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on Adette’s shoulder. A dark spot, like mold on a shower wall.
    Rot.
    He swallowed. At that moment, she stirred. The tensing of his body against hers must have wakened her. She stiffened, then gasped and rolled over onto her belly. He looked on with alarm as she retched. Whatever she had eaten the evening before came up liquid and reeking; she spewed it out into the straw. Awkwardly, Matt set a hand on her back, unsure what to do. The sight of that rot on her back like a scream of metal against metal, scraping his senses raw.
    She retched a few more times, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Glanced up at him, her eyes bloodshot. “He’s killed again,” she gasped.
    Matt didn’t say anything. He was trying to process that.
    “An old man this time,” she said hoarsely. “He’d cheated on his wife, years ago. He’s in one of the houses.”
    “How do you know this?”
    She sat up, looking very pale. With her clean hand she pushed her hair back. Matt drew in his breath a moment at the sight of her, her breasts soft in the dark, but then the smell of rot returned, fiercer than before, and he had to fight not to gag.
    “I always know. Come on, we have to hurry. He doesn’t move after a kill. Not for hours. He stays with the body.”
    Matt hesitated.
    “You’ll just have to trust me,” she pleaded.
    He caught her wrist. “I was good at trusting once. Now I’m not.”
    “Tough,” she said.
    He held her gaze, searching her eyes for some sign of madness or a lie or some impending betrayal. At last he grunted and got to his feet, pulling her up with him. If she was right, he had to act. And it wasn’t as though he had a better lead.
    He cast a glance at their clothes where he’d discarded them on the stable floor, and sighed, his breath white on the air. Shirt, pants, underwear, all frozen stiff in their crumpled shapes. He took the wool coat and draped it around Adette’s shoulders; she gave him a grateful look. Then he got up and went to see what he could find. He’d found a coat; maybe there’d be another. Or gloves. Or overalls. Or something. He would have been self-conscious about stalking naked across the stable, but now that he was out from under that coat and away from Adette’s body heat, all he could think about was the cold floor burning his feet and the way the cold air bit at his bare chest and his balls.
    And that rot.
    He kept thinking of that, too.
    He’d slept with her. Despite the cold, he hardened a little at the memory. She hadn’t smelled like rot then. The decay had come while she slept. While she dreamed.
    He stopped, leaned his hand against the stable door, the grain of the wood rough against his palm.
    She’d woken up claiming some knowledge of the killer. The killer, whose face was more rotten and vile than any he had ever seen. The dream had to be the key. But what did it mean? The maggots and the festering morbidity that Matt had seen in the faces of evil from one coast of the country to the other… that was a presaging of violence. It wasn’t a contagion. It certainly didn’t spread through dreams, while people slept.
    What the hell was going on?
    To his surprise, he did find a pair of overalls. Three, in fact, folded in a small crate with some other stable supplies, in the corner near the door. And a row of rubber boots. He shook his head, impressed. So not all his luck was bad. No gloves, but the deep pockets in those overalls would do.
    He tossed two pairs of overalls to Adette and pulled the third on quickly. It was too big—whoever had owned this stable had been a heavy man. But he could fix that. He found some twine hanging on the wall and a hacksaw on a shelf. He began cutting lengths. Glanced at Adette, caught his breath. She looked… very appealing, stepping into those overalls, her long legs, her breasts. There was something sensual about watching her slip into them.
    “Put them both on,” he called softly. “Keep you warm under that coat.” He