Hideaway

deodorized, fluoridated, dressed, fed, employed, and motivated.
    That was what she wanted to believe. But when she tried to sketch, she couldn't quiet the tremors in her hands.
    Honell was dead.
    Cooper was dead.
    She kept looking at the window, expecting to see that the spider had returned. But there was no scurrying black form or the lace-work of a new web. Just glass. Treetops and blue sky beyond.
    After a while Hatch stopped in. He hugged her from behind, and kissed her cheek.
    But he was in a solemn rather than romantic mood. He had one of the Brownings with him. He put the pistol on the top of her supply cabinet. “Keep this with you if you leave the room. He's not going to come around during the day. I know that. I feel it. Like he's a vampire or something, for God's sake. But it still doesn't hurt to be careful, especially when you're here alone.”
    She was dubious, but she said, “All right.”
    “I'm going out for a while. Do a little shopping.”
    “For what?” She turned on her stool, facing him more directly.
    “We don't have enough ammunition for the guns.”
    “Both have full clips.”
    “Besides, I want to get a shotgun.”
    “Hatch! Even if he comes, and he probably won't, it's not going to be a war. A man breaks into your house, it's a matter of a shot or two, not a pitched battle.”
    Standing before her, he was stone-faced and adamant. “The right shotgun is the best of all home-defensive weapons. You don't have to be a good shot. The spread gets him. I know just which one I want. It's a short-barreled, pistol-grip with—”
    She put one hand flat against his chest in a “stop” gesture. “You're scaring the crap out of me.”
    “Good. If we're scared, we're likely to be more alert, less careless.”
    “If you really think there's danger, then we shouldn't have Regina here.”
    “We can't send her back to St. Thomas's,” he said at once, as if he had already considered that.
    “Only until this is resolved.”
    “No.” He shook his head. “Regina's too sensitive, you know that, too fragile, too quick to interpret everything as rejection. We might not be able to make her understand—and then she might not give us a second chance.”
    “I'm sure she—”
    “Besides, we'd have to tell the orphanage something. If we concocted some lie—and I can't imagine what it would be—they'd know we were flimflamming them. They'd wonder why. Pretty soon they'd start second-guessing their approval of us. And if we told them the truth, started jabbering about psychic visions and telepathic bonds with psycho killers, they'd write us off as a couple of nuts, never give her back to us.”
    He had thought it out.
    Lindsey knew what he said was true.
    He kissed her lightly again. “I'll be back in an hour. Two at most.”
    When he had gone, she stared at the gun for a while.
    Then she turned angrily away from it and picked up her pencil. She tore off a page from the big drawing tablet. The new page was blank. White and clean. It stayed that way.
    Nervously chewing her lip, she looked at the window. No web. No spider. Just the glass pane. Treetops and blue skies beyond.
    She had never realized until now that a pristine blue sky could be ominous.
     
    ----
     
    The two screened vents in the garage attic were provided for ventilation. The overhanging roof and the density of the screen mesh did not allow much penetration by the sun, but some wan light entered with the vague currents of cool morning air.
    Vassago was untroubled by the light, in part because his nest was formed by piles of boxes and furniture that spared him a direct view of the vents. The air smelled of dry wood, aging cardboard.
    He was having difficulty getting to sleep, so he tried to relax by imagining what a fine fire might be fueled by the contents of the garage attic. His rich imagination made it easy to envision sheets of red flames, spirals of orange and yellow, and the sharp pop of sap bubbles exploding in burning rafters. Cardboard and packing paper and combustible memorabilia disappeared in silent rising curtains of smoke, with a papery crackling like the manic applause of millions in some dark and distant theater. Though the conflagration was in his mind, he had to squint his eyes against the phantom light.
    Yet the fantasy of fire did not entertain him—perhaps because the attic would be filled merely with burning things, mere lifeless objects. Where was the fun in that?
    Eighteen had burned to death—or been