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think about it. She'd come this far. She
might as well keep going.
    She needed to find out what the weary, craggy
Syracuse cop was really doing in her town.
    She finally passed by the marshy area to
where the ground became firm and dry and green with tall, lush
grasses as it sloped gently down toward the lake. The water was
dark today. Every whitecap seemed designed to contrast with the
midnight hue of the water. The chill wind that had kicked up with
the stranger's arrival only grew stronger.
    She rounded a curve, and the grasses stopped
standing tall and lush and became neatly clipped. Crewcut lawns on
duty, and every fifty feet or so a small square log cabin at the
ready. Each had a narrow gravel driveway, and a small wooden dock
of its own. Each had a porch. She knew the cabins well. She had
spent a few weeks of every summer in one of them as a child.
    She'd always loved the way they smelled, and
she inhaled that same scent now. Aging cedar touched by freshwater
and a hint of fishiness.
    Holly sighed. "So get on with it, already,"
she muttered. She veered off the road onto the private drive that
lined the row of lakefront cabins. Most of them were obviously
vacant. One or two were occupied by fishermen out for a long
weekend. Those were the cabins with oversized, four-wheel-drive
SUVs parked in their gravel driveways, and small motorboats tied to
their docks.
    She knew which cabin Vince O'Mally had rented
the second it came into view. The very last one at the end of the
row. The most private one, out of plain sight of the others because
of a curve in the drive. Its curtains were all drawn tight, not a
bit of light coming from within. His car was nowhere in sight,
either. Nor was there a boat at the dock.
    Holly bit her lip and took a quick look up
and down the driveway. No one was around. Swallowing hard, she cut
across the lawn, and ducked around to the rear of the building.
Nothing back there but weeds, a giant propane tank, and a stack of
nicely seasoned firewood. Squatting low in the weeds, she waited,
listened. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn't hear much
else, and it wasn't from exertion. Hell.
    She caught her breath eventually and,
gathering her courage, rose. She still didn't see anyone. Standing
on her toes, she leaned close to the nearest window, and tried to
find a spot where the curtains parted enough to give her a glimpse
inside.
    Something moved in there. The barest shadow
among the shadows.
    She jerked backward so fast she lost her
balance, and fell, hitting the ground hard, then scrambling to her
feet again, her heart pounding as her mind sought answers. What had
she seen, exactly? A dark form, a man, or was he the nightmare that
kept replaying in her mind? She stood motionless, listening,
waiting. The woods were at her back, the lake to her left, and the
road to safety, right. Straight ahead was the house, and she didn't
know if the shadow man was even now coming around it after her, or
if he was, which way he would come, or if he were even real. So she
froze there, questioning her mind, her senses, with her breaths
rushing in and out of her lungs uncontrollably. She crouched and
waited.
    Something creaked.
    It could have been a tall tree, bending in
the wind.
    Or it could have been the creak of a screen
door opening and softly closing again.
    Oh, God, he was coming, he was coming! Her
heart hammered her chest mercilessly. She was gulping each breath.
He would hear her if she didn't quiet down.
    Something moved, off to the left. A twig
broke, and she launched herself around the house to the right,
running full tilt, pushing her legs as hard as she could
manage.
    She slammed into something hard. Heavy arms
dropped what they'd been carrying, came around her and held her.
"Red? What the hell?”
    She lifted her head, and saw the damned
Syracuse cop frowning down at her as she sucked in breath after
gasping breath. This was all his fault. She was going to die. Her
heart was going to explode and she