Strangers

secure.
        Stirred by the wind, the dry sagebrush made a scraping-rustling noise. Ice-crusted twigs clicked against one another with a sound that, fancifully, made Faye think of small, scurrying skeletons of little animals long-dead but somehow reanimated.
        

    ***
        
        Back at the motel, in the Blocks' apartment, Ernie and Sandy and Ned sat at the kitchen table, while Faye made coffee and hot chocolate.
        Dom perched on a stool by the wall phone. On the counter in front of him lay the Tranquility Motel's registration book that had been in use the year before last. Referring to the page for Friday, July 6, he began to call those who must have shared the unremembered but important experiences of that faraway summer night.
        In addition to his own name and that of Ginger Weiss, there were eight on the list. One of them, Gerald Salcoe of Monterey, California, had rented two rooms for himself, his wife, and two daughters. He had entered an address but no telephone. When Dom tried to get it from the Area Code 408 Information Operator, he was told the number was unlisted.
        Disappointed, he moved on to Cal Sharkle, the long-haul trucker, a repeat customer known to Faye and Ernie. Sharkle lived in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He had included his telephone number in the motel registry. Dom dialed it but discovered that the telephone had been disconnected and that no new number was listed.
        "We can check his more recent entries on the current registry," Ernie said. "Maybe he's moved to another town. Maybe we have his new address somewhere."
        Faye put a cup of coffee on the counter where Dom could reach it, then joined the others at the table.
        Dom had better luck on his third attempt, when he dialed Alan Rykoff in Las Vegas. A woman answered, and he said, "Mrs. Rykoff?"
        She hesitated. "I was Mrs. Rykoff. My name's Monatella now, since the divorce."
        "Oh. I see. Well, my name's Dominick Corvaisis. I'm calling from the Tranquility Motel up here in Elko County. You, your former husband, and your daughter stayed here for a few days in July, two summers ago?"
        "Uh… yes, we did."
        "Miss Monatella, are either you or your daughter or your ex-husband having… difficulties - frightening and extraordinary problems?"
        This time her hesitation was pregnant with meaning. "Is this some sick joke? Obviously, you know what happened to Alan."
        "Please, Miss Monatella, believe me: I don't know what happened to your ex-husband. But I do know there's a good chance that you or him or your daughter - or all of you - are suffering from inexplicable psychological problems, that you're having frightening and repetitive nightmares you can't remember, and that some of these nightmares involve the moon."
        She gasped twice in surprise as Dom was speaking, and when she tried to respond she had difficulty talking.
        When he realized she was on the verge of tears, he interrupted. "Miss Monatella, I don't know what's happened to you and your family, but the worst is past. The worst is past. Because whatever might still be to come… at least you're not alone any more."
        

    ***
        
        Over twenty-four hundred miles east of Elko County, in Manhattan, Jack Twist spent Sunday afternoon giving away more money.
        On returning from the Guardmaster heist in Connecticut the previous night, he had driven through the city, looking for those who were both in need and deserving, and he had not rid himself of all the cash until five o'clock in the morning. On the edge of physical and emotional collapse, he'd returned to his Fifth Avenue apartment, gone immediately to bed and instantly to sleep.
        He dreamed again of the deserted highway in an empty moon-washed landscape, and of the stranger in the dark-visored helmet who pursued him on foot. As the moonlight suddenly turned blood-red, he woke from the dream in panic at one o'clock Sunday afternoon, flailing at his pillow. A blood-red moon? He wondered what it all meant, if anything.
        He showered, shaved, dressed, and took time for only a quick breakfast consisting of an orange and a half-stale croissant.
        In the large walk-in closet that served the master bedroom, he removed the cleverly concealed false panel and inventoried the contents of the three-foot-deep secret storage space. The jewelry from the job in October was finally