Mr. Murder

side on the sofa, Charlotte and Emily were still wearing their jackets and gloves. They held hands, taking strength from each other.
        Although they were scared, they weren't crying or demanding reassurance as many kids might have been doing in the same situation. They had always been real troopers, each in her own way.
        Marty was not sure how to counsel his daughters. Ilsually, like Paige, he was not at a loss for the guidance they needed to get them through the problems of life. Paige joked that they were the Fabulous Stillwater Parenting Machine, a phrase that contained as much self mockery as genuine pride. But he was at a loss for words this time because he tried never to lie to them, did not intend to start lying now, yet dared not share with them his own bleak assessment of their chances.
        "Kids, come here, do something for me," he said.
        Eager for distraction, they scrambled off the sofa and joined him at the window.
        "Stand here," he said, "watch the paved road out there. If a car turns into the driveway or even goes by too slow, does anything suspicious, you holler. Got that?"
        They nodded solemnly.
        To Paige, Marty said, "Let's check all the other windows, make sure they're locked, and close the drapes over them."
        If The Other managed to creep up on the cabin without alerting them, Marty didn't want the bastard to be able to watch them-or shoot at them-through a window.
        Every window he checked was locked.
        In the kitchen, as he covered a window that looked out onto the deep woods behind the cabin, he remembered that his mother had made the drapes on her sewing machine in the spare bedroom of the house in Mammoth Lakes. He had a mental image of her, sitting at the Singer, her foot on the treadle, intently watching the needle as it chattered up and down.
        His chest clogged with pain. He took a deep breath, let it shudder out of him, then again, trying not only to expel the pain but also the memory that engendered it.
        There would be time for grief later, if they survived.
        Right now he had to think only about Paige and the kids. His mother was dead. They were alive. The cold truth, mourning was a luxury.
        He caught up with Paige in the second of the two small bed rooms just as she finished adjusting the draperies. She had switched on a nightstand lamp, so she wouldn't be in darkness when she closed off the windows, and now she moved to extinguish it.
        "Leave it on," Marty said. "With the storm, it'll be a long and early twilight. From outside, he'll probably be able to tell which rooms are lit, which aren't. No sense making it easier for him to figure exactly where we are."
        She was quiet. Staring at the amber cloth of the lampshade. As if their future could be prophesied from the vague patterns in that illuminated fabric.
        At last she looked at him. "How long have we got?"
        "Maybe ten minutes, maybe two hours. It's up to him."
        "What's going to happen, Marty?"
        It was his turn to be silent a moment. He didn't want to lie to her, either.
        When he finally spoke, Marty was surprised to hear what he told her, because it sprang from subconscious depths, was genuine, and indicated greater optimism than he was aware of on a conscious level.
        ' We're going to kill the fucker." Optimism or fatal self-delusion.
        She came to him around the foot of the bed, and they held each other.
        She felt so right in his arms. For a moment, the world didn't seem crazy any more.
        "We still don't even know who he is, what he is, where he comes from," she said.
        "And maybe we'll never find out. Maybe, even after we kill the son of a bitch, we'll never know what this was all about."
        "If we never find out, then we can't pick up the pieces."
        "No."
        She put her head on his shoulder and gently kissed the exposed penumbra of the bruises on his throat. "We can never feel safe."
        "Not in our old life. But as long as we're together, the four of us," he said, "I can leave everything behind."
        "The house, everything in it, my career, yours-"
        "None of that's what really matters."
        "A new life, new names… What future will the girls have?"
        "The best we can give them. There were never any guarantees.
        There never are in this life."
        She raised her head from his