Shadowfires

eyes still closed, head still bowed,
coppery red-brown hair falling forward and half concealing her
face.
    “You knew what you might find in the trunk. How?”
    “No. I didn't know. I was half afraid I'd find… something.
Something else. But not this.”
    “Then what did you expect?”
    “Maybe something worse.”
    “Like what?”
    “Don't ask.”
    “I have asked.”
    The soft bodies of the moths tapped against the fire-filled tubes
of glass above. Tap-tap-tick-tap.
    Rachael opened her eyes, shook her head, started walking away from
the battered Ford. “Let's get out of here.”
    He grabbed her by the arm. “We have to call the cops now. And
you'll have to tell them whatever it is you know about what's going
on here. So you might as well tell me first.”
    “No police,” she said, either unwilling or unable to look at
him.
    “I was ready to go along with you on that. Until now.”
    “No police,” she insisted.
    “But someone's been killed!”
    “There's no body.”
    “Christ, isn't the blood enough?”
    She turned to him and finally met his eyes. “Benny, please,
please, don't argue with me. There's no time to argue. If that poor
woman's body were in the trunk, it might be different, and we might be able to call the cops, because with a body they'd
have something to work on and
they'd move a lot faster. But without a body to focus on, they'll ask
a lot of questions, endless questions, and they
won't believe the answers I could give them, so they'll waste a lot
of time. But there's none to waste because soon there're going to be
people looking for me… dangerous people.”
    “Who?”
    “If they aren't already looking for me. I don't think they
could've learned that Eric's body is missing, not yet, but if they
have heard about it, they'll be coming here. We've got to go.”
    “Who?” he demanded exasperatedly. “Who are they? What are they
after? What do they want? For God's sake, Rachael, let me in on it.”
    She shook her head. “Our agreement was that you could come with me
but that I wasn't going to answer questions.”
    “I made no such promises.”
    “Benny, damn it, my life is on the line.”
    She was serious; she really meant it; she was desperately afraid
for her life, and that was sufficient to break Ben's resolve and make him cooperate. Plaintively he said, “But the police could provide protection.”
    “Not from the people who may be coming after me.”
    “You make it sound as if you're being pursued by demons.”
    “At least.”
    She quickly embraced him, kissed him lightly on the mouth.
    She felt good in his arms. He was badly shaken by the thought of a
future without her.
    Rachael said, “You're terrific. For wanting to stand by me. But go home now. Get out of it. Let me handle things myself.”
    “Not very damn likely.”
    “Then don't interfere. Now let's go.”
    Pulling away from him, she headed back across the five-car garage
toward the door that led into the house.
    A moth dropped from the light and fluttered against his face, as
if his feelings for Rachael were, at the moment, brighter than the
fluorescent bulbs. He batted it away.
    He slammed the lid on the Ford's trunk, leaving the wet blood to congeal and the gruesome smell to thicken.
    He followed Rachael.
    At the far end of the garage, near the door that led into the
house through the laundry room, she stopped, staring down at
something on the floor. When Ben caught up with her, he saw some
clothes that had been discarded in the corner, which neither he nor
she had noticed when they had entered the garage. There were a pair
of soft white vinyl shoes with white rubber soles and heels, wide
white laces. A pair of baggy pale green cotton pants with a
drawstring waist. And a loose short-sleeve shirt that matched the
pants.
    Looking up from the clothes, he saw that Rachael's face was no longer merely pale and waxen. She appeared to have been dusted with ashes. Gray. Seared.
    Ben looked down at the suit of clothes again. He realized it was
an outfit of the sort surgeons wore when they went into an operating
theater, what they called hospital whites. Hospital whites had once
actually been white, but these days they were usually this soft shade
of green. However, not only surgeons wore them. Many other hospital
employees preferred the same basic uniform. Furthermore, he had seen
the assistant pathologists and attendants dressed in exactly the same
kind of clothes at the morgue, only a short while ago.
    Rachael drew a deep hissing breath