"No, I won't," Nick insisted, starting to pull his coat back on. "And even if I do, so what? It'd be better than going back to the hospital."

Now Sarah turned around, her back to the easel. "Nick? What's wrong? Where are you going?"

"My dad's coming out here!" he told her. "If he finds me here-"

He didn't have to finish his sentence-Sarah, too, had grabbed her coat and was shoving her arms into the sleeves, then picking up her backpack from where it still lay on the chaise. "I'm going with you-"

"No!" Nick protested, but she shook her head.

"We shouldn't ever have come out here! So let's just go back to the libra-"

"Sarah, listen to me!" Bettina said as they both started toward the door. "I'll drive you-"

Sarah shook her head, cutting Bettina off. "If Nick's dad really does come out here, you have to be here. Otherwise, he'll know! We'll be okay. Come on, Nick!"

And they were gone, hurrying out the French doors and across the terrace, then down the steps to vanish into the darkness. Bettina followed them out onto the terrace, calling after them, but all she heard in response was Sarah's voice, once more insisting that they'd be all right.

Should she get into the car and go after them? But they wouldn't take the driveway-they'd go back through the woods, the way they'd come. And Nick, she was sure, knew every path and trail as well as every other kid in Warwick. They wouldn't get lost, but if they didn't want to be found, there was no way she could do it.

Should she call Dan West?

That might make things even worse for Nick and Sarah when they finally got home.

But she had to do something-she couldn't just leave them out there in the dark. Turning away from the night, she closed the French doors behind her.

And her eyes fell on the canvas Sarah Crane had been working on.

The room began a slow spin, and she had to reach out to the work-table to catch herself as the wave of dizziness crested. Finally, she sank down on the stool she sometimes used when she painted, closed her eyes and slowly counted to ten.

The dizziness pa.s.sed.

What she'd seen-thought she'd seen-had to be nothing more than some kind of bizarre hallucination.

Her heartbeat slowed, her breathing evened out.

She opened her eyes.

It had been no hallucination.

In the few minutes Sarah was at the easel, she had painted a clear, detailed image of a scene that had taken place in the forest outside this house before she'd even been born.

Bettina was gazing at a depiction of her own rape, except that in the picture Sarah had limned, Bettina could see something she hadn't been able to see on that terrible night.

Sarah had drawn not only her, but the man who had raped her as well.

Shep Dunnigan.

As she stared at the painting, she replayed what she'd just heard on the telephone.

The same threatening voice as the man who called yesterday, the voice that triggered the horrible dream about the brutal rape when she was only sixteen.

The rape that resulted in a child born on Sarah Crane's birthday, and which Bettina had immediately given up for adoption.

It was all impossible, but now, as she stared at the painting, it all made sense.

And right this minute, Sarah Crane's father-her real father-was on his way to Shutters.

Tiffany Garvey felt Conner West's hand caressing her breast and squirmed with pleasure under the weight of his body. Even though the backseat of Conner's car might not be the most comfortable place, she was enjoying what was happening enough that she didn't care that one of her legs was propped up on the back of the front seat.

His hand reached up her skirt, his fingers pulling at the elastic of her panties, and she began tugging at the buckle of his belt. It would have been a lot nicer-and a lot more comfortable-if they could have gone somewhere, but her mother was always home and so was Conner's, and neither one of them could afford a hotel room.

Conner's hands were all over her now, and he was pulling her panties off and- A flicker of movement outside caught her eye.

Someone was out there! Someone had seen them!

With a sudden surge of strength fueled by a moment of panic, she shoved Conner, sat up, and peered out the window.

Sarah Crane was standing on the side of the old dirt road-the road Conner had sworn n.o.body ever came down.

And she was staring right at them, her eyes wide under her wool cap.

Their eyes met for a moment, and then Sarah-looking as startled as Tiffany felt-turned and stumbled away into the woods.

"Sarah!" Tiffany said, barely believing her eyes as she finally managed to get Conner's hands off her. "Do you believe it? Sarah Crane is out there, and she just saw us."

"You're nuts," Conner said, reaching out again, his hands groping at her.

"No!" Tiffany punched him on the chest hard enough to make Conner flinch back. "She's going to go home and tell my parents that we were parked out here."

Conner was looking at her warily now. "What are you-crazy? What would Sarah Crane be doing out here in the woods? She can barely even walk."

"Well, she was walking pretty good just now," Tiffany shot back, adjusting her bra and pulling her sweater down. "And I have to go. Now," she added pointedly when Conner made no move to return to the driver's seat.

"You saw a deer," Conner said.

"I know what I saw, so let's just go, okay? I'm already late."

"Come on, Tiff," he pleaded, "let's just-"

"Let's go, Conner!" She struggled her way back into the front seat and waited while Conner zipped his pants, b.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt, then got out of the car, slammed the back door hard enough to make Tiffany jump, jerked the driver's door open, got in behind the wheel, and slammed that door even harder.

Tiffany said nothing, knowing Conner well enough to know that if she pushed him too hard, he might very well throw her out of the car and just leave her there. Which wouldn't do at all. She needed to get home first, to be setting the table and doing her homework before Sarah got home. But Conner apparently wasn't convinced yet.

"Sarah Crane is not out here," he said quietly.

Tiffany could actually feel him getting ready to make another pa.s.s at her. "Can we just go?" she asked. "We'll come back here next time, okay?" Like there was ever going to be a next time, she silently added to herself.

Still Conner hesitated, and for a moment Tiffany was afraid the vague promise of something yet to come wasn't going to work. But then, letting out his breath in a long sigh, he shrugged.

"Yeah, sure. I guess I can wait."

He turned the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life.

Chapter Twenty-six.

"Maybe Tiffany didn't see you," Nick said, picking his way through the underbrush as fast as he could. It seemed to be getting colder by the minute, and though the canopy of the forest was catching most of the snow, enough was getting through that the flurries beginning when they left Shutters were now a steady fall.

"She saw me, all right," Sarah said, her voice as grim as the thoughts spinning through her mind. "She and Conner were in the backseat and she looked right at me. And she knew I saw her, too."

"So what?" Nick countered. "What's she going to do-tell her mom she was making out with Conner West and you saw her?"

"You don't know Tiffany," Sarah said, stopping to let the pain in her hip ease and to catch her breath. "She'll get home before I do and make up some story. And then they'll call Kate Williams and she'll send me away." Her bad leg suddenly threatened to give way, and she instinctively reached for Nick's hand to steady herself. "What am I going to do?"

"Right now, let's just concentrate on getting out of here," he replied. "The main road is that way," he went on, pointing to the right, "but if my dad comes out, that's the way he'll come. And Conner and Tiffany are on the old road. But if we keep going straight ahead, we'll run into an old construction road that connects those two. If we stay on it, it goes all the way into town. It'll take us longer to go that way, but at least we probably won't run into anyone."

"Okay," Sarah sighed, starting to walk again, but with her limp worse than it had been a few minutes ago. "Just tell me it's flat."

"It is," Nick a.s.sured her, and a few minutes later they emerged from the woods onto a narrow dirt road already covered with a thin layer of snow. An old stone retaining wall bordered the road to the north, and both sides of the worn track fell off into what was left of two drainage ditches.

"Know what you're going to say to the Garveys?" Nick asked.

Before Sarah could answer, headlights flashed through the night from behind them, casting their long shadows onto the white road in front of them.

"Hide!" Nick yelled, das.h.i.+ng to one side of the road. But when he glanced back, Sarah had moved to the opposite side, where the ditch was shallower and the stone retaining wall offered no shelter at all.

"Sarah!" he yelled over the sound of the approaching car. "Over here!"

Sarah heard Nick's voice and turned to see him waist-deep in the ditch on the other side of the road and waving frantically at her.

What should she do?

The ditch next to her was barely deep enough to hide her even if she lay down. She looked down the road at the approaching headlights, and time slowed as her mind flashed back to another night. A night that seemed to be part of another life ...

She was on her bicycle again, pumping the pedals hard, hunting for her father.

Headlights ahead of her-headlights coming toward her.

Just like now.

She was swerving toward the ditch, but there wasn't going to be time and- "Sarah!" Nick screamed, climbing out of the ditch across the road and starting toward her.

But she didn't move. Caught in the grip of her memory, she stood frozen in the road.

It was going to happen again-she could feel it. She closed her eyes, unable to move, unable to do anything to save herself.

[image]

"I don't believe it!" Tiffany howled, staring through the winds.h.i.+eld. "It's her! It's that s.k.a.n.k, Sarah!"

"What?" Conner said, turning up his winds.h.i.+eld wipers. "It can't be!"

"I told you she was out here," Tiffany shot back. "Want to give her a scare?"

But Conner wasn't listening. Instead he was hunched up over the steering wheel, peering intently through the winds.h.i.+eld. "And there's Nutty Nick," he whispered more to himself than to Tiffany.

An idea came into Tiffany's head, and she started giggling. "Let's act like we're going to hit them!"

But Conner West was way ahead of her. "Oh, I'll do a lot better than that," he replied, an image of his dying dog rising out of his memory. He pressed down hard on the gas pedal, clicked on his high beams, and headed directly toward Sarah Crane and Nick Dunnigan.

"It's Conner!" Nick yelled as the car accelerated. He grabbed Sarah's hand. "Come on!"

At Nick's touch, Sarah snapped back into the present, but as the headlights of her father's truck vanished from her mind, those of the oncoming car grew brighter and brighter, lighting up the night like some great blazing- Fire!

A new memory leaped into her mind, this one of the picture she'd drawn while Nick was in the hospital. She could clearly see the flames it had depicted, hanging before her against the night sky.

Then one of the voices in Nick's head screamed out, and his mind exploded with the memory of the hallucination he'd had in the hospital.

Flames!

Flames everywhere!

But not just flames. Flames he could direct, flames he could control, flames he could use, just as he'd used the phantom weapon when Conner West's dog had been leaping at Sarah.

He raised his arm, as he'd raised it that day ...

[image]

The laughter died on Tiffany's lips as she realized what Conner was going to do. "Conner, don't," she cried, reaching for the wheel to try to turn the onrus.h.i.+ng car aside before it struck Sarah and Nick. But just as her fingers touched the wheel, something happened.

Suddenly, the road was on fire.

Not just on fire, but blazing with a fury Tiffany had never witnessed before. It was as if h.e.l.l itself had appeared before her, and her cry of protest rose to a scream of pure terror.

As the flames seemed to rush toward him, Conner jerked his foot away from the accelerator and slammed on the brakes.

The car began to fishtail.

Tiffany grabbed at the door handle to steady herself before she was thrown into him, and the door flew open as the car went into a full spin. Before she even knew what had happened, she was hurled out of the car onto the dirt road, rolling into the ditch next to the retaining wall.

Trying to steer out of the skid, Conner jerked the steering wheel the other way. The car hit the ditch, glanced off the stone wall, bounced back, spun around, and stopped in the middle of the road.

Nick and Sarah still stood side by side and hand in hand. No more than five yards away, the flames still rose from the road as if the dirt track itself had caught fire, but they felt no heat from the roaring inferno.