Demon Child

killed Lee Symington.” There! The worst was out. If he was going to try to protect himself now, she would have to try to run.
        “You're crazy!” he said. “I had a solid alibi. You heard the police say so themselves!”
        “An alibi can be built beforehand,” she said. “Who were you talking to on the telephone that day I overheard you? Who was the killer you were talking about? The person on the other end of that line-or you yourself, Richard?”
        “So this is why you've been acting so strangely!”
        She backed a step. “I think I have reason to act strangely, if that's what you want to call caution. I don't think it's the least bit strange to be wary of you, Richard.”
        He laughed. He actually broke out laughing!
        It was worse, in a way, to see his face crinkle in mirth than to see rage and hatred there. She had been expecting the former, counting on it, in fact. This was completely unexpected. But, then, Richard exemplified the unexpected, the abrupt and the unknown. Could he possibly be mad? Why else would he react to such accusations with laughter?
        “Stop it!” she said.
        He continued to laugh, though he was not laughing as hard now. He wiped tears off his cheeks. Some of his color had returned to the deathly pallor of his cheeks.
        “Please, Richard,” she said.
        “I can explain all those things,” he told her. “I can explain them easily. You told me before that you overheard me on the telephone and saw me sneaking to the stables. But I never once thought you'd jump to the conclusion that I was the villain in all of this!”
        “What other conclusion was there?” she asked. She felt foolish now, though still wary. What on earth did he mean?
        “And I made stupid assumptions too,” he said, no longer laughing, but smiling at her as he had that first day when he had picked her up at the terminal. “I thought you were mixed up with whoever's behind all this. I thought you were part of it. What other reason would you have for eavesdropping on my phone conversation-or for watching me from your window when I was trying to sneak to the stable?”
        “That was accidental.”
        “But listening to me on the phone wasn't.”
        “By then I thought you were mixed up in something,” she said, trying to justify herself, though she couldn't see why she should have to. He still had to explain himself!
        “The only thing I'm mixed up in is an effort to preserve this land and the house which has been in my family for more than one and a quarter centuries. I don't want it all leveled to serve as a complex of restaurants and motels and gas stations for some lousy super-highway interchange!”
        She said nothing. She felt as if the earth had heaved up beneath her. The old feeling of instability returned, as bad as it had been before she had ever met Walter Hobarth and gained solace from the sweet reason of his carefully applied logic.
        “Do you want me to explain away all these things you saw and heard?” Richard asked. His gentle, concerned manner was there again. He was the Richard she had not seen in more than two weeks.
        “Yes,” she said quietly.
        Behind them, the horses whinnied.
        Richard looked stunned.
        Jenny turned to see what he was staring at.
        Walter Hobarth stood at the edge of the trees, seventy feet away. He held a pistol in his right hand, and he appeared ready to use it. Slung carelessly under his other arm was the rifle he had taken from the stables. Yet, it was neither of these formidable weapons which electrified Jenny, nailed her down with terror. It was, instead, the huge wolf that sat docilely by Walt's side which filled her with dread.
        Its eyes were yellow-red and gleamed brightly. It watched Richard and her with morbid fascination, gauging the strength of its potential victims.
        Walter Hobarth patted the wolfs head with his gun hand, then stood erect again and laughed. It was a much nastier laugh than Richard's…

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    17
        
        Fool, fool, fool! she cried silently. She had been such a fool, directing her affection toward the wrong person, turning with suspicion on the only one who was innocent of any wrongdoing. And what made it all worse was that Hobarth had used her, had played on her sympathies with a calculated ruthlessness. Fool, fool! She was so angry she wanted nothing more than to scream and kick and