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Something—” and here Catherine, incurably machine-stupid, shook her head helplessly—“something was loosened with a wrench, deliberately. The Arkansas police investigated the service station they had stopped at there. Sheriff Galton looked here.”
    â€œThey never caught who did it?” Tom was incredulous.
    â€œNo,” she said bleakly. “How could they? Anyone could have gotten into our garage, Father didn’t lock it. And it must have been done here. Why would a service-station attendant in Arkansas do anything like that? They were nice people…I met them.” She closed her eyes and leaned back against the couch.
    She heard Tom rise, and knew it was because he was too excited to sit. I’ve made one person happy today, she thought.
    â€œI’m going to call Galton,” he said eagerly. Without another word, he stalked out the back door.
    She forgot him as soon as he was gone.
    I’ve been waiting for this, Catherine realized. Somewhere in this little town he’s been waiting, too, free and alive . Everyone forgot about my parents after a while. But now that he’s killed again, he’s drawn attention to himself. I’ve been waiting…She knew it now and was amazed she had not known it before. She was frightened to discover that this blood lust existed in quiet Catherine Linton.
    But it was anger released. It felt good.
    She opened her eyes to meet Randall’s. He looked thoughtful.
    â€œGo to bed,” he advised gently, and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”
    She could hear him let himself out as she went obediently to the soft waiting bed. She didn’t wonder at his sliding into the position of man to her woman, instead of employer to employee. She accepted the transition without question. As she turned over on her stomach and wrapped her arms around the pillow, she was able to forget her parents, forget Leona Gaites, for the moment before sleep swamped her.

5
    C ATHERINE SLEPT DREAMLESSLY until morning.
    She woke slowly; saw early morning light seeping through the curtains, heard birds twittering faintly outside.
    She felt weak but at peace, the way an invalid feels after a long and debilitating illness has passed its crisis. She turned on her side to peer out the gap in the curtains, and when she had absorbed what she could see of the morning, her gaze transferred to the curtains themselves.
    They were an olive green to match the bedspread. It dawned on Catherine that she didn’t like them, had never liked them. In fact, she hated olive green.
    She would pick out new curtains, drive to Memphis and debate her choice with a saleswoman at an expensive shop.
    I’ll buy something light and striped and open-weave. I’ll do it this weekend, she resolved. She swung out of bed and went to the louver-doored closet lining one wall of the bedroom. Her supply of clothes, most dating from her college days, barely filled one side of the vast closet.
    And I’ll buy new clothes, too, she thought. Shoes. She eyed her bedroom slippers with disgust. How could she have kept those for so long?
    She went down the dim hall to the kitchen, looking forward to her breakfast. It wasn’t until she saw the coffee pot, still dirty from the previous morning, that she remembered.
    She sat abruptly on one of the bamboo chairs grouped around the breakfast table. She saw a hand lying in a pool of sunlight. Taking several deep breaths, she focused on the pattern of her robe until the worse had passed. With an immense and grim effort Catherine washed the coffee pot, filled it, and plugged it in. From the pile of library books in the living room, she picked an innocuous biography of an Edwardian lady and sat at the glass-and-bamboo table reading the first paragraphs very carefully until the coffee had perked. After she had poured her first cup, she returned to the book.
    She staved off the image of Leona’s hand until she had