The Hunter Page 0,5

it. Her mind, utterly practical, ordered her hand to stop searching for a doorknob that wasn't there. Waste of time.

With both hands she lifted the white box to throw it. She wasn't sure exactly what happened next. Both guys stared at her and then-they turned around and started running.

Running. Flannels was in the lead, and Bandanna just a length behind him, and they were running like deer, with an animal grace and economy of motion. Fast.

And Jenny hadn't thrown the box after all.

My fingers ... I didn't throw the box because I couldn't let go because my fingers ...

Shut up, her mind told her. If you're dumb enough to care more about a box than about your own life, okay, but at least we don't have to dwell on the subject.

Walking quickly, sweatered arms cradling the box to her chest, she started for home.

She didn't turn around to see how she'd missed the

doorknob with all her behind-the-back fumbling. At the time she simply forgot.

It was ten to eight when Jenny finally neared her street. The lighted living rooms in the houses she passed looked cozy. She was out in the chill dark.

Somewhere on the way home she'd started to have misgivings about the game. Her mother always said she was too impulsive. Now she'd bought this-thing-without even knowing exactly what was inside. Even as she thought it, the box seemed to thrum slightly in her arms as if charged with hidden power.

Don't be silly. It's a box.

But those guys ran, something whispered in the back of her mind. Those guys were spooked.

As soon as she got home, she was going to check this game out. Examine it thoroughly.

A wind had sprung up and was moving the trees on Mariposa Street. Jenny lived in a sprawling ranch-style house set among those trees. As she approached it, something slunk furtively by the front doorway. A shadow-a small one.

Jenny felt a prickling at the back of her neck.

Then the shadow moved under the porch light and turned into the ugliest cat in America. Its fur was mottled gray and cream (like a case of mange, Michael said), and its left eye had a permanent squint. Jenny had taken it in a year ago, and it was still wild.

"Hey, Cosette," Jenny said, darting forward and petting the cat as relief swept through her. I'm really getting jumpy, she thought, scared by every little shadow.

Cosette put her ears back and growled like the possessed girl in The Exorcist. She didn't bite, though. Animals never bit Jenny.

Once in the front hallway Jenny sniffed suspiciously. Sesame oil? Her parents were supposed to be leaving for the weekend. If they'd changed their minds...

Alarmed, she dumped her backpack-and the white box-on the living room coffee table as she galloped to the kitchen.

"At last! We were beginning to think you weren't coming."

Jenny stared. The girl who'd spoken was wearing an army fatigue jacket and sitting on the counter, one incredibly long leg braced on Jenny's mother's blondwood kitchen table, the other dangling. Her hair was cropped so close to her head it looked like little nubs of black velvet on her skull. She was as beautiful as an African priestess, and she was grinning wickedly.

"Dee ..." Jenny began.

The other inhabitant of the kitchen was wearing a black-and-white houndstooth-check jacket and Chanel earrings. Around her was spread a sea of utensils and ingredients: metal cleavers and ladles, eggs, a can of bamboo shoots, a bottle of rice wine. A wok was sizzling on the stove.

"... and Audrey!" Jenny said. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your butt," Audrey answered calmly.

"But-you're cooking!"

"Of course. Why shouldn't I cook? When Daddy was assigned to Hong Kong we had a chef who was like part of the family; he used to talk Cantonese to

me while Daddy was working and Mother was at the beauty parlor. I loved him. Naturally I can cook."

While this speech was going on, Jenny was looking back and forth from one girl to the other. When it was over she burst into laughter, shaking her head. Of course. She should have known she couldn't fool these two. They must have seen that under her facade of self-confidence about the party she was frantic. They knew her far too well-and they'd come to rescue her. Impulsively Jenny hugged each of them in turn.

"Since Tom loves Chinese, I decided to take care of the food," Audrey went on, dropping something dumpling-like into the wok. "But where have you been, hmm? Run into some kind