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Part 2

She shook her head, still trying to grasp what he told her. “And how did you get away?”

“Perhaps he was careless, though that would be outside his nature. He taunted me by leaving the door unlocked after a while, and then by leaving it open. So I could get a view, he told me. A view of...” Again he did not finish the sentence. “After the last bloodletting I allowed him to think I was a bit weaker than in truth. He left the door open. I found a way to leave.” He looked at her. “Where am I, exactly?”

“Northern Wisconsin,” she said. “That’s Lake Michigan, out there.”

He groaned.

“Wisconsin is not so bad as all that,” she said tartly.

“You misunderstand,” he said. “Do you know this area quite well?”

She nodded.

“Then I will describe to you where I was being held and perhaps you can tell me if it is anywhere near this place.”

She felt the hair at the back of her neck rise, realizing suddenly what he meant. She nodded again.

“It was on the water. That is how I made my escape. I took a small rowboat from a neighboring estate. There were piers up the coast to my right. And a lighthouse.”

“What did it look like?” she demanded.

“There was a house at the base. And the tower itself looked almost shingled. It stood a short way off the shoreline.”

“You were less than two towns away,” she said faintly.

He closed his eyes. “I feared as much.”

“But that would mean he was holding you in a resort area. It’s the off season now, true, but there are still people about. The last festival for the year was just last weekend. Not everything closes up here. Why would he choose something so open and populated? Why not something out in the dessert, or in the mountains?”

“He sometimes enjoys seeing what he can get away with. I would be willing to wager that his neighbors find him an agreeable addition to their neighborhood. No doubt he has been involved in a few of their activities. You say it is a resort area? I would not put it past him to have contributed to that festival last weekend, or even grilled the brats at it. He can be quite charming. And after all of that, he would be coming back to his private estate...and back to me, to—” He stopped abruptly.

“He is looking for you,” she said.

“Most assuredly.”

“Do you want the police now?”

“They will be of no help and indeed to involve them would be to expose them to almost certain death. I do not wish to destroy any community up here in such a way.”

“Then what do we do?”

A small smile seemed to tug at the corners of his mouth, then changed its mind and faded. “We?” he repeated with some emphasis. “We shall do nothing. I will have to hunt him down myself before he finds this place.”

She looked at him and then she knew what had been pulling at her. “It’s too late,” she managed to say, and then winked out entirely.



He will find this place. But you will not be here. You will be gone. Gone already. You will be gone... The words were in her head, looping over and over through her like some sort of mystical chant, when she came back to herself. She was still sitting before the fire with him, she could see that much, but it took long moments before the room came back into focus, until he came back into focus. But the vision was still all around her. And the other man... He had seen her. He had touched her... And she had seen nothing of him but how very tall he was, and strong, and how he carried weapon upon weapon with him, and yet the worst of it was his mind. She reeled from the impact of memory and would have fallen over but strong arms caught her, steadied her, held her until the trembling had stopped.

“How did you know to find me?” There was urgency in the question. His voice was quiet but insistent and cut through the fog in her brain that always descended after a lapse. The gentle drawl when he spoke warmed and somehow settled her.

“He is coming for us,” she whispered.

He took her shaking hands into his very firm grasp and squeezed them gently. “He is coming for me,” he corrected her. “Please focus. I know there is not much time. What just happened to you? Is that how you knew to find me?”

“I have visions,” she said hesitantly, reluctant to speak, although she knew that speaking of it changed not one iota of what was going to happen. “I see things.” She paused once more and then it all came in a rush. “I have feelings and instincts and urges and everything else that makes me sound like a histrionic female. But I am right. Always.”

He did not laugh at her, or make any derisive comment as she had been half-expecting. “There is no scientific foundation for that,” he said in a soft voice. “I have never found any for it. But I have also found that it exists despite science. What you used to find me—he shall also use.” His head rose at her sharp intake of breath. “He has something like...what you have. I do not have that gift myself.”

“You have enough,” she said. “That is why you’re here. You called to me, repeatedly. For two days. When I couldn’t ignore it any longer, when it was no longer in my dreams but in my waking hours as well, I knew to go to the boat house.” She stiffened suddenly in spite of herself.

“What are you seeing? What did you just see when you went away a few minutes ago? He is here, isn’t he?”

“He’s close. He’s getting closer.” The vision threatened to push its way to the fore and she pushed it back just as fiercely. She looked at her unexpected guest and then stood up. He tugged on her hand inquiringly. “I will get you some things you need from my room,” she said.

“Some things I need?”

She removed her hand from his cool grasp without replying and went to the master bedroom. Instinct, or urge, stayed her hand from turning on the light but she didn’t need it. She knew this cabin inside and out, backwards and forwards. The heavy, wooden case was still in the bottom drawer of the bureau. The smaller, equally heavy box was still in the night stand. She retrieved both of them silently and made her way back to where he still sat, waiting by the fire.

“My husband was in law enforcement,” she said, handing both items to him. “You will be needing these.”

“You are married?” he asked gently.

“I was. Married, one daughter. A while ago.” She did not volunteer any more information and he did not ask.

The case contained two handguns, one a revolver, the other a Glock. He checked both and nodded with satisfaction, then took what ammunition he needed from the smaller box. “What about you?”

“I have a gun. He bought me one. It’s in the nightstand, also,” she said listlessly. “You are going out, I know. To try to draw him away. Only...”

He had slipped the loaded revolver into the waistband at his back. He stopped while loading the Glock and looked at her. “Tell me what you see,” he said.

“You will find him,” she said, nodding. “I can see that. But that will be after...”

“After?” He stared at her. “After he has already found you?”

“You will be gone already,” she said the words aloud. “And I will be dead the day after tomorrow.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he reached across and took her hand, lacing his long fingers between hers. “My dear lady, you are not always right.”

“I am,” she said softly. “Perhaps I don’t even mind,” she added, shaking her hair back and looking up at him. “My husband and daughter have gone on. There is not much keeping me here. Not the house back in the city. Maybe not even this place.”

He leaned forward, still holding her hand, and stared into her eyes with his own silvery ones. “I had once felt that way. I know that emptiness very well. But they have gone on and you are still here. As I am still here. If there is a choice to be made at this juncture, then I ask that you choose life for yourself. At this moment. Right now. You have this place. I would ask that you not give up your life because you saved mine.” His eyes gleamed with a frightening intensity. “I do not believe you are a quitter,” he added in a very quiet voice.

“I’m not. Just a realist.”

“Then let’s change reality. His reality. Perhaps the visions you see now are what he gives to you.”

She shook her head. “You are still very weak.”

“I believe I am strong enough to squeeze a trigger,” he said calmly. He smiled at her then, an unexpected and warm and heartfelt smile that touched his eyes and made them dance, and somehow she felt better.

She prepared more tea for both of them (“Dear woman, I shall have to provide you with some green tea. Surely even Northern Wisconsin is civilized enough for that”) and this time he ate a ham sandwich, something he clearly did not relish. “Although I was eating insects before,” he observed offhandedly.

She looked at him, feeling something between horror and pity. “Survival,” she said. “I understand.”

She woke with a start with sunlight in her face. She was alone at the fireplace and the fire had gone out. “Hello?” she asked tentatively.

“He did not come during the night.” The now-familiar drawl came from the direction of the guest room. Seconds later the man himself emerged. He had rolled up his shirt sleeves, but the shirt remained tucked into his pants. When he turned she saw the gun at his waistband. He was barefoot and unshaven and his white-blond hair was still damp and had not been combed after his shower, but somehow he still looked both severe and intimidating. She believed he was an FBI agent. “But he will. Tonight, I think. Perhaps close to sundown.”

“Why?”

“Sundown is a private matter between us.”

She frowned at him. “The way you talk about him, you know him very well. Is he someone you caught and put away before? Is he someone with an old hatred of you?”

He nodded. “The hatred is very old. Almost his entire life. Perhaps he did not hate me when he was an infant.”

“You’ve known him that long?”

“He is my brother.”

There was a long silence. “I’m so sorry,” she said at last.

“Don’t be. It is just how our lives have worked out. It is I who should be apologizing to you, involving you in what is a personal matter.”

“It seems a long time since I have felt involved in anything,” she said softly.

He did not reply.



The wait was interminable. The afternoon passed slowly. He checked and rechecked the guns, drinking all of the juice in her refrigerator and force-feeding himself the deli ham, which he assured her was an abomination. But he seemed to be growing stronger as the day progressed, and she wondered at the energy that she suspected came from the anticipated arrival of his brother. There was a restlessness as he paced the confines of the small cabin. Even when he sat, she could see he was coiled to spring.

The knock came so softly that at first she thought she was hearing things. The clock said five fifty-five and the sun had slid into the trees, leaving nothing behind but traces of purple and pink behind the gathering clouds. She froze at the sound and he caught her eye from where he sat at the table with both guns before him. He silently picked up the Glock and shook his head. She did not answer the person at the door.

The knock was repeated. “Frater, will you make me open this door myself? We have better things to do. Oh, and she is a perfect target, sitting there on the sofa like that.” The voice was pleasant and well-cultured, polite even, with a teasing note and an edge of iron in it.

She turned to him, terrified, and again he shook his head.

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