the source of the darkness surrounding us—would I not have sensed such distilled evil the night before, in his home?
He turned left, away from Sarah, following the other girl.
I peered at his profile, trying to read his thoughts. I could penetrate nothing, though I could see tension in the way he held his jaw and sensed an anger in him, perhaps triggered by his encounter with Maggie the night before. I felt a need rising in him and I was afraid to examine it more closely. I did not want to know what that need was. I did not want to know it even existed.
The girl picked up her gait. Her hair began to swing back and forth with each long stride. I felt the rising need in the car shift, feral and unpredictable, as if an animal had stirred in the shadows of the backseat.
It was coming from Hayes. Eagerness roiled off him in waves as he crept along, hidden in his car, following the girl. His tension was gone, subsumed by a hunter’s obsession. He focused on the girl with an unwavering, relentless concentration that made his eyes glitter. His breath was coming in shallow gasps and he kept touching his lips with the tip of his tongue, as if he were tasting something delicious. His nostrils flared, though he could not possibly smell her, and a smile crossed over his face. It was not the kind of smile to inspire happiness. It was a smile of self-satisfaction to come.
I was afraid.
I knew he could not see me. I knew he could not touch me.
Still, I was afraid.
The young girl continued her walk down the block, each stride as regal as the one before. She was unaware that she was being watched, protected by her youth from knowing that evil could strike even when you were close to home, that evil could claim you even in bright sunlight.
She turned into the driveway of a ranch house that sprawled across a generous lot surrounded by six-foot-high bushes for privacy. Hayes slowed the SUV and drew to a stop along the curb. He shut the engine off and waited, the smile on his face stretching wider. He knew what was about to come.
The young girl bent over, revealing the backs of her thighs and a flash of pink as her skirt inched up over her legs. Hayes groaned softly, his relentless self-control crumbling. I felt no desire at what I was seeing, only fear for what might happen next. The girl stuck her hand in a small opening at the back base of the steps, where latticework and smaller shrubs nearly concealed a small crawl space. Extracting a small gray rock, she turned it over and slid something toward her: a tab that opened to reveal a tiny compartment. In the compartment, I knew, was a house key.
Hayes knew it, too. He laughed quietly—it was a ratch eting sound that had no humor in it—as the girl replaced the fake rock in its now-useless hiding spot, then skipped up the steps and let herself in the front door of the house she thought of as home, the place she considered safer than all other places in the world. She slipped the key into a jacket pocket as she stepped inside.
Hayes waited a moment, checked the empty street and sidewalks to make sure he was alone, then slipped soundlessly from the front seat of his car. Within seconds, he was gone from sight, having disappeared down the driveway, where towering bushes protected him from any neighbor’s eyes.
I followed. He did not hurry. His movements were not the slightest bit furtive. He walked as calmly as if he were striding the halls of the college and intent on being in class on time—until he stepped abruptly sideways with practiced ease and disappeared between two tall spruce bushes guarding the back corner of the house. It was the perfect hiding spot. His tall frame was concealed in the shadows between the elongated branches of the spruce pines, yet he stood only inches from the sliding glass doors that formed the back wall of the corner room. He had a perfect view inside.
He found his spot and waited, growing completely still, content to bide his time. He had done this before.
What would he say if someone discovered him, standing among the bushes, impeccably clad? What possible excuse could he give for being there?
But he was not concerned with being caught. He knew he would