Watchers

landing, she used her elbow to flick the switch for the second-floor hall lights. She would need to include a lot of light bulbs in her next grocery order because she intended to leave all the lights burning day and night for the foreseeable future. It was an expense she did not in the least begrudge.
    Still buoyed by the brandy, she began to sing softly to herself as she headed for her room: “Moon River, wider than a mile . .
    She stepped through the door. Streck was lying on the bed.
    He grinned and said, “Hi, babe.”
    For an instant she thought he was a hallucination, but when he spoke she knew he was real, and she cried out, and the platter fell from her hand, Scattering fruit and cheese across the floor.
    “Oh my, what an awful mess you’ve made,” he said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He was still wearing his running shorts, athletic socks, and running shoes; nothing else. “But there’s no need to clean it up now. There’s other business to take care of first. I been waiting a long time for you to come upstairs. Waiting and thinking about you . . . getting Primed for you. . .“ He stood. “And now it’s time to teach you what you’ve never learned.”
    Nora could not move. Could not breathe.
    He must have come to the house directly from the park, arriving before
    she did. He had forced entry, leaving no trace of a break-in, and he’d been waiting here on the bed all the time she’d been sipping brandy in the kitchen. There was something about his waiting up here that was creepier than anything else he had done, waiting and teasing himself with the promise of her, getting a kick out of listening to her putter around downstairs in ignorance of his presence.
    When he was finished with her, would he kill her?
    She turned and ran into the second-floor hallway.
    As she put her hand on the newel post at the head of the stairs and started down, she heard Streck behind het.
    She plunged down the steps, taking them two and three at a time, terrified that she was going to twist an ankle and fall, and at the landing her knee nearly buckled, and she stumbled but kept going, leaped down the last flight, into the first-floor hall.
    Seizing her from behind, catching the baggy shoulders of her dress, Streck spun her around to face him.
     
     
9
    As Travis swung to the curb in front of the Devon house, Einstein stood on the front seat, placed both forepaws on the door handle, bore down with all of his weight, and opened the door. Another neat trick. He was out of the truck and galloping up the front walkway before Travis had engaged the hand brake and switched off the engine.
    Seconds later, Travis reached the foot of the veranda steps in time to see the retriever on the porch as he stood on his hind paws and hit the doorbell with one forepaw. The bell was audible from inside.
    Climbing the steps, Travis said, “Now, what the devil’s gotten into you?”
    The dog rang the bell again.
    “Give her a chance—”
    As Einstein hit the button a third time, Travis heard a man shout in anger and pain. Then a woman’s cry for help.
    Barking as ferociously as he had done in the woods yesterday, Einstein clawed at the door as if he actually believed he could tear his way through it.
    Pressing forward, Travis peered through a clear segment in the stained-glass window. The hallway was brightly lit, so he was able to see two people struggling only a few feet away.
    Einstein was barking, snarling, going crazy.
    Travis tried the door, found it locked. He used his elbow to smash in a couple of the stained-glass segments, reached inside, fumbled for the lock, located it and the security chain, and went inside just as the guy in running shorts pushed the woman aside and turned to face him.
    Einstein didn’t give Travis a chance to act. The retriever bolted along the hallway, straight toward the runner.
    The guy reacted as anyone would upon seeing a charging dog the size of this one: he ran. The woman tried to trip him, and he stumbled but did not fall. At the end of the corridor, he slammed through a swinging door, out of sight.
    Einstein raced past Nora Devon and reached the still-swinging door at full tilt, timing his approach perfectly, streaking through the opening as the door rocked inward. He vanished after the runner. In the room beyond the swinging door—the kitchen, Travis figured—there was much barking, snarling, and shouting. Something fell with a crash, then something else made