Niceville

from behind them, a woman’s voice.
    “Clara. Stop.”
    They turned and saw a woman in the middle of the living room, a tall weather-worn woman with a strong, handsome face, deep-set green eyes, a shapely body, long black hair in a shining fall. She was barefoot, wearing a white summer dress.
    She was directly in front of the gilt mirror with her signature on the back. The mirror’s glass was a blaze of pale green light, shining on the figure, placing her inside an aura of shimmering light strong enough to show her naked body through the thin fabric of her summer dress.
    “Clara. Stop. Come home.”
    Nick and Kate turned to face the black shape again, but it was gone. A young woman in a green summer dress was hesitating in the hall, apretty young woman with soft brown eyes and rich auburn-colored hair. Clara Mercer.
    Clara shook her head, took a step backwards, moving into the downlight from the lamp over the porch. Her shape grew less clear. The other woman—Glynis Ruelle—spoke again, with more force, an edge of impatience, pleading with her.
    “Clara. Abel is dead. I have him now. He’s for the harvest. It’s over. Come home.”
    The tension between the two women became an audible humming vibration. The vibration increased, grew louder, rose in frequency, reaching a single piercing painful note at the farthest pitch of hearing. The room was filled with the vivid green light pouring out of Glynis Ruelle’s mirror.
    Clara spoke.
    “Abel is dead?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did he face your man?”
    “Yes. And we have been given satisfaction.”
    Clara hesitated, seemed to flicker into and out of focus—the black cloud came back and then vanished into the darkness beyond the door.
    Clara stepped forward, passed directly through Nick and Kate’s bodies as they stood there in the hall—both Nick and Kate felt her passing—sadness, grief, loss, rage. Clara moved into the green aura and stood in front of Glynis.
    The light from the mirror grew, flickered, and was suddenly gone, and they were alone in the front hall, by the open door, the glow from the porch light pooling on the stone floor of the hallway.
    After a while, inside the hush that had fallen, Kate pushed the door closed, turned the dead bolt with a shaking hand, crossed the floor to the mirror, which was leaning against a chair, reached out to touch it—it was as warm as blood—brought it forward and laid it on the carpet, facedown.

Sunday Morning

Byron Deitz Finally Gets It
    Deitz and Phil Holliman were sitting on a pair of lawn chairs set out by the pool. The awning was flapping in a hot wind and the sun was blazing down on them, setting the air on fire, even at this early hour.
    Holliman looked cool and calm in a seersucker suit and a white shirt, bare feet in thin Italian slippers, but Deitz looked hot, his face flushed and damp. He poured some more gin into his glass, dropped some cubes into it with a tinkly
plonk
, and swilled it all down, his thick throat working.
    “Jeez,” said Holliman, “you don’t look good.”
    Deitz put the glass down hard, glared at Holliman, his bug-eye iridescent sunglasses reflecting a distorted image of Holliman back at him. He made a back-there gesture, indicating a white panel van with NICEVILLE UTILITY COMMISSION printed on the side.
    “AC ditched it last night, middle of the fucking night. Whole system crashed—fucking computerized shit—guy’s in there now, trying to fix it.”
    “Where’s Beth and the kids?”
    “She’s not here right now.”
    Holliman didn’t ask why.
    He had a pretty good idea.
    “Where is she? Her sister’s?”
    “Nah. She’s gone to a hotel. Took the kids. Heat sorta got to us both last night, she had a hissy fit, on account of her fucking old man’s gone AWOL up in fucking VMI and I wasn’t—” he made ironic quotemarks with his hooked fingers—“
sympathetic
, the fucking bitch. I guess I smacked her one. I know, I know, but it’s been a bad week. So, ba
-bing
, she takes the Cayenne and the kids, blew the doors off going down the drive.”
    Holliman saw something in Deitz’s face.
    “She marked up?”
    “Nothing a pair of sunglasses won’t cover. Thing is, Kate’s married to Nick, and Nick’s already called.
    Says we gotta meet.”
    “Sounds like a duel.”
    Deitz looked down at the pool.
    “Yeah, well, I put him off until tomorrow, on account of business, but when we do meet, I’m going to haveta straighten the guy out. I mean, I can’t let some