The Chase Page 0,13

her to the ground. It was the dark figure in front of her, and it was shouting something.

"Jenny, get down!"

Her brain only made sense of the words after she was down. There was a dull crashing and a thudding-and-rushing that might have been the blood in her ears. Then the crashing stopped.

"Wait, stay down until I see if it's gone," Tom's voice said. Jenny got up anyway, looking at him in amazement. What are you doing here? she thought. But what she said was "Did you see it?"

"No, I was looking at you. I heard it and then I-"

"-knocked me down," Jenny said. "Did you see it, Audrey?"

"Me? I was trying to get my door open, and then I was trying to get your door open. I heard it go by, but when I looked it was gone."

"I don't think it went by," Tom said. "I think it went over-it ran over the hood of your car."

"It couldn't have," said Jenny. "A person wouldn't-" She stopped. Once again a horrible image of Nori, scampering spiderlike, entered her mind.

"I don't think it was a person," Tom began in a low voice. "I think-"

"Look!" Audrey said. "Down there past that streetlight-some kind of animal-" Her voice was high with fear.

"Turn on your headlights," Tom said.

A wedge of white light pierced the darkness. The animal was caught squarely in the beams, eyes reflecting green.

It was a dog.

Some sort of Lab mix, Jenny guessed. Black enough to blend into the night-or the hedges. It stared at them curiously, then its tail gave a quick, uncertain wag.

Rustlings in the bushes, Jenny thought. That tail wagging! And the quick, panting breath.

"Dog breath," she gasped aloud, almost hysterically. After the tension, the relief was acutely painful.

Audrey leaned her auburn head against the steering wheel.

"And for that I lost my shoes?" she demanded, sitting up and glaring at Jenny, who was hiccuping weakly.

"We'll go back and get them. I'm sorry. Honestly. But I'm glad you're here, anyway," Jenny said to Tom.

He was looking at the dog. "I don't think-" he began again. Then he shook his head and turned to her. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Didn't you?" Jenny said, not meaning the knocking-down. She looked up into his face.

He ducked away to help Audrey pick up her scattered belongings from the sidewalk. They could only find one shoe.

"Oh, leave it," Audrey said in disgust. "I don't care anymore. I only want to get home and soak for about an hour."

"You go on. Tom can take me home," Jenny said. Tom looked at her, seeming startled. "You do have your car, don't you? Or did you walk?"

"My car's down the street. But-"

"Then you can take me," Jenny said flatly. Audrey raised her eyebrows, then got in her car and drove away with a "Ciao" settling the matter.

Tom and Jenny walked slowly to Tom's RX-7. Once inside, though, Tom didn't start the engine. They just sat.

"Well, you've made yourself pretty scarce today," Jenny said. "While the rest of us were working." That hadn't come out right. She was upset, that was the problem.

Tom was fiddling with the radio, getting static. "I'm sorry, Jenny," he said. "I had things to do."

Where was his smile-that rakish, conspiratorial, sideways grin? He was treating her politely, like anybody.

Worse, he was calling her Jenny. When he was happy, he called her Thorny or some other silly name.

"Tom, what the hell is going on?"

"Nothing."

"What are you talking about, nothing? Tom, look at me! You've been avoiding me all day. What am I supposed to think? What's happening?"

Tom just shook his head slightly.

"You really have been avoiding me. On purpose." Jenny hadn't quite believed it herself until she put it into words. "Not just today, either. It's been ever since-" She stopped. "Tom. It's not-it hasn't got anything to do with-" She couldn't make herself say it; it was too ridiculous. But what other explanation was there?

"It hasn't got anything to do with what happened in the Game, has it? With-him?"

She could tell from the silence that she was right.

"Are you crazy?" Jenny said in a sort of quiet explosion.

"Let's just not talk about it."

"Let's just not talk about it?" Somewhere inside Jenny hysteria was building up, ready to be released.

"Look, I know the score. Maybe better than you do." In the faint light from the instrument panel, she could see that his mouth was grim.

Jenny got hold of herself and said carefully, "Tom, I am your girlfriend. I love you. We've always been together. And