The Mask

understand you,” she said. “Can you speak up?”
    He tried, but again the words were lost. They seemed to be coming from an enormous distance, across an unimaginably vast chasm.
    “We have a terrible connection,” she said. “You’ll have to speak up.”
    “Grace,” he said, his voice only slightly louder. “Gracie it’s almost too late. You’ve got to… move fast. You’ve got to stop it… from happening… again.”
    It was a dry, brittle voice; it cracked repeatedly, with a sound like dead autumn leaves underfoot. “It’s almost… too late… too late…”
    She recognized the voice, and she froze. Her hand tightened on the receiver, and she couldn’t get her breath.
    “Gracie… it can’t go on forever. You’ve got to put an end to it. Protect her, Gracie. Protect her ”
    The voice faded away.
    There was only silence. But not the silence of an open phone line. There was no hissing. No electronic beeping in the background. This was perfect silence, utterly unmarred by even the slightest click or whistle of electronic circuitry. Vast silence. Endless.
    She put the phone down.
    She started to shake.
    She went to the cupboard and got down the bottle of Scotch she kept for visitors. She poured herself a double shot and sat down at the kitchen table.
    The liquor didn’t warm her. Chills still shook her.
    The voice on the phone had belonged to Leonard. Her husband. He had been dead for eighteen years.

PART TWO
Evil Walks Among Us…
    Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood.
Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with many eyes and an open smile.
Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces.

7
    TUESDAY, after winning temporary custody of Jane Doe, Paul went home to work on his novel, and Carol took the girl shopping. Because Jane had no clothes except those she’d been wearing when she’d stepped in front of the Volkswagen last Thursday morning, she needed a lot of things, even for just a few days. She was embarrassed about spending Carol’s money, and at first she was reluctant to admit that she liked anything she saw or that anything fit her well enough to buy it.
    At last Carol said, “Honey, you need this stuff, so please just relax and let me buy it for you. Okay? In the long run, it won’t be coming out of my pocket anyway. I’ll most likely be reimbursed either by your parents, by the foster children program, or by some other county agency.”
    That argument worked. They quickly purchased a couple of pairs of jeans, a few blouses, underwear, a good pair of sneakers, socks, a sweater, and a windbreaker.
    When they got home, Jane was impressed by the Tudor house with its leaded-glass windows, gabled roof, and stonework. She fell in love with the guest room in which she was to stay. It had a cove ceiling, a long window seat inset in a bay window, and a wall of mirrored closet doors. It was done in deep blue and pale beige, with Queen Anne furniture of lustrous cherrywood. “It’s really just a guest room?” Jane asked, incredulous. “You don’t use it regularly? Boy, if this were my house, I’d come in here all the time! I’d just sit and read for a little while every day—read and sit there in the window and soak up the atmosphere.”
    Carol had always liked the room, but through Jane’s eyes she achieved a new perception and appreciation of it. As she watched the girl inspecting things—sliding open the closet doors, checking the view from each angle of the bay window, testing the firmness of the mattress on the queen-sized bed—Carol realized that one advantage of having children was that their innocent, fresh reactions to everything could keep their parents young and open-minded, too.
    That evening, Carol, Paul, and Jane prepared dinner together. The girl fit in comfortably and immediately, in spite of the fact that she was somewhat shy. There was a lot of laughter in the kitchen and at the dinner table.
    After dinner, Jane started washing dishes while Carol and Paul cleared the table. When they were separated from the girl for a moment, alone in the dining room, Paul said quietly, “She’s a terrific kid.”
    “Didn’t I tell you so?”
    “Funny thing, though.”
    “What?”
    “Ever since I saw her this afternoon, outside the courtroom,” Paul said, “I’ve had the feeling that I’ve seen her somewhere before.”
    “Where?”
    He shook his head. “I’ll be damned if I know. But there’s something familiar about her face.”
     
    Throughout Tuesday afternoon, Grace expected the phone