She threw up the aluminum sash and shouted, “They’re not home!”

The constable turned toward Molly. “Just a second,” she said.

She bolted out the door of her trailer and stopped by the street where Theo could see her. “They aren’t home. Come here a second,” she repeated.

Theo tucked his Mag lite into his belt. “Molly, how are you?”

“Fine, fine, fine. I need to talk to you, okay? Over here, okay?” She didn’t want to tell him why. what if the eyes weren’t there? What if it was just a trailer? She’d be on her way to County in a heartbeat.

“They’re not home then?” Theo said, pointing over his shoulder to the dragon trailer. He was staring at her now, at the same time trying not to stare. He had a goofy grin on his face, the same sort Molly had seen on the kid right before he got slurped.

“Nope, gone all day.”

“What’s with the sword?

Oh shit! She forgot she’d grabbed the sword on the way out. “I was just making some stir-fry. Chopping up some veggies.”

“That ought to do it.”

“Broccoli stems,” she said, as if that explained everything. He was looking at the leather bikini, and she watched his eyes stop on the scar above her breast, then look away. She covered the scar with her hand. “One of my old Kendra costumes. Everything else is in the dryer.”

“Sure. Hey, you don’t get the Times, do you?”

“Nope. Why?”

“The kid that delivers it, Mikey Plotznik, left for his route this morning and no one has seen him since. Looks like the last paper he delivered was a few doors down. You didn’t happen to see him, did you?”

“About ten, blond kid, Rollerblades? Kinda evil?”

“That’s him.”

“Nope, haven’t seen him.” She watched the eyes of the dragon trailer close behind Theo and took a deep breath.

“You seem a little tense, Molly. You okay?”

“Fine, fine, just wanted to get back to my stir-fry. You hungry?”

“Did Val Riordan get hold of you?”

“Yep, she called. I’m not nuts.”

“Of course not. I’d like you to keep an eye out for this kid, Molly. One of his buddies fessed up that Mikey had a little bit of an obsession with you.”

“Me? No kidding?”

“He might be creeping around your trailer.”

“Really?”

“If you see him, give me a call, would you? His folks are worried about him.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Thanks. And ask your neighbors when they get home, would you?”

“You betcha.” Molly realized he was stalling. Just staring at her with that goofy grin on his face. “They just moved in. I don’t know them very well, but I’ll ask.”

“Thanks.” He said, still just standing there, like a twelve-year-old ready to make an assault on the wall-flowers at his first dance.

“I’d better go, Theo. I have broccoli in the dryer.” No, she had wanted to say she had to get back to dinner, or to her laundry, not both.

“Okay. See ya.”

She ran into her trailer, slammed the door, and leaned against it. Through the window she could see the dragon trailer open an eye and close it quickly. She could have sworn it was winking at her.

A niggling voice in Theo’s head told him that finding the Crazy Lady attractive—extremely attractive—was an indicator that he was less than sane himself. On the other hand, he didn’t feel that bad about it. He didn’t feel bad about anything, not since he’d walked into the trailer park anyway. He had to deal with an explosion, a lost kid, the recent increase in general nuttiness in town—a virtual shit storm of responsibility—but he didn’t feel all that bad. And in that moment outside of Molly’s trailer, reflecting and waiting for the tide of lust to ebb, he realized that he hadn’t smoked any pot all day. Strange. Normally this long without nursing from his Sneaky Pete and his skin would be crawling.

He was heading back to his Volvo to resume the search for the lost boy when his cell phone rang. Sheriff John Burton didn’t say hello.

“Get to a land line,” Burton said.

“I’m in the middle of trying to find a lost kid,” Theo replied.

“A land line now, Crowe. My private line. You have five minutes.”

Theo drove to a pay phone outside the Head of the Slug Saloon and checked his watch. When fifteen minutes had passed, he dialed Burton’s number.

“I said five minutes.”

“Yes, you did.” Theo smiled to himself in spite of Burton’s tone, which was on the verge of screaming.

“No one goes on the ranch, Crowe. The lost kid is not on the ranch, do you hear me?”

“It’s standard procedure to search all the ranchland. Emergency services has the area gridded out. We have to cover the whole grid. I was going to call in some deputies to help us. The volunteer fire guys are exhausted from the explosion this morning.”

“No. None of my guys. Don’t call the Highway Patrol or the CCC either. And no aircraft. If the grid on the ranch has to be checked off, then check it off. No one goes on that land, is that clear?”

“And what if the kid actually is on the ranch. You’re talking about a thousand acres of pasture and forest that won’t be searched.”

“Oh bullshit, the kid is probably in a tree house somewhere with a stack of Playboys. He’s only been missing for what, twelve hours?”

“What if he’s not?”

There was silence on the line for a moment. Theo waited, watching three new couples leave the Head of the Slug in less than a minute. New couples: in Pine Cove everyone knew who everyone else was dating, and these were people who didn’t go together. Not that unusual a phenomenon perhaps on a Friday night at 2 A.M., but this was Wednesday, and it was barely eight o’clock. Maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling a wave of horniness. The couples were groping each other as if trying to get all the foreplay out of the way before they reached the car.

Burton came back on the line. “I’ll see that the ranchland is searched and call you if they find the kid. But I want to be the first to know if you find him.”

“That it?”

“Find that little fucker, Crowe.” Burton hung up.

Theo got into his Volvo and drove to his cabin at the edge of the ranch. There were at least twenty citizen volunteers searching for Mikey Plotznik. The effort could spare him long enough to catch a shower and change his smoke-saturated clothes. As he parked the Volvo, an expensive, tricked-out red pickup truck pulled into the ranch entrance and rolled slowly by. As they passed, a Hispanic man sitting in the bed laughed and saluted Theo with the barrel of an AK-47 assault rifle.

Theo looked away and walked to the dark cabin, wishing that there was someone there waiting for him.

Eleven

Catfish awoke to find a paint-spattered woman padding about the house in nothing but a pair of wool socks, in which she had stuck several sable brushes that delivered ochre, olive, and titanium white strokes to her calves whenever she moved. Canvases were propped on easels, chairs, counters, and windowsills—seascapes every one. Estelle moved from canvas to canvas, palette in hand, furiously painting details in the waves and beaches.

“Y’all woke up inspired,” Catfish said.

It was past dusk, they had slept away the daylight. Estelle painted by the light of fifty candles and the orange glow that washed from the open doors of the wood stove. Color correctness be damned, these paintings should be viewed by fire.

Estelle stopped painting and raised her brush arm to cover her breasts. “They weren’t finished. I knew something was missing when I painted them, but I didn’t know what until now.”

Catfish cinched his pants around his waist and walked shirtless among the paintings. The waves writhed with tail and scale and teeth and talon. Predator eyes shone out of the canvases, brighter, it seemed, than the candles that lit them.

“You done painted that old girl in all of ‘em?”