"Then who did?" Kelly asked, cocking her head as she tried to puzzle out her mother's words.

"I don't know," Sharon admitted. "But it wasn't Mark!"

Mark hurried through the dark streets, uncertain of where he was going or why. His mind was whirling, trying to sort out what had happened.

Why had the rage swept over him again? He'd been okay when his mother came in. He'd finished crying and was lying there, trying to figure out what had happened.

And his mother had wanted to help him.

She hadn't been mad at him, hadn't yelled at him, hadn't even mentioned the way he'd wrecked his room! All she'd wanted to do was help him.

And then the fury had come over him again. He'd rolled over and looked at her, and all of a sudden the flame inside him had ignited once more and he'd wanted to reach out, put his fingers around her throat, and squeeze and squeeze…

Squeeze like he'd squeezedChivas, until she stopped talking, stopped breathing, even stopped writhing in his grip.

And he'd have done it, if he'd stayed another minute.

He slowed down and looked around. Across the street was theHarrises ' house, and he suddenly knew what he had to do. He glanced up and down the street, then darted across it, slipping between the houses into theHarrises ' backyard.

The house was dark, as was the house behind it, and the one next door.

He tapped softly at the window of Linda's room, then a little harder. From inside he heard a sound, then the curtains parted a fraction of an inch and Linda peered out, squinting into the darkness.

"It's me," Mark whispered. "Come out."

"Mark?" Linda asked. She opened the window. "What are you doing out there?''

"I have to talk to you," Mark whispered. "Please?"

Linda hesitated, but the urgency in his voice made up her mind. "Just a minute," she said. "I have to get dressed."

A couple of minutes later she slipped out the back door, holding a finger to her lips as she led him quickly back up the driveway to the street. "What's wrong?" she asked when they were safely away from the house.

Mark tried to tell her what had happened, his voice choking as he recounted how he'd strangledChivas.

She turned to stare at him. "You killedChivas?"

Mark nodded mutely, his eyes flooding with tears. "I didn't want to," he sobbed. "And I didn't want to hurt Mom, either. But I was going to! I know I was going to!"

At his words, an unbidden image of JeffLaConner flashed into Linda's mind, and she remembered the night he had put his hands on her arms, squeezing her so hard that it hurt. She'd slapped him, and then he looked surprised, almost as if he didn't realize what he'd done.

And she was almost certain he'd begun crying as he turned away from her and ran off into the night.

"Wh-What are you going to do?" Linda asked.

Mark shook his head helplessly.

Linda reached out to take his hand, but Mark pulled away from her. "D-Don't do that," he said, his voice shaking. "That's what my mom did. All she did was touch me, and I almost went crazy!"

Linda withdrew her hand, then met Mark's eyes. "It's like Jeff, isn't it?" she asked. "Like the night he beat you up. You didn't do anything to him, or say anything to him, or anything. He just came after you."

Mark stared at Linda in the darkness.

"M-Maybe it's Dr. Ames," Linda said finally. "Maybe he did something to Jeff, and now he's done something to you."

"But he's helping me," Mark protested. "Hell, I even made the football team this afternoon."

"You what?" Linda asked, staring at him blankly.

"I made the football team," Mark repeated. "I was going to tell my folks tonight, before…" His voice trailed off.

"But you don't even like football," Linda protested.

Mark shook his head. "I-I guess maybe I've changed."

A faint glow from a streetlamp down the block barely illuminated Mark's face, but even in the dim light, Linda could now see that Mark had, indeed, changed.

His face looked heavier, and his gentle features seemed to have become harder. His eyes, sunken deep in his sockets, had a wild look to them, and his mouth-the full lips that had always looked so soft-had a harshness about it now.

Once again the image of JeffLaConner came into her mind.

"I'm going to talk to my father," she said suddenly. "Tomorrow morning I'm going to tell him everything that happened, and he'll know what to do. Okay?"

Jeff looked at Linda uncertainly for a moment, then nodded. "Okay," he said.

They turned and began walking back toward theHarrises '. When they were in front of the house, Mark put his arms around Linda and held her close. "I don't want to hurt you," he murmured, burying his face in her hair. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"And you won't," Linda told him. "You're not like Jeff, and you won't hurt anyone."

She stepped back then, and for a moment thought she felt Mark's grip on her tighten. But he abruptly released her and turned away. She almost called out to him, but changed her mind as she remembered JeffLaConner once more.

She waited until he'd turned the corner and disappeared, then hurried back into the house. Tomorrow, after she told her father what was happening to Mark, everything would be all right.

After all, her father ranTarrenTech, didn't he?

If anyone could help Mark, surely he could.

Chapter Twenty-Two

When she woke up the next morning, Sharon thought for a moment that it had all been a bad dream. She would reach out to Blake, as she did every morning, and slip her arms around him for a moment, snuggling close to him before slipping out of bed to begin the day. Mark would already be up, and she would hearChivas snuffling at his door as she passed it on her way down to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.

But then she reached out to Blake, and he wasn't there, and she realized that it hadn't been a dream.

She was exhausted this morning, as if she hadn't slept a wink, but when she finally forced herself to peer groggily at the clock on her nightstand, she saw that she'd not only slept-she'd overslept. It was almost eight o'clock. She started to haul herself out of bed, then flopped back on the pillow, a wave of despair washing over her.

For a few moments last night, after Mark had left, she thought the rift between her and Blake might heal, and for a little while it had, as the two of them waited in the den for their son to come home. Her first instinct had been to call the police, but Blake convinced her to wait, at least for an hour.

"He's not going to get into trouble," he'd told her. "He's just upset. When he calms down, he'll come home."

Of course, Blake had been right-it was a little less than an hour later that they heard the back door open quietly, then close again. Mark had appeared in the hall, and started up the stairs. It wasn't until Blake spoke to him that he'd realized they were both there, sitting in the near darkness of the living room, waiting for him.

He hadn't come in, but had instead remained in the shadows of the hall. His voice strained, he'd apologized once more for what had happened earlier. When Blake asked him where he'd gone, he hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. "Nowhere," he said. "I just walked around for a while, then came home."

He'd gone upstairs, and for a moment neither Blake nor Sharon had spoken. Then Blake uttered the words that started the argument all over again: "You see? He's fine, honey. He just had to be by himself."

It had gone back and forth for almost another hour until Sharon had finally come upstairs again, leaving Blake to sleep in the den, and crawled into bed, her body exhausted but her mind still whirling with conflicting thoughts. At some point she'd drifted into a restless sleep.