Divine Evil

was in Pennsylvania-the signs said so. But how she had gotten there, when she should have been cutting through Delaware, she couldn't say. Determined to make the best of it, she stopped at a McDonald's and feasted on a quarter-pounder with cheese, large fries, and a Coke while she pored over her road map.
    She figured out where she was well enough, but how she'd arrived there remained a mystery. Still, that wasbehind her now. Nibbling on a fry soaked in salt and catsup, she traced her route. All she had to do was get on that squiggly blue line and take it to that red one, turn right and keep going. True, she had added hours to her trip, but she wasn't on a deadline. Her equipment would be-trucked down the next day. If worse came to worst, she could just pull off at a handy motel and get a fresh start in the morning.
    Ninety minutes later, through blind luck, she found herself heading south on 81. She'd traveled that route before, with her father, when he'd gone to check out property on the Pennsylvania border, and with her family, when they'd spent a weekend visiting relatives in Allen-town. Sooner or later, the route would take her into Hagerstown, and from there, even with her sense of direction, she would find her way.
    It felt good to be behind the wheel. Though it was true enough that the car seemed to have a life of its own. She enjoyed the way it skimmed the road, hugged the turns. Now that she was driving, she wondered how she had managed to do without the simple pleasure of being the captain of her own ship for so long.
    An excellent analogy for marriage and divorce. Nope. She shook her head and drew a deep breath. She wouldn't think of that.
    The stereo was first class, and she had the volume up high. It had been too cool to remove the T-tops-and her luggage took up all the trunk space, in any case. But her windows were down all the way so that a bouncy Pointer Sisters classic streamed out into the air. Her clutch foot tapped in time on the floorboards.
    She already felt better, more herself, more in control. The fact that the sun was dropping low and the shadows lengthening didn't concern her. After all, spring was in theair. Daffodils and dogwoods were blooming. And she was going home.
    On 81 South, halfway between Carlisle and Shippensburg, the sleek little car shuddered, hesitated, and stopped dead.
    “What the hell?” Baffled, she sat, listening to the blaring music. Her eyes narrowed when she spotted the light on the dash with its symbol of a gas pump. “Shit.”
    Just after midnight, she made the last turn for Emmitsboro. The pack of teenagers who had stopped as she'd been pushing the Z to the shoulder of the road had been so impressed with her car that they'd all but begged her for the honor of procuring her a gallon of gas.
    Then, of course, she'd felt obliged to let them sit in the car, discuss the car, stroke the car. The memory made her grin. She'd like to think if she'd been an ugly little man in a beat-up Ford, they'd have been just as helpful. But she doubted it.
    In any case, her five-hour drive had taken nearly double that, and she was tired. “Almost there, baby,” she murmured to the car. “Then I'm going to crawl into my sleeping bag and check out for eight hours.”
    The rural road was dark, her headlights the only relief. There wasn't another car in sight, so she hit the high beams. She could see fields on either side of the road. The shadow of a silo, the glint of moonlight on the aluminum roof of a barn. With the windows down, she could hear the song of peepers and crickets, a high-pitched symphony under a bright full moon. After what seemed like a lifetime in New York, the humming country silence was eerie.
    She shivered once, then laughed at herself.
Serene
, the word was
serene.
But she turned up the radio a bit louder.
    Then she saw the sign, the same tidy billboard that had sat on the side of the two-lane country road as long as she could remember.
WELCOME TO EMMITSBORO
Founded 1782
    With a surge of excitement, she turned left, bumped over the stone bridge, then followed the lazy curve of the road that led into town.
    No streetlights, no neon, no gangs posturing on street corners. It was barely midnight, but most of Emmitsboro was asleep. By the glow of the moon and her car's headlights, she could see the dark buildings-the market, its big plate glass windows blank, the parking lot empty; Miller's Hardware, its sign freshly painted, the shutters drawn. Across the street