By the light of the moon

world to a
narrow space, where he felt safer. Likewise, he dealt with
grief.
    Flexing his latex-sheathed hands, Proctor went to the boy and
stood over him, watching.
    Rocking slowly back and forth, young Shepherd began to murmur a
rhythmic series of words that Jilly could not quite hear.
    Dylan still knelt at his mother's side, his head bowed as though
in prayer. He wasn't ready to leave her yet.
    Satisfied that corner-focused Shepherd would serve diligently as
the warden of his own imprisonment, Proctor walked out of the
living room, crossed the entrance hall, and opened the door to
another room.
    If they weren't going to fold out of here immediately, then it
made sense to follow Proctor and learn what he was doing.
    With an affectionate squeeze, she released Shep. 'Let's see what
the bastard is up to. Will you come with me, sweetie?'
    Leaving Shep alone wasn't an option. Still scared and grieving,
he needed companionship. Besides, though Jilly doubted that he
would fold out of here without her and Dylan, she dared not chance
it.
    'Will you come with me, Shepherd?'
    'Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad.'
    'What does that mean, Shep? What do you want?'
    'Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad. Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad.'
    By the third time he recited this mantra, he had synchronized
his words to those of ten-year-old Shepherd in the corner, and the
resonance between them revealed the words that the younger Shep was
murmuring as he rocked. 'Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad.'
    Jilly didn't know the meaning of this, and she didn't have the
time to get involved in one of those long, circuitous conversations
with Shepherd. 'Rat, Mole, Mr. Toad. We'll talk about that later,
sweetie. Right now, just come with me. Come along with me.'
    Somewhat to her surprise, without hesitation, Shep followed her
out of the living room.
    As they entered the study, Proctor used the computer keyboard to
smash the monitor. He shoved the entire machine off the desk, onto
the floor. He exhibited no glee, even winced at the mess he'd
made.
    Drawer by drawer, he quickly searched for diskettes. He found a
few, stacked them aside. He tossed the other contents of the
drawers on the floor, scattering them widely, evidently hoping to
create the impression that the person or persons responsible for
the death of Dylan's mother had been ordinary thieves and
vandals.
    File cabinets in the bottom of the study closet contained only
paper records. He dismissed these at once.
    Atop the file cabinets were double-wide diskette-storage boxes:
three of them, each capable of holding perhaps a hundred
diskettes.
    Proctor snatched diskettes out of the boxes, tossing them aside
in handfuls without reading labels. In the third box, he found four
diskettes different from the others, in canary-yellow paper
sleeves.
    'Bingo,' Proctor said, bringing these four to the desk.
    Holding Shep's hand, Jilly moved close to Proctor, expecting him
to cry out as if he'd seen a ghost. His breath smelled of
peanuts.
    The yellow sleeve of each diskette blazed with the word WARNING!
printed in red. The rest of the printing was in black: legalistic
prose stating that these diskettes contained private files
protected by lawyer-client privilege, that criminal and civil
prosecution would be undertaken against anyone in wrongful
possession of same, and that anyone not in the employment of the
below-referenced law firm would automatically be in wrongful
possession.
    Proctor slid one diskette out of its sleeve to read the label.
Satisfied, he tucked all four into an inner jacket pocket.
    Now that he had what he'd come for, Proctor played vandal once
more, pulling books off the study shelves and slinging them across
the room. With flapping pages, the volumes flew through Jilly and
Shepherd, dropping like dead birds to the floor.
    * * *
    When the computer crashed off the study desk, Dylan remembered
the mess in which parts of the house had been found that February
night long ago. Thus far he had remained at his mother's side with
the irrational hope that even though he had been unable to save her
from the bullet, he would somehow spare her from the indignity yet
to come. The racket in the study forced him to accept that in this
matter, he was indeed as helpless as his brother.
    His mother was gone, ten years gone, and all that had followed
her death remained immutable. His concern now must be for the
living.
    He didn't care to watch Proctor engaged in set-dressing. He knew
what the ultimate look of the scene would be.
    Instead, he went to the