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established, moving through the rooms, locking every door and latching every window.
    She was at the foot of the stairs when she sensed a movement above her. She looked up to see Joey, still dressed, starting down, Storm at his heels. “Honey? Why aren’t you in bed?”
    “The barn,” Joey said. “The door’s closed.”
    Audrey cocked her head in puzzlement. “It’s always closed at night.”
    “But what about Sheika? What if she comes back?”
    He was at the bottom of the stairs now, looking up at her, his dark eyes worried.
    “She’ll just stay in the field, sweetheart,” Audrey told him. “And she might not come back tonight at all. If she was frightened, she could have run for miles.”
    Joey shook his head. “She’ll come back,” he said. “I know she will.” His face set in the stubborn expression that told Audrey he was prepared to argue for hours, and she realized there was no way she could cope with a fight with her son tonight.
    “All right,” she said. “We’ll leave it open. But we’re going to make sure the stalls are locked. The last thing we need is to have the other horses gone tomorrow.”
    Together they went out the front door, leaving it standingopen behind them. The moon was high in a cloudless sky, and a gentle breeze drifted down from the mountains above. Audrey reached out and took Joey’s hand as they started toward the barn, and for the first time in months he didn’t pull away from her with the self-consciousness of adolescence. But when they were halfway across the yard, he suddenly stopped, dropped her hand and pointed.
    “Look! There she is!”
    Peering into the darkness, Audrey gazed across the field toward the woods. At first she saw nothing. A second later, though, something moved, and then she saw the great form of the mare move out of the shadows of the forest into the brilliance of the moonlight. She halted, and lowered her head to graze, but as Joey called out to her, she looked up, her ears pricking and her tail arching gracefully.
    “Sheika?” Joey called. “Sheika! Come on, Sheika!”
    With Storm trotting after him, Joey started running out toward the field.
    “Joey, stop!” Audrey called after him. “If we just leave the barn open, she’ll go in!”
    But even as she watched, the horse shied away and disappeared into the trees.
    “Get a tether, Mom,” Joey yelled. “I’ll keep her in sight!”
    Audrey stood rooted to the spot as the surrealism of the moment whirled around her. What were they doing outside in the middle of the night, only hours after Ted had died, chasing a horse?
    It was insane!
    It was ridiculous!
    It was—
    And then she realized.
    It was exactly what Ted would have wanted them to be doing. She could almost hear him:
You’re still alive, Audrey. And so is Joey. Go get her!
    The fatigue vanishing from her body, her mind finally overcoming the shock of finding Ted’s body on the floor of the wash stall, Audrey breathed deeply of the night air, then ran to the barn, pulled the door open and slipped inside. In the tack room she found a lunging tether and a flashlight,then she left the barn and strode across the field toward Joey.
    She caught up with him at the edge of the forest. He was calling out to the horse, then listening carefully for any sound of the animal moving in the darkness of the woods.
    His dog was nowhere to be seen.
    “Where’s Storm?” she asked, dropping her voice, although the two of them were completely alone.
    “I sent him to find Sheika,” Joey replied. A moment later they heard a sharp bark from somewhere in the forest. Then the tone of Storm’s bark changed as the dog began trailing the horse. “Come on,” Joey cried, charging down a path that cut through dense undergrowth that had never been cleared from this part of the woods.
    Audrey switched on the light, following in the direction her son had taken, though he was already out of sight as he ran toward the sound of the baying dog. Then, as Storm fell