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her life, and she’ll punish you for the rest of yours. Because you saw her . . . Well, forget it.” She doesn’t want to think about what he saw that night.
    She drives off, watches him in the rearview mirror, wonders where the hell he got that piece-of-junk Buick. Her cell phone rings, and her heart jumps as it occurs to her it might be him.
    It’s not.
    â€œDone,” says Special Agent McClure, with the FBI.
    â€œI guess I’m supposed to celebrate,” Stump says.
    â€œWas afraid of that. Looks like you and I need to have another little face-to-face. You’re starting to trust him.”
    â€œI don’t even like him,” she says.
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    It’s twenty of ten when he parks across the street from the courthouse, surprised to see Lamont’s car in her reserved space by the back door.
    Just his luck she’s decided to work late, and it would be just like her to assume his showing up to clear out some of his desk is a ruse. She’s so vain, she’ll be convinced his real intention is to see her, that he somehow knew she’d be here at this hour, that he can’t stand the thought of not being across the hall from her anymore. What to do. He needs files for court cases, his notes, personal items. It occurs to him it would serve her right if he cleared out his entire office, make her wonder if he’s ever coming back. He rolls down his window as his phone vibrates. Nana. Second time she’s called in the past hour. This time he answers.
    â€œYou’re usually asleep by now,” he says.
    His grandmother keeps odd hours, takes her superstitious shower right after it gets dark. Goes to bed, gets up around two or three in the morning, starts fluttering about the house like a luna moth.
    â€œThe nonhuman has stolen the essence of you,” she says. “And we must work fast, my darling.”
    â€œShe’s been trying for years, still hasn’t touched my essence.” As he watches the back of the courthouse, the top floor lit up. The county jail. Can’t get his mind off Lamont. “Don’t you worry, Nana. My essence is safe from her.”
    â€œI’m talking about your gym bag.”
    â€œDon’t worry about my laundry, either.” He doesn’t show his impatience, wouldn’t hurt Nana for the world. “I probably won’t be able to drop by tomorrow, anyway. Unless you need your car?”
    â€œAs I was on the threshold of sleep, the thing came in and I ordered it back out the door. You’ve gotten mixed up in far more than you bargained for,” she says. “It took your gym bag to steal your essence! To wear you like its own skin!”
    â€œWait a minute.” He focuses on the conversation. “Are you telling me someone broke into your house and stole my gym bag?”
    â€œThe thing came in and took it. I went out into the yard, then the street, and it drove off before I could pin it inside my magic circle.”
    â€œWhen was this?”
    â€œSoon after it got dark,” she says.
    â€œI’m coming over.”
    â€œNo, my darling. There’s nothing you can do. I cleansed the doorknob, cleansed the kitchen of the evil energy from top to bottom . . .”
    â€œYou didn’t . . .”
    â€œEradicated its impure, evil energy! You must protect yourself.”
    She begins her litany of protective rituals. Kosher salt and equilateral crosses. Draw a pentacle over a photograph of himself. White candles all over the place. Octagonal mirrors on all of his windows. Hold the telephone against his right ear, never the left, because the right ear draws bad energy out, while the left ear draws it in. Finally, she exclaims, “Something bad’s going to happen to the one who did this!” And her Nana laugh, a good-hearted cackle as he ends the call.
    She’s always been unusual, but when she gets “on her broom,” as he puts it, she unnerves the hell out of