that helped Tanda to ignore the pain in her legs as she stumbled around the coffee table, and by the time she reached the front door Robby was beside her. Taking courage from his presence she flipped on the porch light, flung the door open and charged outside—
Only to see nothing and no one. Her heart pounded like that drum people always talked about, and it took a moment to realize that part of the noise she heard wasn’t from that. Someone was in the woods and running, definitely away from the house, and Robby stood quivering and staring in that direction. Tanda dashed back inside, got the flashlight from the table near the door, ran back out and told Robby, “Find ’em!”
The dog took off like a launched rocket, the command freeing him to do what he’d been waiting and longing to. Tanda yelped and ran after him, all the excitement having made her forget that the dog wasn’t on a lead. If she didn’t really move she would lose him, especially in the dark. When he reached the quarry—and he would—she fully intended to be right there.
Happily the flashlight was a powerful one, and Tanda was able to glimpse Robby as well as hear him. The woods were more than nighttime-quiet; with two people and a dog running through them, night birds and small animals were keeping silent and playing invisible. Tanda knew these woods well enough to run with confidence, which gave her real hope that in just a few minutes she would at least catch sight of the man responsible for her brother’s death. And if Robby could corner him and hold him until the police arrived—
The sound of a car door slamming ended that line of thought in the worst possible way. An instant later the car’s engine roared it away, showing that the vehicle had probably not been turned off. Taillights flared redly a short distance ahead, and then they, too, were gone, back to Old Stage Road. Tanda immediately whistled for Robby, and after a moment the dog trotted up.
“Poor guy,” Tanda commiserated as she leaned down to gently rough him up. “I’ll bet you were no more than half a jump behind when he got to that car. It’s too bad it didn’t stall out and leave him stuck, the way it probably would have done if I was the one being chased. We might as well go back to the house.”
Robby wasn’t happy about abandoning the chase, but he still followed right after Tanda. The dog seemed to understand somehow that it wasn’t an exercise or a game they were involved in, or even a job for some nearby police department. It was his own house that intruder had been prowling around, and that apparently made the matter personal.
The walk back didn’t take long, but Tanda wasn’t given the chance to go inside. Headlights flared along the tar road, silently announcing the approach of a car, and for an instant she thought it might be the intruder coming back again. Then she saw the wide set of lights on the car’s roof, and realized the police had finally made it. The way they headed right for her said they thought she might be the intruder they were there for. When they stopped about ten feet back and got out, their hands were cautiously close to their weapons.
“It’s all right, Officers, I’m Tanda Grail,” she called to them, patting Robby to calm away his growl. “There was someone out here, but he got away. If he hadn’t left a car in the woods with the engine running, my dog would have had him.”
“You saw the prowler, ma’am?” one of the officers asked, a young man with light brown hair and a calm expression. “Can you give us a description of him and his car?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Tanda admitted. “He was doing something at the back of the house, but started around to the front just before I came out. My dog heard him and began to bay, and that must have frightened him. He was already into the woods by the time we got out here, and the head start let him reach his car before my dog reached him. By the time I got there, there was nothing to see but vanishing taillights.”
“You were probably lucky he didn’t stick around,” the second officer said, the first being busy writing. He was older than the first man, and not quite as calm or neutral. “I’ll call this in, and then we’ll have a look around.”
There wasn’t much Tanda could say to that, since disagreeing about being lucky would only start an argument. She waited until the incident had been called in and written up, then led the way around to the back of the house. The two officers had their own flashlights, but Tanda was first to see what the intruder had been up to.
“Look at the scrapes on that lock!” she exclaimed, shocked in spite of herself. “It was brand new when I put it on only a few hours ago, but look at it now!”
“Likely it was a tire iron he used,” the second officer said after bending down to examine the lock. “Or maybe he found something in that shed.”
He’d turned to flash his light at the shed, but Tanda shook her head.
“There’s nothing left in the shed he could have used,” she said. “I put the bolt cutters and anything else that might be used to force a lock into the cellar. There didn’t seem to be much sense in putting on a new lock if I left something to force it open with.”
“It’s a good thing you thought of that, ma’am,” the younger man said with respectful approval. “A lot of people wouldn’t have, and their house would have been broken into again.”
“Considering what you’re involved in, Ms. Grail, I think we should get a forensics team out here,” the older man said. “At the very least they should be able to get tire-track impressions, if you can show them where the car was parked.”
“If I can’t find the spot again, my dog can,” Tanda assured the man.
That time both men nodded, then they began to lead the way back to their car. With the most immediate excitement over, Tanda was beginning to feel just how tired she was. It would have been nice to go back to bed—with the light left on for the rest of the night—but it was fairly clear that that would not be happening for a while.
MIKE GERARD TRIED not to break any traffic laws on his way out to the Grail place, but it was a near thing. He kept wanting to do ninety to get there faster, just to be certain Tanda really was all right. He felt disappointed that she’d called headquarters rather than him, but at least she hadn’t tried to handle the matter all alone. He must have made his point about the foolishness of trying to face a serial killer alone.
The turnoff to the Grail place wasn’t difficult to find even in the middle-of-the-night darkness. Two police units and a forensics van were parked on the tar road leading to the house, and all three vehicles had their lights on. Mike pulled up to the left of the van, and when he got out he saw Tanda sitting on the porch steps with one of her dogs. Flashlight beams coming from the woods to the right and darting out from behind the house told him where everyone else was.
“I was asked to keep out of the way,” Tanda called softly when she saw him, obviously following his thoughts. “They were all very polite about not wanting to bother me anymore, but what they meant was, stay out of the way. I’m sorry you had to be dragged out of bed after all. I should have realized they would call you once they saw there really was a prowler.”
“My beauty sleep can wait,” Mike told her with a smile as he stopped a couple of feet from where she sat. “My people know I’ll enjoy that sleep a lot more once this serial killer is caught. They also passed on what you told the officers. Are you sure you saw nothing of the man or his car?”
“By the time I got out here, he was already in the woods,”