Children of the Storm

the beach quite close at hand. It was a calming sound, rhythmic, as soothing as a mother's kiss.
        She sat upon a stone bench which was situated twenty feet from the garden path, between two dense arms of shoulder-high tropical rose bushes, listening to the sea and enjoying the exotic fragrances that hung like heavy clothing on the moist night air. The bench was swathed in shadows, which must have been the reason why the man who suddenly appeared on the walkway, moving toward Seawatch with a swift and purposeful stride, didn't see her immediately…
        Over the hypnotic boom of the surf and the after-echoes of each rushing wave, she thought that she heard someone cough: once, sharply, as if to clear the throat.
        A moment later, leaning forward on the bench in order to hear better, she fancied that she detected the sound of approaching footsteps on the garden path. Abruptly, as the man walked out of the arbor of bougainvillea on his way toward the house, her fancy was proven real.
        She rose, to go meet him, whoever he was.
        For an instant, in the back of her mind, there rose the notion that he might not be someone she knew-and even if he were, he might not be a friend at all. But she brushed away the pessimistic thought and went toward the path.
        She could not see who he was, for the darkness was a mask across his face, and it played deceptive tricks with his size and build.
        As yet, he was oblivious of her.
        She saw that his loping stride would carry him past her before she could reach the path, and she said, “Who's there?”
        He stopped cold.
        “Bill?”
        He said nothing.
        “Bill?” she repeated, because that was who she hoped he was, not because she recognized him.
        He seemed frozen to the spot.
        Hypnotized…
        She stopped, too, half a dozen quick steps away from him, alerted by some subliminal danger signal, still unable to see just who he was. He was only a silhouette. A mass of shadows shaped somewhat like a man, nothing more.
        “Rudolph?”
        She could hear him breathing.
        He said nothing.
        Then, as if the words had been spoken by someone else who had magically possessed her body, her back cold with sudden perspiration, she said, “Ken?”
        He turned and ran.
        “Wait!” she shouted.
        He disappeared into the arbor from which he had originally come, his darkness blending in perfectly with the deeper darkness of that leafy tunnel, gone like a genie vanishing back into the lamp.
        She went after him.
        Sonya knew, now, knew more surely than she could ever have put into words, that she had accidentally encountered the same man who had made the threats against Alex and Tina… the man who had driven the Dougherty family from its home in New Jersey to Seawatch and Distingue … the man with all the tales about knives and mutilation… torture and death. She could not have produced any real or circumstantial evidence to prove her conclusion. Instead, her certainty was based upon some sixth or seventh sense, on some unexplained but undeniable flash of clairvoyance: this is the man!
        And if she were correct; if this were the madman who had caused so much anguish, she could not let him get away scott free without first catching a glimpse of his face or of some other distinguishing feature that would later serve to identify him: his exact size, his build, his manner of dress.
        She ran after him.
        The sea was forgotten, though it still thumped the beach and echoed on the flat sands.
        The flowers were forgotten too. All she could think about was catching up to the stranger.
        She ran into the open mouth of the waiting arbor.
        She brushed the leaves aside, at the opening, felt them slither over her bare arms like the delicate wings of insects, and she stepped into unrelieved blackness.
        She had thought that he would run the entire length of the arbor, into the open air again, from there across the remainder of the gardens and into the thick, sheltering pine forests of the central part of the island, much too quick for her to catch. But she had been wrong about that, very wrong.
        He remained in the arbor.
        He stood quite still against the lefthand wall, holding his breath, listening for pursuit.
        He was waiting for her.
        She did not disappoint him.
        She cried