CHAPTER 10

MaryAnne was back in New Jersey, in her own house.

Outside, she could hear sirens. At first she ignored them, going on with the endless task of packing up Alan's things.

They seemed to be everywhere, his clothes heaped in suitcases that lay open and overflowed onto the bed, his books in cartons stacked against the wall. Other boxes held his back issues of Architectural Digest, still more his collection of old LPs. But the job seemed endless, and her closet still appeared to be filled with his things.

The sirens grew closer, and suddenly she knew what they meant.

They were coming here!

Coming for Audrey's body, which for some reason was lying in the far corner of the room.

How had it gotten there?

MaryAnne didn't know.

But as the sirens approached, panic seized her.

Her! They were coming for her!

They thought she'd killed Audrey!

But she hadn't! Surely she hadn't!

Suddenly the door flew open and she turned to see Joey, his hands covered with blood, an empty look in his eyes, a cold smile on his face.

He stepped toward her, his mouth opening, but no words coming out. His bloodied hands reached out to her, coming closer and closer as the sound of the sirens grew louder in her ears.

She backed away from him, groping to steady herself against the wall, but instead of hard plaster, her hand brushed against something soft.

Soft, and cold.

Spinning away from Joey, she stared up into the dead eyes of Ted Wilkenson.

A scream rose in her throat, a scream cut short as she jerked awake, sitting straight up in her bed, her whole body trembling from the shock of what she'd just seen.

A dream, she told herself.

It was just a dream.

Except that she could still hear the sound of sirens.

Disoriented, she looked around her. Could she really still be at home in New Jersey? But she wasn't-she was in Idaho, on El Monte Ranch.

Shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, MaryAnne got out of bed and hurried to the window. Up on the hillside, a hundred feet above the valley floor, she could see a pale, silvery glow moving slowly through the forest, and every few seconds she could catch a glimpse of red and blue lights flickering among the trees.

"What is it, Mommy?" Logan's voice asked from the doorway. MaryAnne turned to see her son, rubbing his eyes, silhouetted against the lights in the hall.

"I don't know," MaryAnne replied.

"It's police cars," Alison said, joining her brother. "I saw them coming up the road, then turning off to go up that dirt road that leads to the campground."

The sirens died away, leaving an eerie silence. Up in the woods the glow of headlights had stopped moving. Turning from the window, MaryAnne pulled on her bathrobe and turned on the light on her night table, glancing at the clock.

She frowned as she realized that it was one o'clock in the morning. What would have made the police go up to the campground at this hour?

"Let's go downstairs and make a cup of cocoa," she told the children, knowing they wouldn't go back to bed until they had an explanation for the disturbance in the night.

"Go put on your bathrobes, and I'll get Joey, too. But you're going to be back in bed in half an hour. All right?"

As Alison and Logan, momentarily diverted from the police cars in the forest, ran back to their rooms, MaryAnne tapped at Joey's door. When there was no answer, she turned the knob, pushed the door open, and switched on the light, already certain that it was going to be a repeat of what had happened the night after his parents' funeral.

A knot of fear forming in her stomach as her mind instantly connected the police cars on the Mountainside to Joey's absence, she hurried downstairs, quickly checking the rooms on the lower floor in the faint hope that Joey might be- there.

He wasn't.

By the time she reached the kitchen, her children were already there, Alison getting mugs out of the cupboard above the counter, while Logan searched the pantry for cocoa mix. The smile on Alison's face faded as she saw her mother's expression of fear.

"Do you know where Joey is?" MaryAnne asked. "Did you hear him going outside?"

Puzzled, Alison shook her head. "Isn't he in his room?" "He's not in the house at all," MaryAnne told her, her fear starting to rise into panic.

What could have happened?

Surely he wouldn't have gone up into the mountains in the middle of the night? And even if he had, how could the police cars be connected to him? How would anyone have even known he was there?

It couldn't have anything to do with Joey-it couldn't!

But even as she tried to reassure herself, she remembered the dream from which she had just awakened, saw once again the blood dripping from Joey's outstretched hands, the cold emptiness in Joey's eyes. The same coldness she'd seen that morning-No! Whatever had happened on the Mountainside had nothing to do with Joey! He had to be somewhere close by.

The stream! That's where he said he'd gone the other night.

Taking the Spotlighter off the charger mounted on the wall next to the back door, she snapped it on as she stepped out into the darkness. She swept the brilliant beam of light across the yard on the slight chance that Joey might be there, already on his way back to the house.

Her heart skipped as she saw a sudden flicker of movement in the beam, and she quickly brought it back, searching the darkness for whatever might have been there.

Two glowing eyes flashed green in the blackness, and MaryAnne gasped, then relaxed as she recognized the creature that darted away into the night.

"What was it?" Logan demanded from behind her.

"What did you see?"

"A baby raccoon," MaryAnne told him.

Logan crowded out the door. "Where is it? Can we catch it?"

"Not now, Logan!" MaryAnne snapped, her nerves it-aying. "Go back into the house! I have to go look for Joey!"

"I want to come, too!" Logan demanded, excited at the prospect of an adventure into the darkness in the middle of the night.

"Logan, I'm not going to argue with you! Go back in the house, and stay there!"

Logan's eyes widened in shock at the harshness in his mother's voice, and he backed away.

"Please?" MaryAnne asked, her voice gentling as she saw the hurt in her son's eyes.

His feelings soothed, Logan turned and scurried back inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

MaryAnne started toward the front of the house, staying close to the wall as she hurried through the darkness.

Reaching the corner, she swept the parking area with the light, then played it over the stand of trees that stood between the house and the stream.

"Joey?" she called out. "Joey, where are you?"

When there was no answer, she stepped away from the shelter of the house, crossing the yard, moving toward the woods. Then she stopped, hearing a sound from the barn.

A scraping, as if something inside were trying to get out.

Her blood ran cold and her hands began to tremble as she remembered the last time she had been out here in the dead of night and something had been in the barn.

Should she go back into the house and call for help?

Call whom?

The deputies must be up at the campground.

Bill Sikes?

She remembered his ominous words that morning, about the animals coming down out of the woods: Somethin@ out there, an' it's startin' to make me pretty nervous.

Maybe she should get into the Rover and go up to his cabin. But she'd have to take Alison and Logan with hershe wasn't about to leave them alone in the house. "Joey," she called out again, her growing fear cracking her voice now. "Can you hear me?"

Again the scratching sound came from the barn, this time followed by what sounded like a growl.

MaryAnne turned, poised to take flight back to the house, but she didn't. Something was different tonight, she realized. But what?

Then she knew. The horses were quiet!

The last time, they had been whinnying nervously and stamping in their stalls.

Tonight there was only silence from the barn, a silence so complete it was as though no living creature breathed.

As though ...

Suddenly , she ran, nearly stumbling, back to the kitchen, picked up the phone with one hand and opened the local phone book with the other, rifling the pages till she found the number. As the phone at the other end began to ring, she paced nervously. To her surprise, it was answered almost immediately, and she spoke in a rush of relief. "Oh, thank God you're there! It's MaryAnne Carpenter, Olivia, and I know it's late, but Joey's missing, and something's in the barn, and I'm frightened out of my wits, and I know I sound like the world's biggest@'

"I'll be right there," Olivia told her. "Stay in the house.

Something's going on. I'll tell you about it when I get there.

Not more than five minutes later the glare of headlights swept through the yard as Olivia pulled up in her truck.

When MaryAnne opened the door to let her in, the veterinarian was cradling a shotgun in her arms. "Let's take a look," Olivia said, starting toward the barn. Telling her children once more to stay in the house, MaryAnne fell in beside the other woman, her flashlight fixed on the barn door.

"You said something was going on," MaryAnne said.

"Did you mean the police cars up in the forest?"

Olivia nodded. "Something attacked the campground again. I talked to the dispatcher, but she didn't know much.

Just that some fellow came down a while ago, claiming someone was dead-maybe two people."

"My God," MaryAnne breathed. They were at the barn door now, and she hesitated, no longer certain she wanted to know what was inside. But Olivia, flipping the safety off the gun and pumping a shell into the chamber, nodded to her.

"Okay, I'm ready. Open the door."

Her heart pounding, MaryAnne lifted the latch on the heavy doors, and immediately heard a familiar whimpering sound from inside. "Oh, Lord,"

she groaned as she swung the door wide. "I feel like such an idiot! It's Storm!"

The big dog hurled himself out the door, rearing up to put his forepaws on MaryAnne's chest as he licked at her face. Olivia, removing the cartridge from the chamber and resetting the safety, lowered the gun to her side. "What are you doing out here, boy?" she asked. "Scaring us half to death like that! What's going on?"

As the dog shifted its affections to the veterinarian, MaryAnne stepped into the barn and flashed the light around. The three horses were lined up as usual, their heads hanging over their stall doors, blinking in the glare of the flashlight's beam. MaryAnne strode down the wide aisle in front of the stalls, found the light switch and turned on the big lamps suspended from the roof beams. As the darkness washed away, she snapped off the flashlight, then began searching the barn.

She found Joey, wrapped in a horse blanket in the empty stall at the far end of the aisle, sound asleep. Stepping into the stall, she stood still for a moment, gazing at him as he slept. What had brought him out here?

And how long had he been here? She knelt down, gently touching his shoulder.

He came awake instantly, rolling away from her, then sitting up, blinking in the light. Only when he recognized her did he relax, losing his startled, hunted expression. Then, as he realized where he was, a look of defensiveness-almost furtiveness came into his eyes.

"Joey?" MaryAnne said, her voice gentle. "Joey, why are you sleeping out here? Why aren't you in bedt'

He frowned slightly, then his expression cleared. "It-It's just something I do sometimes," he stammered. "Sometimes I just can't sleep in the house. So I come out here, sometimes, and sleep with the horses."

Then, more aggressively: "Mom and Dad never minded. They let me do it whenever I wanted."

"I see," MaryAnne said, though she didn't see at all. She wasn't quite sure she believed what the boy had just said.

It didn't make sense that Audrey Wilkenson would let her son curl up in a horse stall. And yet, if Joey said his mother had let him do it, how could she argue with him? How could she ever know what Audrey had let Joey do, and what she hadn't? "Well, come on back to the house, all right?" she said. "Alison and Logan are up, and we're going to make cocoa. How does that sound?"

Leaving the blanket where it lay, Joey stood and brushed the loose straw off his disheveled clothes. The strange feeling-the frightening sensation of nervousness that had seized him earlier in the evening, finally driving him out of the house into the darkness of the night-was gone.

Something-something of which he was totally unaware-had released him from the torment of his own mind.

The whup-whup-whup of the helicopter blades drew closer.

Rick Martin instinctively ducked as the downdraft of the great rotor struck him. A cloud of dust and pine needles swirled around him, and he shielded his eyes, peering up into the glare of the chopper's landing lights. From the belly of the machine, a rope was dangling; at its end from which hung the stretcher into which he and Tony Moleno would lift the torn body of Tamara Reynolds.

"You're fine!" he yelled into the radio, hoping the pilot could hear him above the din. "Hold position, and lower away!"

The stretcher began its slow descent, and Rick moved for a moment to check on the young woman who still remained inside the wreckage of the tent where they'd found her, unconscious. Her wounds were clumsily bound with bandages from the first-aid kit in his squad car, but fresh blood was already oozing through the white gauze. "How's she doing?" he asked Moleno, who was crouching beside her, his fingers pressed against her neck.

"Still got a pulse, but her breathing's getting worse."

"If she's still alive when we get her up there, she'll make it down to Boise," Rick replied, coming out of the tent. As the basket touched the ground a few yards away, the deputy glanced up at the man who had arrived in the village an hour ago to report the attack in the campground. Now he was standing at the edge of the campsite, a sheen of sweat glimmering on his skin in the firelight, despite the chill of the night. His arm was around his wife, who leaned into him heavily, seeming on the verge of collapse. Their children, a boy of about five and a girl a year younger, clung to their mother's legs. "Give us a hand!" Rick yelled. The man glanced at his wife as if he wasn't certain the words were actually being directed at him, but then realized there was no one else there. Leaving his wife to look after the children, he hurried over.

"Get the sling off the basket," Rick called to Tony Moleno, and while the assistant deputy ducked out of the tent, he told the young man-whose name had already escaped him what they were going to do. "All three of us will lift her at the same time. I'll be at her head, and you take her feet. The idea's not to move her any more than we have to. Got it? Once she's on the stretcher, we'll take her out to the basket, strap her in, and she'll be on her way."

By the time he was finished, Tony Moleno was back, and the three of them carefully moved Tamara Reynolds-still unconscious-onto the stretcher, then carried her out of the wreckage of the tent. The basket sat on the ground, the line to the hovering aircraft hanging slack. The three men placed the stretcher in the basket, working against the blast of the chopper's downdraft. Rick Martin fastened the strap to hold the stretcher securely in place, then stepped back and waved the helicopter away. The line tightened, and the basket lifted off the ground, swinging as the helicopter moved slightly forward.

"Shit!" Tony yelled above the din of the engine as the basket moved toward a stand of tall lodgepole pines at the edge of the campsite.

"What's he doing?"

The @ men on the ground stared in horror as the basket swung closer to the trees, but then the helicopter rose straight up, the basket soaring above the treetops as the winch hauled it in.

"Jesus," Tony said as the racket of the chopper's blades began to fade away. "Don't ever make me ride in one of those things, okay?"

Rick ignored his partner as he studied the man who had reported the attack on the campsite. "is there anything else you want to tell me?

Anything you've left out, Mister ... ?"

"Jenson. Peter Jenson." He shook his head. "There isn't anything else to tell, really. We were sound asleep-the kids were in our tent, and Peg and I were outside. I was sound asleep, but Peg woke up. She thought she heard something, and woke me up. We listened, and didn't hear anything at first, but then just as I was going back to sleep, there was this sound. Not a scream or anything-more like a moan. Anyway, when I heard it again, I decided to go take a look. Peg went into the tent with the kids, and I took my flashlight and came over here." He glanced at the ruined tent, the carnage brilliantly lit by the halogen headlights of the two squad cars parked at the edge of the site.

He flinched as he saw Glen Foster's torn body still lying where he'd found it, half covered by the remains of the ripped sleeping bag. "I didn't know what to do. I yelled at Peg to stay in the tent, then headed down to our car." He shook his head uncertainly. "Maybe that was kind of a dumb thing to do, huh? I mean, whatever did this is still out there somewhere. But what else could I do? The woman was still alive."

Rick Martin laid a reassuring hand on Jenson's shoulder.

"Seems to me like whatever did this wouldn't have hung around here afterward. And the parking lot's only half a mile down the road."

Jenson's lips twisted wryly. "If you'd of asked me tonight, I'd have said it was more like ten miles."

"What about these two people?" Rick asked. "Did you know them?"

"No "I talked to them when they showed up, but that's all.

Other than that, I've never seen them before." He glanced toward his wife, who had moved to the picnic table near the fire pit, her children still flanking her, her arms wrapped protectively around their shoulders. "Look," Jenson went on, "would it be possible for me to bring my car up here tonight? I'd like to pack us up and get out of here. No way the wife and kids are going to go back to sleep-not after what happened."

Rick nodded. "There'll be a whole crew coming up tomorrow. For tonight, I'm gonna have to leave the body where it is."

Jenson stared at him, a shiver running over him at the thought of the dead man being left in the tent until morning. As if he'd read Jenson's mind, Rick Martin's lips tightened into a grim line.

"Not much else I can do. No way the crime boys from Boise can get up here tonight, and I'm not gonna touch this site until they've gone over it with a fine-tooth comb. All I can do is post a guard for the rest of the night. If you want, I can give you a lift down to the parking lot.

I'll just leave the gate open tonight with a police tape across it." He was silent for a moment, then spoke again. "I guess you know there's going to be a lot of people wanting to talk to you, the next couple of days." He kept his eyes on-Peter Jenson, looking for any sign of discomfort his words might have caused the man. But Jenson only nodded.

"You've got my name and address." He took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. "Hell of a way to end the summer, huh? We came up here for one last quiet weekend, and . . ." His voice trailed off, then he shook his head. "Why do you suppose it was this tent that got hit?"

he asked. "Why wasn't it mine?"

It was the same question that had been running intermittently through Rick Martin's mind ever since Peter Jenson had first described the horror he'd discovered. But he had no answer, nor would there be any possibility of an answer until the crew from the crime lab had searched the site.

Had something attracted the attacker to this particular tent, this particular couple?

Or had it been a random attack, Rick wondered, as he'd assumed the earlier one against an empty site had been?

He didn't know, and deep down inside wondered if he ever would. But there was one thing he was sure of, with no doubt at all.

Coyote Creek Campground-the most beautiful in the area-would be closed.

Closed for the rest of the year, if not forever.