Demon Child

minutes.
        Still, there was no sign of him.
        At last, she closed the rest of the drapes, turned out the lights and crawled into bed. She added another debit to the events of the day.
        She wished Walter had seen this. He would have been able to make it all seem ordinary and unfrightening.
        No wolves howled the first half of the long night. She was positive of that, for it took her half the night to finally fall asleep.

----

    8
        
        The following morning, as Jenny was again taking breakfast in the company of Walter Hobarth, Richard entered the kitchen, looking agitated, the car keys jingling in his hand. Hobarth broke off a long and delightful tale about his experiences as an army psychiatrist in North Carolina and said good morning to the young Brucker heir.
        Richard replied tersely, as if he did not have enough energy to give a completely civil answer. It was not that he was being consciously rude, but as if he had too much pressing on him to concern himself with minor things of life like etiquette.
        He turned to Jenny. “I'd like to ask a favor of you,” he said. He chose his words carefully, as if he wished he did not have to speak with her in front of Anna and Hobarth, though neither appeared to be trying to eavesdrop.
        “What's that?” she asked.
        Was this the confidence he had been about to impart the previous evening when Cora had returned from the kitchen, interrupting them?
        “My friend's coming around at eleven,” Richard said.
        She looked blankly at him.
        “The one I mentioned last evening, remember?”
        She remembered something about the veterinarian and nodded.
        He smiled nervously. “Most likely, he won't need to leave his work area. But if he should need anything, I've told him to ask for you. Would that be all right?”
        “What could I possibly do to help him?” she asked, somewhat bewildered by all this.
        Richard jingled the keys in his hand. “Like I said, he probably won't need any help. But if he should, I'd like you to assist him. I would myself, but I've got to be in town for lunch with the family banker. Today's one of those investment counseling sessions. Will you?”
        She could not understand the reason for the veterinarian in the first place, but she said, “Yes. I guess so.”
        “Thanks very much, Jenny,” he said. He nodded to Hobarth who was finishing his eggs. “Sorry to disturb you, doctor.”
        “That's okay,” Hobarth said to Richard's back as the younger man turned and left the room.
        Jenny drank some coffee to settle her nerves. Richard seemed able to destroy a pleasant mood and put her on edge every time he showed up.
        “Strange young man,” Hobarth observed.
        She nodded. She did not want to say anything against her own cousin, no matter how much she might agree with the doctor.
        Hobarth chuckled. “His friend sounds like some cloak and dagger agent with the FBI!”
        She laughed too. In a way, Richard's actions were rather comical, melodramatic and silly. “Just a veterinarian,” she said.
        “Oh?”
        She remembered that Richard wanted to keep the vet's visit a secret. Perhaps she should have kept her lips sealed with Hobarth. Yet what harm could be done by sharing the joke? She told him about Richard's effort to search the stall where Hollycross died for a clue that might show what species of wolf had attacked the horse.
        “I wish we could just forget about that terrible scene,” Anna said, shivering. “Every time I think of that poor mare's throat-”
        She didn't have to finish.
        “Richard's emotionally upset over these recent events,” Hobarth said. “It's easily understandable. I think, perhaps, he genuinely cares for the twins-cares for them a great deal. But, perhaps, mixed with that love, there is a bit of jealousy.”
        “Jealousy?” Anna asked.
        “With his own mother dead at an early age, he may have come to feel more strongly about Cora than either he or she realizes. Now that new children are in the house and now that his father has gone, he may feel as if his own place of affection has been usurped.”
        “That doesn't sound like Richard!” Anna said, as ready to defend him as if he were her own.
        Jenny was not so sure. She thought she saw a good deal of sense in what Hobarth had said.
        “Oh, don't