The Darkest Evening of the Year

significant bark off the south side of the trunk, and kept going. It sits on the rocks beyond the grass, its undercarriage hung up on a thrust of granite.
    Somehow, it got turned around, most likely after the collision with the tree, and now faces inland. The headlights are shattered, and one door is sprung open.
     

     
    The garage was not attached to the house, but the structures stood close together. When Amy rounded the corner, she saw lighted house windows flanked by dark shutters, lamplight behind curtains.
    The dog led the detail along the wall of the house, hesitating at a corner, peering around, then venturing forth.
    As the door stood open at the garage, so another stood wide at the house, billows of cold fog swarming into warm rooms beyond.
    On another coast, in another year, Amy had chased Michael out of the house, into the night. This was worse: out of the open into confinement, the short sight lines and the many corners and the closed doors of a house, a strange house, but not strange to him .
    When the dog crossed the threshold, they were committed as well, and followed her into a kitchen.
    Polished steel glittered on the table, a variety of blades so sharp they seemed to slice the fluorescent light that fell on them, not the usual cutlery of a kitchen, but the kind that, after being used, were placed in an autoclave instead of a dishwasher.
    Past an open door, back stairs led up to a landing and turned out of sight. Nickie appeared to be interested in them, but then not.
    One closed door, maybe to a pantry. They wouldn’t be hiding in a pantry. Too bold to hide, both of them.
    Incoming fog, cold on her neck, chilled Amy into a frightened turn, but nobody had followed them out of the night.
    An open door, a hallway beyond. Nickie liked that route.
    Brian motioned Amy ahead. He wanted to bring up the rear.
    Archway to the left. Living room. Archway to the right. A study.
    Every deserted room meant that the next one was more likely to be occupied.
    Gun in both hands, muzzle jumping. Amy needed to get control of herself. Hold the muzzle down. It would kick up on recoil. Shoot them in the head, not over their heads.
    Now a closed door on the right, two on the left. They could go through the doors like movie cops, low and fast, stepping away from the hinges after crossing the threshold. Although maybe that was just movie crap, and if you were a real cop, you laughed at it.
    Nickie showed no interest in these rooms, and though Amy was nervous about proceeding past those spaces without checking them, leaving closed doors at their back, she followed the dog’s lead.
    A vestibule ahead. The main stairs to the right. The front door flanked by French-pane sidelights, strobe-lit fog pressing against the glass.
    To the left, a final door was ajar. Beside the door stood a red utility can marked GASOLINE .
    Nickie sniffed at the gap between door and jamb. She pressed her head through the gap, pushed the door open wider with her body, and disappeared inside.
    Amy found a bed-sitting room brightened by a desk lamp and a nightstand lamp with a glass-bead shade.
    A girl in a gray sweatsuit knelt at an upholstered chair, half turned away from the door. Hope. It must be Hope.
    She was talking, her speech slightly slurred. She seemed to be in distress, speaking fast.
    Nickie stood at a distance, staring at the girl, as if not wanting to intrude.
    Amy motioned Brian ahead of her. Quietly she closed the door to the hall, stepped away from it. She stood where she could both see the girl and cover the only entrance.
    “You caught me, I don’t care, I don’t,” the girl said. “I have to say what’s in my heart, that’s the best you can do, say what’s in your heart. You can burn my feet again, I don’t care, I don’t. I’m gonna say what’s in my heart again.”
    Brian went to his knees beside her.
    The girl looked up, surprised. Clearly, she hadn’t known they were here. She had been talking to someone else.
    Someone who had stepped out—and would be back.

 
    Chapter
65
    H arrow quickly ascertains that his ex-wife and the architect are not in the SUV either dead or wounded.
    The back wheels of the Expedition overhang the edge of the cliff, forty feet above the beach, and the tailgate has sprung open.
    He must therefore assume that the bodies were in the cargo space and were pitched out of the back when the vehicle came violently to a halt. In that case, they have been cast down to the beach below.
    In this