The flashlight was lying on the counter where she’d put it when she’d started rummaging through the drawers. She picked it up and then walked over to check the dead bolt and chain lock on the back door. Both were secure.
She pushed aside the sheer curtain that covered the glass top half of the door, intending to peer out into the darkness. For an instant her reflection made it seem as if someone was out there looking in at her. Although her realization of what she was really seeing was almost instantaneous, the jolt of adrenaline that initial sensation created caused her to jerk the fabric back over the pane.
Still fighting that ridiculous surge of panic, she turned, taking a last look around the kitchen before she retraced her steps. She hesitated in the doorway, her fingers finding the switch several seconds before they pulled it down. She waited, giving her eyes a chance to adjust to the sudden lack of light.
This was her normal routine. Cutting off the lights down here and making her way up the stairs in the dark. Since she no longer closed Maddie’s door at night, she didn’t want to turn on the light at the top of the stairs and chance waking her.
She hadn’t taken two steps into the hall before the tapping sounded again, seeming louder than before. Maybe the rain had slackened, allowing her to hear whatever was brushing against the house more clearly.
As she started toward the stairs, she pushed the button on the flashlight forward with her thumb. A narrow cone of light appeared before her, but before she could focus it on the bottom step, it blinked out.
“Damn it.” Angry at herself for not making better preparations in case of an emergency, she shook the flashlight. The batteries rattled inside their metal case, and almost miraculously, the light reappeared, this time without wavering.
At least she knew what to do if she really needed the thing. Which she didn’t right now.
She slid the button back into the off position, conserving what life was left in the batteries. Putting her left hand on the banister, she began to climb the narrow stairs. Halfway up, the tapping began again.
This time she didn’t stop to listen. She took the last few risers in a rush, trying to get to the top of the staircase so that she could determine the direction from which the sound was coming. By the time she’d reached the upstairs hall, however, there was only the noise of the rain.
Check on Maddie. Maybe by the time she’d done that, whatever she was hearing would sound again.
She walked down the hall, guided by the nightlight she’d put in Maddie’s room after the first of the terrors. A flare of lightning, turning the night sky as bright as day, illuminated the window at the end of the hallway. It was immediately followed by a boom of thunder that literally shook the house.
Certain that some object nearby had been struck, Blythe waited, her heart in her throat, for the sound of a falling tree or for Maddie’s screams. When neither occurred, she continued down the hall, her eyes fastened on the dark panes of the window at its end.
In the faint light provided by the night-light, she could see her reflection again, distorted by the mullions and the waviness of the old glass. Given the multiple images portrayed in the window, she had to fight the urge to look over her shoulder to make sure she was alone.
She turned into Maddie’s room, expecting the little girl to be as distraught by the storm as she was. Instead, Maddie was lying on her side, just as she had been when Blythe had gone downstairs. Her eyes were closed.
Instead of the relief she should have felt, Blythe’s first reaction was a renewed sense of uneasiness. How could the child sleep through the noise of the storm?
She tiptoed closer to the bed, spending a few seconds watching the regular rise and fall of Maddie’s breathing. The little girl’s lashes rested unmoving against her cheek.
Although her inclination was to pull the piled quilts over her daughter’s small, exposed shoulder, Blythe stepped back from the bed. It would be stupid to take a chance on waking Maddie, who was obviously fine.
And obviously dealing with the storm much better than you are.
Blythe turned, intending to make her way to her own bedroom. If she couldn’t sleep, there was a sack of paperbacks that her grandmother had pressed on her when she’d picked Maddie up after work yesterday. Most of them would be romances, but maybe that was exactly what she needed. Something positive. Life affirming. With a happily-ever-after guarantee.
She had already reached the doorway to Maddie’s room when the tapping came from behind her. She whirled, looking immediately toward the window to her right.
There was no doubt in her mind that something had struck its glass. She walked across the room, leaning over the small secretary she’d placed in front of the window.
Below was the roof of a narrow screened porch that had been added to the original structure. There were no trees. No branches to brush against the house, even if there had been enough wind to move them. And, she remembered, there were no shutters on the windows at the back.
Realizing that she still held the flashlight in her hand, she pushed the switch forward, pointing the beam outside the window. Rain streaked the glass, but there was nothing out there. She leaned forward as much as she could, directing the flashlight in a circle—above, to the right, below the window and then to the left. Nothing.
She straightened, trying to understand how she could have been wrong about the direction of the sound. It had come from here.
Obviously, it didn’t. You were wrong. So what else is new?
Her thumb had already begun to apply pressure to the off switch when the tapping came again. This time there was no mistake. The sound was right in front of her. She could even see the glass tremble slightly in its frame.
The cone of light from the flashlight was focused directly on the window. With a growing sense of horror she realized that there was nothing out there. Nothing touching the window. Nothing moving against it. Nothing that could move against it. Nothing.
Even as she came to that realization, the beam blinked out, leaving her looking at an empty blackness beyond the glass. Despite her success downstairs, she didn’t even try to shake the thing back on.
She backed away from the window instead. Then, without being conscious of having made a decision, she ran across to the bed and pulled back the covers. She scooped Maddie up and had already started to carry her across the room when the little girl’s eyes opened.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she lied. “I thought you might like to sleep in my bed. Because of the storm.”
Her voice trembled, but she prayed that, roused from a deep sleep, her daughter wouldn’t notice. The wide blue eyes looked over her shoulder, seeming to fasten for a moment on the window above the secretary.
Then Maddie turned her head, looking up at her. “Don’t be frightened, Mama. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s only the rain.”
Unable to speak, Blythe nodded.
No doubt there was a perfectly logical explanation for what had just happened. Whatever that might be, right now she wasn’t interested.
All she was interested in at this moment was getting Maddie out of this room. And maybe even out of this house.
2
As he entered his utility room, Cade Jackson struck his rain-soaked uniform hat against his leg before he hung it on one of the row of hooks by the back door. Then, sitting down on the bench, he removed his lowtopped boots and socks, both of which were even wetter than the rest of his attire.
The Sheriff’s Department had been asked to help the state troopers work a tanker-trailer wreck out on the interstate. Cade and his deputies