It felt strange being in the house alone, the darkness thick and inky, the silence absolute. She lay still, waiting for her eyes to adjust. It was there again, the niggling feeling that something wasn’t right. There were no whirring appliances or ticking clocks, no creaky ceiling fans or whiffs of moving air, as if the house had suddenly stopped breathing.

She reached for the lamp, flicked the switch, once, twice. Nothing. Either the power was out, or the prehistoric fuse box had finally given up the ghost. Frustrated at the possibility of another expensive calamity, she kicked off the covers and groped her way out into the hall, vowing to make finding an electrician her top priority when the bank loan came through. She was halfway down the stairs when she suddenly went still. Had she imagined the creak of a floorboard somewhere below her?

She sucked in a breath, hand on the banister, letting the quiet spool out. Not a sound. What was wrong with her? She was a grown woman and acting like a big old scaredy-cat. Then she heard it again, another creak, louder this time, just below her in the kitchen. Her heart slammed against her ribs when she spotted the hunched silhouette sliding past the window.

It took everything in her not to shriek her head off. Instead, she flattened her back to the wall, a hand clamped over her mouth as she watched the shadow melt into the darkness below. One wrong breath and she’d give herself away. But she couldn’t hold her breath forever.

With the kitchen phone well out of reach, she had two choices: make a run for the mudroom door and pray she reached it before the intruder did, or bolt back up the stairs to her cell phone, lock herself in, and hope he’d be too spooked to come after her.

The next second the decision was made and she was hurtling down the stairs, barely registering the startled grunt of the intruder as she shot past him toward the mudroom. He’d left the door ajar. She stumbled through it and out into the dark, landing hard on one knee before scurrying back to her feet and pelting barefoot across the yard, blurring past the vegetable garden, the greenhouse, Evvie’s hives.

Her head filled with a dull thudding. Footsteps or her heart? She couldn’t tell and didn’t dare look back. The moon was high and nearly full, making her an easy target. If she remained out in the open, she’d be caught for sure, dragged down and set upon, like a fox run to ground.

Veering left, she plunged into the woods, zigzagging half-blind through the dark tangle of trees, heedless of the brush slashing at her shins, the low branches whipping her cheeks. A pain began to cut into her right side but panic kept her legs moving, feet pounding over tree roots and dew-slick leaves.

Her breath came in a sob when she finally broke from the trees and saw the light in Andrew’s upstairs window. A few more yards and she’d be safe. It took the last of her strength to surge the remaining distance. She scraped a shin as she staggered up the steps and fell against the door. She pounded with both fists, tried the knocker, then the bell, then her fists again. His truck was in the driveway; he had to be home. She was thinking about smashing the sidelight window and reaching in when the porch light flicked on, and Andrew pulled back the door.

“My god, what . . . Lizzy!”

She sagged against him, panting. “Someone . . . in the house. In the . . . kitchen.”

He caught her before she could slide to the ground, pulling her inside, then led her to a folding metal chair in one corner of the empty living room. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, strangely numb. “No.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“Too . . . d-dark.” Her teeth had begun to chatter as reality crowded in.

Andrew ran a careful eye over her, as if taking inventory. “You’re sure you’re not hurt? Maybe we should get you checked out.”

Lizzy blinked down at her legs, bare and crisscrossed with a network of scrapes and welts. She had bolted out of the house wearing nothing but an oversize T-shirt, and her flight through the woods had left her rather the worse for wear. She ran her tongue over a stinging lower lip. Apparently, her face hadn’t fared much better.

“I’m okay,” she said, still winded. “Just nicked up. I came through the woods.”

“Jesus . . .” Andrew scraped a hand through his hair. “Did you call the police?”

“I couldn’t. He was in the kitchen, and my phone was upstairs.” She closed her eyes, fighting down a shudder. “I had to run past him to get out of the house. I ran all the way here.”

Andrew stepped away. Lizzy registered the sound of drawers opening, the clatter of ice. Moments later, he returned with a makeshift ice pack. “Hold this on your mouth. It’ll keep the swelling down.”

Lizzy did as she was told, wincing as the cold hit her throbbing lip. He went to the hall closet to fetch a blanket, then dropped it over her and tucked it in around her arms. She was shaking uncontrollably now, sobs of relief shuddering through her in waves.

“You’re safe,” he told her softly. “But we need to call the police. You said you saw him. Are you sure you couldn’t identify him?”

She shook her head, sniffling, then mopped at her eyes. “I never saw his face. Just his silhouette. I think he cut the power.”

“Right.” Andrew grabbed his phone on the way to the door. “I’ll be back in a bit. Keep the ice on your lip, and don’t open the door.”

Lizzy sat up abruptly. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to call the police, and then I’m going over there. It’s time to put an end to whatever this is. They’ll want to talk to you, I’m sure, but that can wait until tomorrow. For now, just sit tight. And I mean it. Don’t open the door.”

THIRTY-FIVE

By the time Andrew reached the house, a pair of squad cars were sitting in the driveway, blue lights pulsing eerily. They’d wasted no time, he’d say that for them, though the intruder was almost certainly gone.

He stood in the front yard, watching a pair of flashlight beams move past the curtained windows. A short time later, Ken Landry and Jonathan Clark appeared at the top of the drive. Their hands went to their holsters when they spotted Andrew.

Andrew held out his hands, palms out. “It’s Andrew Greyson. I’m the one who called.”

The taller of the two, Landry, switched on his Mag, aiming the beam straight at Andrew’s face. When he was satisfied, he flipped it off again. “Hey, Andrew. Ms. Moon around?”

“She’s at my place. She’s a little shaken up. She didn’t actually see the guy’s face, just his silhouette, but it scared the hell out of her. She thinks he may have cut the power.”

“Looks like he pulled the main disconnect at the fuse box. We can’t reconnect it until the fingerprint team does their thing, but we went through the place room by room. No one inside. Probably took off the minute he knew he’d been seen. Most of them do. But he did leave us a souvenir.”

Andrew felt an uneasy prickle slide up the back of his neck. “What kind of souvenir?”

“The sharp, pointy kind,” Clark chimed in. “Must have dropped it on his way out. Nasty thing too. Come have a look.”

Andrew followed Landry and Clark around back. The mudroom door was still open, presumably awaiting the print team. Landry flipped on his Mag again, aiming the beam at the base of the stone steps. “There ya go. Like I said, nasty thing.”

Andrew followed Landry’s light. Nasty was right. It was an unusual knife, nine or ten inches in length, slender with a stainless handle and a curved, sinister-looking blade.

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s called a breaking knife,” Landry supplied. “Hunters use them to butcher game. They’re good for severing cartilage and bone.”

Andrew shoved away the images suddenly flooding his brain. “And he was carrying it?”

“Unless it belongs to the Moons. It could, I suppose.”

“They’re vegetarians.”

Landry cocked his head. “Come again?”

“The Moons—they’re vegetarians. They’d have no need for a knife that breaks bone.”

“Gotcha. I’ll make a note of that. The techs should be here soon to process the scene. They’ll take it with them, run it for prints, ID the manufacturer. We’ll check out local suppliers, though I doubt it’ll tell us much. This is deer country. There are probably dozens of these around town. Then again, we might get lucky.”

A white SUV pulled in behind the squad cars and cut its lights. Clark nodded toward the drive. “I’ll go brief ’em on what we’ve got.”

Andrew watched him go, then turned back to Landry. “You guys know what’s been going on, right? The threats Lizzy’s been getting?”

Landry nodded. “Everyone knows. It’s all over the papers. Summers isn’t any too happy about it either. Says it’s not good for the town’s image.” He paused, watching the print team file in through the mudroom door with their equipment, then turned his attention back to Andrew. “About Ms. Moon. I know you said she’s all shook up, and didn’t really get a good look at the guy, but we’ll need a statement for the report.”

“Sure. We’ll set something up tomorrow. I’m going to try to convince her to stay at my place tonight. I don’t think she should be alone.”

“Good plan until we’ve got a better handle on what this was. Could just be some punk looking to pinch a stereo for meth money.”