The stall door slammed shut in front of her as the attacker, frightened by the gunfire, let go of it. Tracy held fast.

Then she thought that maybe, in all the confusion, Daddy might believe that Goodheart was to blame, that the poor horse had gone loco or something. From within the stall she cried out, “Don’t shoot Goodheart! Don’t shoot the horse!”

No more shots rang out, and Tracy immediately felt stupid for thinking her father would blow away Goodheart. Daddy was a cautious man, especially with loaded guns, and unless he knew exactly what was happening, he wouldn’t fire anything but warning shots. More likely than not, he’d just blasted some shrubbery to bits.

Goodheart was probably all right, and the amber-eyed assailant was surely hightailing it for the foothills or the canyons or back to wherever it had come from- (What was that crazy damn thing?)

– and the ordeal was over, thank God.

She heard running footsteps, and her father called her name.

She pushed open the stall door and saw Daddy rushing toward her in a pair of blue pajama bottoms, barefoot, with the shotgun cradled in his arm. Mom was there too, in a short yellow nightie, hurrying behind Daddy with a flashlight.

Up near the top of the sloped yard stood Goodheart, the sire of future champions, his panic gone, unhurt.

Tears of relief sprang from Tracy at the sight of the unharmed stallion, and she stumbled out of the stall, wanting to go have a closer look at him. With her second or third step, a fiercely hot pain flamed along her entire right side, and she was suddenly dizzy. She staggered, fell, put one hand to her side, felt something wet, and realized that she was bleeding. She remembered the claws sinking into her just before Goodheart had burst from his stall, frightening off the assailant, and as if from a great distance she heard herself saying, “Good horse… what a good horse..

Daddy dropped to his knees beside her. “Baby, what the hell happened, what’s wrong?”

Her mother arrived, too.

Daddy saw the blood. “Call an ambulance!”

Her mother, not given to hesitation or hysterics in time of trouble, turned immediately and ran back toward the house.

Tracy was getting dizzier. Creeping in at the edges of her vision was a darkness that was not part of the night. She wasn’t afraid of it. It seemed like a welcoming, healing darkness.

“Baby,” her father said, putting a hand on her wounds.

Weakly, realizing she was slightly delirious and wondering what she was going to say, she said, “Remember when I was very little… just a little girl… and I thought some horrible thing… lived in my closet… at night?”

He frowned worriedly. “Honey, maybe you’d better be still, be quiet and still.”

As she lost consciousness, Tracy heard herself say, with a seriousness that both amused and frightened her, “Well… I think maybe it was the boogeyman who used to live in the closet at the other house. I think maybe… he was real… and he’s come back.”

9

At four-twenty Wednesday morning, only hours after the attack at the Keeshan house, Lemuel Johnson reached Tracy Keeshan’s hospital room at St. Joseph ’s in Santa Ana. Quick as he was, however, Lem found Sheriff Walt Gaines had arrived ahead of him. Walt stood in the corridor, towering over a young doctor in surgical greens and a white lab coat; they seemed to be arguing quietly.

The NSA’s Banodyne crisis team was monitoring all police agencies in the county, including the police department in the city of Orange, in whose jurisdiction the Keeshan house fell. The team’s night-shift leader had called Lem at home with news of this case, which fit the profile of expected Banodyne-related incidents.

“You relinquished jurisdiction,” Lem pointedly reminded Walt when he joined the sheriff and doctor at the girl’s closed door.

“Maybe this isn’t part of the same case.” “You know it is.”

“Well, that determination hasn’t been made.”

“It was made-back at the Keeshan’s house when I talked with your men.” “Okay, so let’s say I’m just here as an observer.”

“My ass,” Lem said.

“What about your ass?” Walt asked, smiling.

“It’s got a pain in it, and the name of the pain is Walter.”

“How interesting,” Walt said. “You name your pains. Do you give names to toothaches and headaches as well?”

“I’ve got a headache right now, and its name is Walter, too.”

“That’s too confusing, my friend. Better call the headache Bert or Harry or something.”

Lem almost laughed-he loved this guy-but he knew that, in spite of their friendship, Walt would use the laughter as a lever to pry himself back into the case. So Lem remained stone-faced, though Walt obviously knew that Lem wanted to laugh. The game was ridiculous, but it had to be played.

The doctor, Roger Selbok, resembled a young Rod Steiger. He frowned when they raised their voices, and he possessed some of the powerful presence of Steiger, too, because his frown was enough to chasten and quiet them.

Selbok said the girl had been put through tests, had been treated for her wounds, and had been given a painkiller. She was tired. He was just about to administer a sedative to guarantee her a restful sleep, and he did not think it was a good idea for policemen of any stripe to be asking her questions just now.

The whispering, the early-morning hush of the hospital, the scent of disinfectants that filled the hall, and the sight of a white-robed nun gliding past was enough to make Lem uneasy. Suddenly, he was afraid that the girl was in far worse condition than he had been told, and he voiced his concern to Selbok.

“No, no. She’s in pretty good shape,” the doctor said. “I’ve sent her parents home, which I wouldn’t have done if there was anything to worry about. The left side of her face is bruised, and the eye is blackened, but there’s nothing serious in that. The wounds along her right side required thirty-two stitches, so we’ll need to take precautions to keep the scarring to a minimum, but she’s in no danger. She’s had a bad scare. However, she’s a bright kid, and self-reliant, so I don’t think she’ll suffer lasting psychological trauma. Still, I don’t think it’s a good idea to subject her to an interrogation tonight.”

“Not an interrogation,” Lem said. “Just a few questions.”

“Five minutes,” Walt said.

“Less,” Lem said.

They kept at Selbok, and at last they wore him down. “Well… I guess you’ve got your job to do, and if you promise not to be too insistent with her-”

“I’ll handle her as if she’s made of soap bubbles,” Lem said.

“We’ll handle her as if she’s made of soap bubbles,” Walt said.

Selbok said, “Just tell me… what the devil happened to her?”

“She hasn’t told you herself?” Lem asked.

“Well, she talks about being attacked by a coyote..

Lem was surprised, and he saw Walt was startled, too. Maybe the case had nothing to do with Wes Dalberg’s death and the dead animals at the Irvine Park petting zoo, after all.

“But,” the physician said, “no coyote would attack a girl as big as Tracy.

They’re only a danger to very small children. And I don’t believe her wounds are like those a coyote would inflict.”

Walt said, “I understand her father drove the assailant off with a shotgun. Doesn’t he know what attacked her?”

“No,” Selbok said. “He couldn’t see what was happening in the dark, so he only fired two warning shots. He says something dashed across the yard, leaped the fence, but he couldn’t see any details. He says that Tracy first told him it was the boogeyman who used to live in her closet, but she was delirious then. She told me it was a coyote. So… do you know what’s going on here? Can you tell me anything I need to know to treat the girl?”

“I can’t,” Walt said. “But Mr. Johnson here knows the whole situation.”