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silent, Audrey broke into a trot, stopping short when she came to a fork in the trail a hundred yards farther on.
    Which way had Joey gone?
    She listened for the sound of Storm’s barking.
    Nothing.
    “Joey?” she called. “Joey, where are you?”
    She waited, but there was no response. For an instant she felt a twinge of panic, but quickly put it down as she remembered where she was. Though the trail branched here, it came together again a few hundred yards farther up, where it ended at a bluff that overlooked the entire Sugarloaf Valley. The fork to the right was the easier one, the one to the left a little shorter. Either way, there were no other paths leading off the trail, and the underbrush was too dense even for Joey—let alone the horse—to leave the trail. Whichever path she chose, she would eventually come upon both her son and Sheika.
    Sighing, she started the climb, choosing the right fork. She moved as fast as she could, pausing every now and then to call out to Joey and the dog, but it was as if the night had swallowed them.
    She was still a hundred yards from the bluff when she began to worry.
    What had happened to them?
    Surely they must be able to hear her calling!
    Was Joey playing some kind of morbid joke on her, tonight of all nights?
    But what if he wasn’t?
    Her worry edging into fear, she hurried her step.
    Abruptly, she stopped, sensing something close by.
    Joey?
    Storm?
    What if it was neither?
    What if it was a bear?
    She froze, listening.
    Silence.
    She called out once more, but once again heard only the silence of the night. Though the wind soughed softly in the trees, she suddenly realized that she heard no sounds of birds rustling in their sleep, or insects chirping in the darkness.
    Danger.
    She sensed it all around her now, and automatically turned, instinct warning her to run down the trail and across the field to the safety of the house.
    But she couldn’t! Not with Joey still out here!
    She pushed on, refusing to let panic overcome her, calling out every few seconds now, but still hearing nothing in reply. Then, as fatigue tugged at her, she burst out from the forest onto the bluff. Instantly, with the woods no longer enclosing her, and the full light of the moon flooding the valley below with a silver glow, her fear subsided. Any second, either Joey and Storm, or Sheika, or all three of them, would emerge from the other trailhead a hundred feet away, and then all of them would start back down.
    She stepped out onto the edge of the bluff, gazing out over the valley. At the far end, the lights of Sugarloaf village twinkled in the darkness, and here and there, dotting the valley floor, she could see the lights of the houses between El Monte and the town.
    How many times had she and Ted come up here when the moon was full?
    How many times had they stood here together—
    She froze, sensing that she was no longer alone.
    “Joey?” Her son’s name seemed to hang in the air for a moment, then died away into the silence.
    She heard something, a faint rustling behind her.
    She turned then, praying that whatever was there would be something familiar.
    Almost invisible in the deep shadows of the trailhead, a dark form was slinking toward her.
    She gasped, uncertain what the strange shape might be, but sensing the peril that emanated from it.
    She stepped back, instinctively putting more distance between herself and the creature.
    And then it leaped, hurtling out of the darkness toward her, its menace palpable in the night.
    A scream of terror rose in Audrey’s throat. She lurched back, the sudden movement taking her off balance, and realized a split-second too late that there was no longer anything beneath her foot.
    She teetered for a moment, struggling to regain her footing. The scream in her throat finally broke free as she tumbled over the edge, scraped roughly against the bare stone face of the bluff, then felt herself dropping downward.
    Her scream went on, only to end in sudden