Children of the Storm

in us.”
        “Well, you're just as safe as I am,” Sonya said. “Mr. Saine sees to that.”
        “He goes with us everywhere,” Tina said.
        “Exactly.”
        Alex shrugged. “Rudolph can't do much if the man is really after us. If he really wants us, bad, what can Rudolph do?”
        “I believe Mr. Saine could handle anyone,” Sonya said. “Anyone at all.” She smiled at them and hoped her smile did not appear as phony as it really was.

----

    FIVE
        
        The man stood under the lacy palm trees, down near the thatch-roofed pavilion where Helen Dougherty liked to go every morning to sit and read while the sea murmured gently behind her. He was dressed in dark clothes, and he was all but invisible in the deep purple shadows of the trees, like a spirit, a specter. The moonlight touched the lawn, touched the top of the palm fronds above him, but did not touch him, as if it were afraid of him, as if it were purposefully avoiding contact with him.
        He watched the house.
        Especially the children's windows.
        Light shone there.
        He hoped to get a glimpse of them crossing the room, a quick flash of a small shadow… He felt powerful, good and deadly when he watched them without their knowledge. Such clandestine observation made him feel that he really was invisible, that he could move against them whenever he felt like it.
        Some night, not now but soon, when the room was dark and the kids were asleep, when Saine was especially lax, when everyone had all but forgotten about the threats…
        … then he would strike!
        He would be quick.
        He would be calm.
        And silent.
        Quick, calm, silent, deadly.
        He would have to forget about torturing them, of course, though that had been such an important part of his original plan, before this, before the family had moved here to the island. Now, in such close quarters, the children would be able to summon help rather quickly. If he tortured them, they'd scream and scream and scream… And they'd be heard, and he'd be apprehended before he could escape.
        Saine was not that lax, ever.
        One swift, clean cut, from ear to ear, opening their tender young throats like ripe fruits.
        He would kill the boy first, without waking the little girl. Then he would creep, silently as wind, to her bed, where he would open her throat as he had her brother's, swiftly, calmly, quietly. Then, when there was absolutely no danger of their crying out for help, he would leisurely work on them with the knife…
        Now, watching their lighted room, standing by the palms near the pavilion, the man took the knife from his pocket and opened it.
        He held it in front of him, so that moonlight struck his hand and glinted wickedly on the seven-inch blade.
        It was quite sharp.
        He spent a good deal of time honing it.
        He ran a finger along the blade.
        Lovely.
        It would do the job.
        When the time came.
        Soon.

----

    SIX
        
        “There it is-Hawk House!”
        Bill Peterson shouted over the roar of the Lady Jane's engines, pointing with one hand while, with the other, he brought them rapidly around the point of Distingue, out of the calmer waters in the lee of the land and into the choppy wavelets that pounded in toward the sheltered cove and were broken up on the hooking arms of beach.
        Sonya shielded her eyes from the glaring afternoon sun and stared at the old, dark house that loomed, almost menacingly, on the hill above the cove. Its windows were like black, blinded eyes, its porches and balconies like unhealthy growths sprouting from its weathered walls. It was much like Seawatch, really; but where Seawatch looked welcoming and warm, Hawk House seemed foreboding and cold.
        Peterson cut the engines back, bringing a comparative quietude to the open waters.
        He said, “Mr. Dougherty would like to own it. He'd remodel it and use it as a guest house-maybe as a retreat for friends and business associates.”
        “Are we going in to shore?” Sonya asked.
        “What for?”
        He seemed surprised that she had asked.
        She said, “I thought we could meet the neighbors.”
        His expression changed, in the instant, clouded, his eyes narrowing to slits, and he said, “You wouldn't want to meet them.”
        “Are they really so bad as all