The Chase Page 0,52

at a blank TV screen.

It was all going to come crashing down soon-their carefully built structure of deception. Jenny had called her aunt Lily to say that Zach was upset and was spending the night with Tom. She'd called Dee's mother and told her Dee was staying with her. Neither mother had been happy. It was only a matter of time before one of them called Tom's house or Jenny's house and everything came out.

And Michael was right. They weren't going to find the base-not on the information they had now. They needed more.

She was actually glad that night when Julian showed up in her dreams.

It had taken her a long time to get to sleep-she'd lain for hours staring at the empty couch where Dee should have been. The last clear thing she remembered was deciding she was never going to sleep at all that night-and then she must have shut her eyes. When she opened them, she knew she hadn't really opened them at all. She was dreaming again.

She was standing in a white room. Julian was standing in front of a table, with the oddest thing stretched out in front of him. It was a sort of model,

with houses and trees and roads and street lights. Like a railway model, only without the train, Jenny thought. But it was the most elaborate model she'd ever seen; the miniature trees and bushes were exquisitely made, and the little houses had various windows alight.

Not just a model, Jenny realized. It's Vista Grande -it's my neighborhood. There's my house.

Julian was holding a small figure of a wolf above one of the streets. He set it down carefully, looked up at Jenny, and smiled.

Jenny didn't smile back. Although she was dreaming, her head was clear-and she had a purpose in mind. She was going to get all the information she could from him.

"Is that how you tell them what to do? The wolf and the snake?"

"Possibly." He added, just as seriously as she had asked her question, "What's black inside, white outside, and hot?"

Jenny, mouth opened to speak again, shut it and gave him the kind of look Audrey frequently gave Michael. "What?" she said tightly.

"A wolf in sheep's clothing."

"Is that what you are?"

"Me? No, I'm a wolf in wolf's clothing." He looked up at her, and light flashed in his wild, exotic sapphire eyes.

I don't know how I ever mistook him for a human, Jenny thought. Julian was from an older and wilder race. One that had fascinated and terrified humans from the beginning.

I will not be distracted, she told herself. Not this time. I will remember what I want from him.

"What do you think of the new Game?"

"It isn't fair," Jenny said promptly. "Isn't sporting, " she added, remembering what Julian thought of the idea of fairness. "It's not a game at all if we don't have a chance to find your base."

"And you think you don't have a chance?"

"Not without some kind of information."

Julian threw back his head and laughed, his hair shining like white jade. "You want a hint?" He looked at her with those veiled, liquid-blue eyes.

"Yes," Jenny said flatly. "And you'd give it to me if you wanted it to be any kind of real contest. But you probably don't."

He clicked his tongue at her. "You really think I'm an ogre, don't you? But I'm not so bad. You know, if I wanted, I could manipulate the Game so I couldn't lose. For instance ..." He lifted the wolf and held it judiciously over another street. Jenny recognized the pale gray wood-frame house and the tiny towheaded figure in front of it.

"Cam!" She looked at Julian. "You wouldn't! You said-"

His long lashes drooped. "I said I'd keep this Game to the original players-and I will. I'm just telling you what I could do. So you see I'm not so bad after all."

"Gordie Wilson wasn't a player."

"He put his nose in where he wasn't wanted."

"And what about P.C. and Slug?"

Julian's smile was chilling. "Oh, they were players, all right. They played their own game-and they lost."

So now I know, Jenny thought. I suppose I'll have to tell Angela-if I live to do it.

She was staring down at the tiny towheaded figure of Cam when something else occurred to her. She looked up.

"Was it you who made those kids play lambs and monsters?" she asked. "All that violence-were you influencing them?"

"Me?" He gave his black velvet laugh again. "Oh, Jenny-they don't need me. Children are that way