Watchers

hands.
    When the Taser was of no further use, Vince beat him unconscious with the leather sap and killed him by applying the corkscrew to the space between two ribs, angling it up into the beating heart.
    Ssssnap.
    Throughout, a sepulchral silence hung over the rain forest, but Vince sensed a thousand eyes watching, the eyes of wild things. He believed that the hidden watchers approved of what he had done to Haines because the scientist’s lifestyle made him an affront to the natural order of things, the natural order that all the creatures of the jungle obeyed.
    He said, “Thank you,” to Haines, but he did not kiss the man. Not on the mouth. Not even on the forehead. Haines’s life energy was as invigorating and welcome as anyone’s, but his body and spirit were unclean.
     
     
4
    Nora went straight home from the park. The mood of adventure and the spirit of freedom that had colored the morning and the early afternoon could not be recaptured. Streck had sullied the day.
    Closing the front door behind her, she engaged the regular lock, the dead-bolt lock, and the brass safety chain. She went through the downstairs rooms, drawing the drapes tightly shut at all the windows to prevent Arthur Streck from seeing inside if he should come prowling around. But she could not tolerate the resultant darkness, so she turned on every lamp in every room. In the kitchen, she closed the shutters and checked the lock on the back door.
    Her contact with Streck had not only terrified her but had left her feeling dirty. More than anything, she wanted a long, hot shower.
    But her legs were suddenly shaky and weak, and she was seized by a spell of dizziness. She had to grab hold of the kitchen table to steady herself. She knew she would fall if she tried to climb the stairs just then, so she sat down, folded her arms on the table, put her head in her arms, and waited until she felt better.
    When the worst of the dizziness passed, she remembered the bottle of brandy in the cupboard by the refrigerator, and she decided a drink might help steady her. She had bought the brandy—Remy Martin—after Violet had died because Violet had not approved of any stronger drink than partially fermented apple cider. As an act of rebellion, Nora had poured a glass of brandy for herself when she had come home from her aunt’s funeral. She had not enjoyed it and had emptied most of the contents of the glass down the drain. But now it seemed that a shot of brandy would stop her shivering.
    First she went to the sink and washed her hands repeatedly under the hottest water she could tolerate, using both soap and then a lot of Ivory dishwashing liquid, scrubbing away every trace of Streck. When she was done, her hands were red and looked raw.
    She brought the brandy bottle and a glass to the table. She had read books in which characters had sat down with a fifth of booze and a heavy load of despair, determined to use the former to wash away the latter. Sometimes it worked for them, so maybe it would work for her. If brandy could improve her state of mind even marginally, she was prepared to drink the whole damn bottle.
    But she did not have it in her to be a lush. She spent the next two hours sipping at a single glass of Remy Martin.
    When she tried to turn her mind away from thoughts of Streck, she was relentlessly tormented by memories of Aunt Violet, and when she tried not to think of Violet, she was right back to Streck again, and when she forced herself to put both of them out of her mind, she thought of Travis Cornell, the man in the park, and dwelling on him gave her no comfort either. He had seemed nice—gentle, polite, concerned—and he had gotten rid of Streck. But he was probably just as bad as Streck. If she gave him half a chance, Cornell would probably take advantage of her the same way Streck was trying to do. Aunt Violet had been a tyrant, twisted and sick, but increasingly it seemed that she had been right about the dangers of interacting with other people.
    Ah, but the dog. That was a different story. She had not been afraid of the dog, not even when he had dashed toward the park bench, barking ferociously. Somehow, she knew that the retriever—Einstein, his master had called him—was not barking at her, that his anger was focused on Streck. Clinging to Einstein, she’d felt safe, protected, even with Streck still looming over her.
    Maybe she should get a dog of her own. Violet had abhorred the very idea of house pets. But Violet