The Hollow Page 0,37

until we find the journal."

"We're putting a lot of stock in a diary," Gage commented.

"It's the next step." Cybil shrugged.

"I can't find it." Fox spread his hands. "Maybe she wrote them, maybe she wrote them here-it seems clear she did. But I lived in this house and never got a glimmer. I went through it again last night, wide open. Walked around inside, out, the old shed, the woods. I got nothing."

"Maybe you need me."

His eyes latched on to Layla.

"Maybe it's something we need to do together. We could try that. We've still got a little time now. We could-"

"Not now. Now while my parents are here in case... of anything. They'll both be away tomorrow, all morning." Out of harm's way, if there was any harm to be had. "At the pottery, at the stand. We'll come back tomorrow."

"Fine with me. Well, cowboy." Cybil gestured to Quinn's car. "Let's ride." She said nothing else until she and Gage were inside, pulling out ahead of Fox's truck. "What does he think might happen that he doesn't want his parents exposed to?"

"Nothing's ever happened here, or at Cal's parents' place. But, as far as we know, they've never been connected before. So who the hell knows?"

She considered as she drove. "They're nice people."

"About the best."

"You spent a lot of time here as a boy."

"Yeah."

"God, do you ever shut up?" she demanded after a moment. "It's all talk, talk, talk with you."

"I love the sound of my own voice."

She gave it another ten seconds of silence. "Let's try another avenue. How'd you do in the poker game?"

"Did okay. You play?"

"I've been known to."

"Are you any good?"

"I make it a policy to be good, or learn to be good, at everything I do. In fact-"

As she rounded the curve, she saw the huge black dog hunched in the middle of the road a few yards ahead. Meeting its eyes, Cybil checked the instinct to slam the brakes. "Better hang on," she said coolly, then punched the gas instead.

It leaped. A mass of black, the glint of fang and claw. The car shuddered at impact, and she fought to control it with her heart slammed in her throat. The windshield exploded; the hood erupted in flame. Again, she fought the instinct to hit the brakes, spun the car hard into a tight one-eighty. She prepared to ram the dog again, but it was gone.

The windshield was intact; the hood unmarred.

"Son of a bitch, son of a bitch," she said, over and over.

"Turn around, and keep going, Cybil." Gage closed a hand over the one that clamped the steering wheel. It was cold, he noted, but rock steady. "Turn the car around, and drive."

"Yeah, okay." She shuddered once, hard, then turned the car around. "So... What was I saying before we were interrupted?"

Sheer admiration for her chutzpah had a laugh rolling out of him. "You got nerve, sister. You got nerves of fucking steel."

"I don't know. I wanted to kill it. I just wanted to kill it. And, well, it's not my car, so if I wrecked it running over a damn devil dog, it's Q's problem." And at the moment, her stomach was a quivering mess. "It was probably stupid. I couldn't see anything for a minute, when the windshield... I could've run us into a tree, or off the road into the creek."

"People who are afraid to try something stupid never get anywhere."

"I wanted to pay it back, for what it did to Layla yesterday. And that's not the sort of thing that's going to work."

"It didn't suck," Gage said after a minute.

She laughed a little, then shot him a glance and laughed some more. "No, now that you mention it, it really didn't."

Chapter Seven

FOX'S FRIDAY SCHEDULE DIDN'T GIVE HIM MUCH time to think, or to brood. He went from appointment to meeting, back to appointment and into phone conference. At midafternoon, he saw a clear hour and decided to use it to take a walk around town to give his brain a rest.

Better yet, he thought, he'd walk up to the Bowl-a-Rama, grab a few minutes with Cal. He'd get a better sense of how Quinn was doing, how they were all doing if he talked with Cal.

When he stepped into reception to tell Layla, he found her talking with Cal's great-grandmother Estelle Hawkins.

"I thought we were meeting at our usual clandestine rendezvous." He walked over to kiss her soft, thin-skinned cheek. "How are we going to keep our secret affair