Odd Thomas

evidently they pulled up stakes.
        Robertson was embarked upon an endless sleep, watched over by the ghost of a young prostitute, but his murderer and former kill buddy remained at large. This second psychopath would have no reason to make a special target of Stormy; besides, she had her 9-mm pistol and the hard-nosed will to use it.
        Yet into my mind came the image of Robertson's chest wound, and I could not turn away from it or close my eyes to it as I had done in my bathroom. Worse, my imagination transferred the mortal hole from the dead man's livid flesh to Stormy, and I thought also of the young woman who saved me from the coyotes, arms crossed modestly over her breasts and wounds.
        On the front walkway, I broke into a run. Slammed up the stairs. Crashed across the porch. Threw open the door with the leaded glass.
        I fumbled the key, dropped it, bent and snatched it from the air as it bounced off the hardwood floor, and let myself into her apartment.
        From the living room, I saw Stormy in the kitchen, and I went to her side.
        She stood at the cutting board, beside the sink, using a small grapefruit knife to section the prime Florida fruit. A small pile of extracted seeds glistened on the wood.
        "What're you wired about?" she asked as she finished her task and set aside the knife.
        "I thought you were dead."
        "Since I'm not, do you want some breakfast?"
        I almost told her that someone had shot the chief.
        Instead, I said, "If I did drugs, I'd love an amphetamine omelet with three pots of black coffee. I didn't get much sleep. I need to stay awake, clarify my thinking."
        "I've got chocolate-covered doughnuts."
        "That's a start."
        We sat at the kitchen table: she with her grapefruit, me with the box of doughnuts and with a Pepsi, full sugar, full caffeine.
        "Why did you think I was dead?" she asked.
        She was already worried about me. I didn't want to wind her anxiety spring to the breaking point.
        If I told her about the chief, I'd wind up also telling her about Bob Robertson in my bathtub, about how he'd been a dead man already when I'd seen him in the churchyard, about the events at the Church of the Whispering Comet and the satanic meditation card.
        She'd want to stay at my side for the duration. Ride shotgun, give me cover. I couldn't allow her to endanger herself like that.
        I sighed and shook my head. "I don't know. I'm seeing bodachs everywhere. Hordes of them. Whatever's coming, it's going to be big. I'm scared."
        Warningly, she pointed her spoon at me. "Don't tell me to stay home today."
        "I'd like you to stay home today."
        "What'd I just say?"
        "What'd I just say."
        Chewing, silenced by grapefruit and by chocolate doughnut, we stared at each other.
        "I'll stay home today," she said, "if you'll stay here all day with me."
        "We've been through this. I can't let people die if there's a way to spare them."
        "And I'm not going to live even one day in a cage just because there's a loose tiger out there somewhere."
        I chugged Pepsi. I wished that I had some caffeine tablets. I wished that I had smelling salts to clear my head each time a fog of sleep began to creep upon me. I wished that I could be like other people, with no supernatural gift, with no weight to carry except whatever chocolate doughnuts might eventually put on me.
        "He's worse than a tiger," I told her.
        "I don't care if he's worse than a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I've got a life to live - and no time to waste if I'm going to have my own ice cream shop within four years."
        "Get real. One day off work isn't going to destroy your chances of fulfilling the dream."
        "Every day I work toward it is the dream. The process, not the final achievement, is what it's all about."
        "Why do I even try to reason with you? I always lose."
        "You're a fabulous man of action, sweetie. You don't need to be a good debater, too."
        "I'm a fabulous man of action and a terrific short-order cook."
        "The ideal husband."
        "I'm going to have a second doughnut."
        With full knowledge that she was offering a concession that I could not accept, she smiled and said, "Tell you what - I'll take a day off work and go with you, right at your side, everywhere you go."
        Where I hoped to