There was an old black vinyl-upholstered couch and an end-table in the pool-house's concrete-floored main room, which was icy cold. But it was used primarily to store pool equipment, and as a place for people to change clothes or shower when they used the pool in the summer. No one ever went into the pool-house during the winter months.

He went to the couch, but changed his mindthe front window provided a clear view of the couch from outside. He carried her into the bathroom and set her down on the closed lid of the toilet. The tiled, pale-green bathroom was small, with a shower to the right of the toilet, a sink to the left.

"She smells," Randy said, his voice unsteady. "I may be sick."

"Well, try not to be," Kirk said.

Randy stepped into the open doorway of the bathroom and faced Kirk. "Listen to me," he whispered. "I'm thinking we did the wrong thing tonight, Kirk. She's stiff as a board. That old womanshe was jerking us around, this is some kind of trick. She's dead. This is a serious crime, stealing a dead body. I mean... well, isn't it? It should be if it's not, it's a pretty gross thing to do, and dude, I think that's what we've done."

Kirk pointed to Natalie and said, "Randy, I saw her sit up on that table and look around. She looked at me. You saw her walk out of that funeral home with me. And she's still making sounds. You heard them, didn't you?"

"That was her? I thought it was you. Are you sure it wasn't, like... gas?"

"She's alive, Randy."

"But she's going to be stiff for about twenty-four hours," Liz said. She stood just outside the bathroom, arms folded across her chest. "According to the Columbia Encyclopedia online, anyway."

"She'll be safe here tonight," Kirk said as he and Randy stepped out of the bathroom. He pulled the door closed. "I'll keep checking on her tomorrow."

"You're just gonna check on her?" Liz said. "What're you gonna do if she starts moving around? Or if she starts to... you know... smell."

"She already smells," Randy said.

Kirk clenched his fists at his sides and closed his eyes a moment. He spoke quietly. "Please just... stop, okay? I... I'm not sure what I'm going to do."

"You okay, Kirk?" Randy said.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "No. But I will be. Thanks for helping out."

Kirk walked them back to the car. As they drove away, he fumbled his keys from his pocket, but paused before unlocking the front door. He thought of Natalie sitting like a posed mannequin on the toilet in the pool-house. Leaving her there all alone made his chest ache. He put the keys back in his pocket and walked around the house.

He went to her in the small bathroom. She looked less like a human being sitting stiffly on the toilet than she had while lying dead on the stainless-steel table back at Richmond's.

"Can you hear me, Nat?" he whispered.

She made no sound this time.

"I'll come back out first thing tomorrow, I promise. Tomorrow's the first day of Christmas vacation, so I won't have to worry about school. We'll be together, and we'll... work this all out." He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, hold her tight. But even in the cold, he could smell the odorlike meat that had been left out of the refrigerator and had gone bad. He could not bring himself to do it. Instead, he went out and got a folded-up old afghan from the couch and wrapped it around her over the sheet to keep her warm.

He left the pool-house, walked past the pool, and unlocked the back door of the house. As he pa.s.sed the kitchen on his way down the hall, Dad said, "Kirk. Where have you been?"

Kirk jumped at the sound of Dad's voice. The kitchen was dark. Dad sat at the small oval table with a bottle of whisky and a half-full gla.s.s in front of him. He smiled wearily with his mouth, but not with his eyes.

"Nowhere," Kirk said.

"You were nowhere?" Dad spoke just above a whisper and kept smiling in the dark. "Well, you had to be somewhere."

Kirk's voice was suddenly hoa.r.s.e. "I was just riding around with Randy and Liz. We didn't go anywhere, just drove around. Just talked. You know."

"Sit down, Kirky." Dad used to call him "Kirky" when Kirk was little, and sometimes it still slipped out.

Dad was Donald Mundy, but everyone called him Don. His old friends called him Donny. He was tall and slim, completely bald on top, with graying brown hair that grew around the back of his head from ear to ear. He ran a small advertising agency with his brother, Kirk's uncle Matt. Most of the time, Dad was almost embarra.s.singly upbeat and cheerful. Everyone liked him. He was active in community organizations, went to church with Mom every Sunday. As far as Kirk was concerned, Dad was a likeable geek. He had never known Dad to raise his voice in anger or say a bad word about anyonehe was able to find something good in everyone he met. Mom, on the other hand, was a little high-strung, almost as nervous and hyper as Bud and Lou, her two ferrets, which had the run of the house. Dad was the level head in the family. But there were times when he couldn't sleep well. This was not the first time Kirk had found him in the kitchen late at night sipping whisky. The first time had been when Kirk was eight years old. It happened maybe once or twice a year.

Dad wasn't a big drinkerhe got cheerfully tipsy on Christmas and New Year's, but otherwise his drinking was limited to a couple beers when they barbecued in the back yard on summer weekends. The rest of the time, he drank Snapple. But on those late nights when he could not fall asleepit went on for days, once as long as two weekshe took the bottle out of the cupboard over the refrigerator. During those periods, Kirk noticed there was something different about Dad's eyes. They did not smile when his mouth smiled. There was a sadness to them, a darkness. By the time he was twelve, Kirk could tell when Dad wasn't sleeping simply by the detached look in his eyes when he smiled.

Kirk had wondered what it was that kept Dad from sleeping, but had never asked. He went to the table, pulled out a chair, and seated himself.

"I've told you in the past," Dad said, "that you can always talk to me about anything, anytime you've got a problem, or even when you don't. We've had some good talks, I think. I remember what it was like to be your age, and I've got no illusions about how you see me. I'm your goofy dad, maybe a little embarra.s.sing sometimes in front of your friends. But I love you very much. I want the best for you, the best of everything. And I want you to know, Kirk, how deeply, deeply pained I am by what's happened. Natalie was a wonderful girl. I know how much she meant to you."

Kirk's lips felt numb. "Thanks, Dad," he said. "I appreciate that."

"I want to make sure you're not blaming yourself for what happened. It wasn't your fault, Kirk. That drunk ran right through that stop sign, all the witnesses said so. You don't, do you? Blame yourself, I mean?"

Kirk bowed his head. "I keep thinking I should've told her to put on her seatbelt."

"Kirk, you can't think that way. It'll make you sick. The seatbelt might not have made any difference, you know. He slammed right into her. Look, I want you to promise me you won't think that way. All right?" Kirk nodded as Dad sipped his drink. "So, where were you?"

"I told you. Just driving around with Randy and Liz. We talked. About Nat. We even cried a little."

"Of course you did. You shouldn't be afraid to cry, Kirk. You've experienced a horrible loss." He turned his head slowly from side to side and looked for a moment as if he were about to cry. "Not the kind of loss you should have to deal with at your age."

Kirk waited for him to continue. When he didn't, Kirk began to stand.

"You haven't done anything... foolish, have you?" Dad whispered.

Kirk froze, hunched over, halfway out of his chair. He slowly sat down again. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. You haven't done anything foolish, have you?"

"We just... drove around. That's all."

Dad looked at him for a moment, studied him. "Okay. Look, Kirk, if you want to talk, I'm here. Promise me you'll speak up."

"Thanks, Dad. I will." Kirk stood. "How come you can't sleep?"

Dad smiled up at Kirk and once again, his eyes remained dark and unexpressive beneath a slightly furrowed brow. He lifted his gla.s.s and took a sip. "Just can't sleep. That's all."

After a moment, Kirk nodded. "Okay. Well, I'm going to bed. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Kirky."

- THREE -.

Kirk was slowly awakened the next morning by the chirping of his cell phone on the bedstand. He always left one of his windows open a few inches when he slept, and he could hear rain falling outside. He had slept little the night before. Twice he had gotten up, climbed out the window, and gone to the pool-house to check on Natalie. Her condition had not changed. He sat up on the edge of his bed and answered the phone. It was Luanne.

"Kirk, what did you do last night?" she hissed.

"What? Wait a sec." He rubbed his eyes and shook his head to rid it of the dregs of sleep. He looked at the clock on his bedstand; it was 8:49.

Luanne whispered, "Natalie is gone, Kirk, she's gone. A police officer was here, some woman. She's going to come see you."

"What? Me? The police?"

"You took her, didn't you?"

"Not... exactly."

"Don't bulls.h.i.t me, Kirk. I left you downstairs with her, and then she was gone."

"Did you tell your dad you let me in?"

"No, I told them I don't know anything about this."

"I won't say anything."

"Where is she? Where did you take her?"

"Well, I didn't exactly take her."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"Can you keep it to yourself?"

"Who am I going to tell? Do you know what my dad would do if he found out I was involved in this? He'd have me on the embalming table."

Kirk told her everything that had happened the night before. "She walked out with me, Luanne."

The silence on the other end of the line stretched on for a while. Then, still whispering, she said, "You're not joking, are you?"

"No." Kirk heard the doorbell ring. It cleared his sleep-fogged mind. "There's somebody here."

"It's probably that cop."

Now Kirk whispered. "Why does she want to talk to me?"

"Because you're the boyfriend."

The doorbell rang again.

"Hang on," Kirk whispered. He waited and listened. Thirty seconds pa.s.sed, then he heard a car door close in front of the house. An engine started. A moment later, he heard the car drive away. "Okay, she's gone."

"Look, Kirk," Luanne said, "I'm not sure I believe you. But whatever happened last night... when that cop finally catches up with you, and she will, you can't tell her I let you in. You have to say you found the back door unlocked, because if my dad finds out"

"Don't worry, Luanne, you're safe. I promise. I'll take the blame. But they're going to need strong evidence against me, because I plan to lie my a.s.s off. I was with friends all evening, and then I came home."

"So... Natalie's there?"

"Not with me at the moment, no."

"And she's... alive?"

"She walked out of there with me last night, Luanne. But now she'swell, she's not moving."

"Rigor mortis."

"Yeah. But she makes sounds."

"Jesus, Kirk, what have you done?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure."

Once off the phone, Kirk quickly dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. His parents were at workDad at the agency in nearby Redding, Mom at a stationary store she managed there in Andersonand his eleven-year-old brother Kevin was spending the day at Uncle Matt's and Aunt Kathy's house with their cousin Jake. That left the house to Kirk for the dayKirk and his mother's ferrets, Bud and Lou.

In the pool-house, Natalie was still seated stiffly on the toilet, wrapped in the afghan and sheet. Her mouth was still pulled back in a rictus grin. The smell was a bit stronger than it had been the night before, but it still wasn't too bad. He made a mental note to spray the pool-house with an air freshener.

"Nat, can you hear me?" he said.

She made a small grunting sound.

All he could do was wait.

Officer Pam McCready of the Anderson Police Department was built like a fire hydrant with short auburn hair and large tortoisesh.e.l.l-framed gla.s.ses that kept sliding down her small round nose. "You don't know anything about this, Kirk?" she said.

Dad and Mom and Kevin stared at him, waiting for a response.

Mom had been cooking dinner and Dad and Kevin had been watching television when McCready came to the door. Kirk had been in his bedroom wondering what he was going to do once Natalie started moving around. Kevin had come to his bedroom and said, "There's a cop at the door wants to talk to you." The walk from his bedroom had been a long one as he tried to relax his face and reveal nothing.

Kirk's heart pounded in his ears as he said, "No, I don't. When did it happen?"

"Late last night," McCready said.

"You mean, somebody just broke in and... took her?" Kirk said.

McCready shook her head. "They didn't break in, but yes, someone took her."

Mom was so upset by the news that tears sprang to her eyes and she sniffled. Dad frowned silently at Kirk.

"Where were you last night?" McCready asked.

"I was out with a couple friends. We drove around awhile and talked. Then I came home."

"I was up when he got here," Dad said. "A little before midnight, I think it was."

"Where did you and your friends go, Kirk?" she asked.

He shrugged one shoulder. "Nowhere, really. We drove around, is all. We talked, listened to music. We didn't really want to go anywhere. We were pretty upset."

"Where exactly did you drive?" McCready said.