He was wearing his dark brown Ultraseude jacket with the shoulder holster under it. She'd taken off her corduroy blazer and her holster; she put both of them on again. The weight of the revolver, against her left side, felt good. She hoped she'd have a chance to use it.

Her vision had cleared; her eyes were dry. She said, "One' thing for sure-no more dreams for me. What good is it, haing dreams, when they never come true?"

"Sometimes they do."

"No. They never came true for my mom or dad. Never cam true for Thomas, did they? Ask Clint and Felina if their dream came true, see what they say. You ask George Farris's family if they think being slaughtered by a maniac was the fulfillme of their dreams."

"Ask the Phans," Bobby said quietly.

"They were boat people on the South China Sea, with hardly any food and little money, and now they own dry-cleaning shops and remod two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses for resale, and they have those terrific kids."

"Sooner or later, they'll get it in the neck too," she said, unsettled by the bitterness in her voice and the black despair that churned like a whirlpool within her, threatening to swallo her up. But she could not stop the churning.

"Ask Park Ham stead, down there in El Toro, whether he and his wife were thrilled when she developed terminal cancer, and ask him how his dream about him and Maralee Roman worked after he finally got over the death of his wife. Nasty b.u.g.g.e.r name Candy got in the way of that one. Ask all the poor suckers lyin in the hospital with cerebral hemorrhages, cancer. Ask those who get Alzheimer's in their fifties, just when their goide years are supposed to start. Ask the little kids in wheelchair from muscular dystrophy, and ask all the parents of those other kids down there in Cielo Vista how Down's syndrom fits in with their dreams.

Ask-" She cut herself off. She was losing control, and she could not afford to do so tonight.

She said, "Come on, let's go."

"Where?"

"First, we find the house where that b.i.t.c.h raised him. Cruis by, get the lay of it. Maybe just seeing it will give us ideas.'

"I've seen it."

"I haven't."

"All right." From a nightstand drawer he removed a tele phone directory for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Hop Ranch, El Encanto Heights, and other surrounding communi ties. He brought it with him to the door.

She said, "What do you want th he asked.

"For now, I have to be. Later, I want to talk about Thomas, how brave he was about being different, how he never complained, how sweet he was.

I want to talk about all of it, you and me, and I don't want us to forget. n.o.body's ever going to build a monument to Thomas, he wasn't famous, he was, just a little guy who never did anything great except be the best person he knew how, and the only monument he's ever going to have is our memories. So we'll keep him alive,-won't we?"

"Yes."

"We'll keep him alive... until we're gone. But that's for later, when there's time. Now we have to keep ourselves alive, because that son of a b.i.t.c.h will be coming for us, won't he?"

"I think he will," Bobby said.

He rose from his knees and pulled her up from the chair.

He was wearing his dark brown Ultraseude jacket with the shoulder holster under it. She'd taken off her corduroy blazer and her holster; she put both of them on again. The weight of the revolver, against her left side, felt good. She hoped she'd have a chance to use it.

Her vision had cleared; her eyes were dry. She said, "One' thing for sure-no more dreams for me. What good is it, haing dreams, when they never come true?"

"Sometimes they do."

"No. They never came true for my mom or dad. Never cam true for Thomas, did they? Ask Clint and Felina if their dream came true, see what they say. You ask George Farris's family if they think being slaughtered by a maniac was the fulfillme of their dreams."

"Ask the Phans," Bobby said quietly.

"They were boat people on the South China Sea, with hardly any food and little money, and now they own dry-cleaning shops and remod two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses for resale, and they have those terrific kids."

"Sooner or later, they'll get it in the neck too," she said, unsettled by the bitterness in her voice and the black despair that churned like a whirlpool within her, threatening to swallo her up. But she could not stop the churning.

"Ask Park Ham stead, down there in El Toro, whether he and his wife were thrilled when she developed terminal cancer, and ask him how his dream about him and Maralee Roman worked after he finally got over the death of his wife. Nasty b.u.g.g.e.r name Candy got in the way of that one. Ask all the poor suckers lyin in the hospital with cerebral hemorrhages, cancer. Ask those who get Alzheimer's in their fifties, just when their goide years are supposed to start. Ask the little kids in wheelchair from muscular dystrophy, and ask all the parents of those other kids down there in Cielo Vista how Down's syndrom fits in with their dreams.

Ask-" She cut herself off. She was losing control, and she could not afford to do so tonight.

She said, "Come on, let's go."

"Where?"

"First, we find the house where that b.i.t.c.h raised him. Cruis by, get the lay of it. Maybe just seeing it will give us ideas.'

"I've seen it."

"I haven't."

"All right." From a nightstand drawer he removed a tele phone directory for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Hop Ranch, El Encanto Heights, and other surrounding communi ties. He brought it with him to the door.

She said, "What do you want that for?"

"We'll need it later. I'll explain in the car." Sprinkles of rain were falling again. The Toyota's engine was still so hot from the drive north that in spite of the cool night air, steam rose from its hood as the beads of rainwater evaporated. Far away a brief, low peal of thunder rolled across the sky. Thomas was dead.

HE RECEIVED images as faint and distorted as reflections on the wind-rippled surface of a pond. They came repeatedly as he touched the faucets, the rim of the sink, the mirror, the medicine cabinet and its contents, the light switch, the controls for the shower. But none of his visions was detailed, and none provided a clue as to where the Dakotas had gone.

Twice he was jolted by vivid images, but they were related to disgusting s.e.xual episodes between the Dakotas. A tube of v.a.g.i.n.al lubricant and a box of Kleenex were contaminated with older psychic residue that had inexplicably lingered beyond its time, making him privy to sinful practices that he had no desire to witness. He quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed his hands away from those surfaces and waited for his nausea to pa.s.s. He was incensed that the need to track Frank through these decadent people had forced him into a situation where his senses had been so brutally affronted.

Infuriated by his lack of success and by the unclean contact with images of their sin (which he seemed unable to expel from his mind), he decided that he must burn the evil out of this house in the name of G.o.d. Burn it out. Incinerate'it. So that maybe his mind would be cleansed again as well.

He stepped out of the bathroom, raised his hands, and sent an immensely destructive wave of power across the bedroom. The wooden headboard of the big bed disintegrated, flames leaped from the quilted spread and blankets, the nightstands flew apart, and every drawer in the dresser shot out and dumped its contents on the floor, where they instantly caught fire. The drapes were consumed as if made from magicians'

flashpaper, and the two windows in the far wall burst, letting in a draft that fanned the blaze.

Candy often wished the mysterious light that came from him could affect people and animals, rather than just inanim things, plants, and a few insects. There were times when would have gone into a city and melted the flesh from the bow of ten thousand sinners in a single night, a hundred thousand it didn't matter which city, they were all festering sewers iniquity, populated by depraved ma.s.ses who worshipede and practice( every repu sive degeneracy. He had never seen anyone in any of them, not a single person, who seemed to have to live in G.o.d's grace.

He would have made them run screaing in terror, would have tracked them down in their sec places, would have splintered their bones with his power, had mered their flesh to pulp, made their heads explode, and to off the offensive s.e.x things that preoccupied them. If he had been that gifted, he would not have shown them any ofmercy with which their Creator always treated them, so they would have realized, then, how grateful and obedient they should have been to their G.o.d, who always so patiently tolerated even their worst transgressions.

Only G.o.d and Candy's mother had such unlimited compunsion. He did not share it.

The smoke alarm went off in the hall. He walked out the pointed a finger at it, and blew it to bits.

This part of his gift seemed more powerful tonight than ever. He was a great engine of destruction.

The Lord must be rewarding his purity by increasing power.

He thanked G.o.d that his own saintly mother had never scended into the pits of depravity in which so much of hum ity swam. No man had ever touched her that way, so children were born without the stain of original sin. He knew this to be true, for she had told him-and had shown himit was.

He descended to the first floor and set the living-room carpet on fire with a bolt from his left hand.

Frank and the twins had never appreciated the immacul aspect of their conceptions, and in fact had thrown away incomparable state of grace to embrace sin and do the devi work. Candy would never make that mistake.

Overhead he heard the roar of flames, the crash of a part.i.tion. In the morning, when the sun revealed a smolderingof blackened rubble, the remains of this nest of corruption would be a testament to the ultimate perdition of all sinners.

Candy felt cleansed. The psychic images of the Dakotas' fevered degeneracy had been expunged from his mind.

He returned to the offices of Dakota & Dakota to continue his search for them.

BOBBY DROVE, for he didn't think Julie ought to be behind the wheel any more tonight. She had been awake for more than nineteen hours, not a marathon all-nighter yet, but she was exhausted; and her bottled-up grief over Thomas's death could not help but cloud her judgment and dull her reflexes. At least he had napped a couple of times since Hal's call from the hospital had awakened them last night.

He crossed most of Santa Barbara and entered Goleta before bothering to look for a service station where they could ask for directions to Pacific Hill Road.

At his request, Julie opened the telephone directory on her lap, and with the a.s.sistance of a small flashlight taken from the glove compartment, she looked under the Fs for Fogarty. He didn't know the first name, but he was only interested in a male Fogarty who carried the t.i.tle of doctor.

"He might not live in this area," Bobby said, "but I have a hunch he does."

"Who is he?"

"When Frank and I were traveling, we stopped in this guy's study, twice." He told her about both brief visits.

"How come you didn't mention him before?"

"At the office, when I told you what happened to me, where Frank and I had gone, I had to condense some of it, and this Fogarty seemed comparatively uninteresting, so I left him out. But the longer I've had time to think about it, the more it seems to me that he might be a key player in this. See, Frank popped us out of there so fast because he seemed especially reluctant to endanger Fogarty by leading Candy to him.

If Frank's especially concerned about the man, then we ought to have a talk with him." She hunched over the directory, studying it closely.

"Fogarty, James. Fogarty, Jennifer. Fogarty, Kevin..

What if he's not a medical doctor and doesn't use the t.i.tle MD or if 'Doc' is a nickname, we're in trouble. Even if he is a medical doctor, don't bother looking in the Yellow Pages under 'physicians,' because this guy is up in years, got to be retire "Here!" she said.

"Fogarty, Dr. Lawrence J."

"There's an address?",Yes." She tore the page out of the book.

"Great. As soon as you've seen the infamous Pollard pla we'll pay Fogarty a visit." Though Bobby had visited the house three times, he traveled there with Frank, and he had not known the pre location of 1458 Pacific Hill Road any more than he known exactly what flank of Mount Fuji that trail had ascended. They found it easily, however, by following the directions they received from a long-haired guy with a handle mustache at a Union 76 station.

Though the houses along Pacific Hill Road enjoyed an Encanto Heights address, they were actually neither insuburb nor in Goleta-which separated El Encanto from Santa Barbara-but in a narrow band of county land that lay tween the two and that led east into a wilderness preserve mesquite, chapparal, desert brush, and pockets of Califor live oaks and other hardy trees.

The Pollard house was near the end of Pacific Hill, on edge of developed land, with few neighbors. Orientedsouthwest, it overlooked the charmed Pacific-facing commu ties so beautifully sited on the terraced hills below. At ni the view was spectacular-a sea of lights leading to a real cloaked in darkness-and no doubt the immediate neighb hood remained rural and free of expensive new houseshecause of development restrictions related to the proxim of the preserve.

Bobby recognized the Pollard place at once. The headlig revealed little more than the Eugenia hedge and the rusted ir gate between two tall stone pilasters. He slowed as theyby it. The ground floor was dark. In one upstairs room a light was on; a pale glow leaked around the edges of a drawn bli Leaning over to look past Bobby, Julie said, "Can't much."

"There isn't much to see. It's a crumbling pile." They drove over a quarter of a mile to the end of the road turned, and went back. Coming downhill, the house was on Julie's side, and she insisted he slow to a crawl, to allow her more time to study it.

As they eased past the gate, Bobby saw a light on at the back of the house, too, on the first floor. He couldn't actually see a lighted window, just the glow that fell through it and painted a pale, frosty rectangle on the side yard.

"It's all hidden in shadows,"

Julie said at last, turning to look back at the property as it fell behind them.

"But I can see enough to know that it's a bad place."

"Very," Bobby said.

VIOLET LAY on her back on the bed in her dark robe with her sister, warmed by the cats, which were draped over them and huddled around them.

Verbina lay on her right side, cuddled against Violet, one hand on Violet's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her lips against Violet's bare shoulder, her warm breath spilling across Violet's smooth skin.

They were not settling down to sleep. Neither of them cared to sleep at night, for that was the wild time, when a greater number and variety of nature's hunters were on the prowl and life was more exciting. At that moment they were not merely in each other and in all of the cats that shared the bed with them, but in a hungry owl that soared the night, scanning the earth for mice that weren't wise enough to fear the gloom and remain in burrows. No creature had night vision as sharp as the owl, and its claws and beak were even sharper.

Violet shivered in antic.i.p.ation of the moment when a mouse or other small creature would be seen below, slipping through tall gra.s.s that it believed offered concealment. From past experience she knew the terror and pain of the prey, the savage glee of the hunter, and she yearned now to experience both again, simultaneously.

At her side Verbina murmured dreamily.

Swooping high, gliding, spiraling down, swooping up again, the owl had not yet seen its dinner when the car came up the hill and slowed almost to a stop in front of the Pollard house. It drew Violet's attention, of course, and through her the attention of the owl, but she lost interest when the car speeded again and drove on. Seconds later, however, her interest renewed when it returned and coasted almost to a stop,more, at the front gate.

She directed the owl to circle the vehicle at a height of a sixty feet.

Then she sent it out ahead of the car and brought it even lower, to about twenty feet, before guiding it around again to approach the curious motorist head-on.

From an alt.i.tude of only twenty feet, the vision of the hawk was more than acute enough to see the driver and the pa.s.senger in the front seat.

There was a woman Violet had never seen before-but the driver was familiar. A moment later she realized that he was the man who had appeared with Frank in the back yard, at twilight that very same day!

Frank had killed their precious Samantha, for which Frank must die, and now here was a man who knew Frank,might lead them to Frank, and on the bed around Violet,other cats stirred and made low growling sounds as her pa.s.sion for vengeance was transmitted to them. A tailless Manx a a black mongrel leaped from the bed, raced through the open bedroom door, down the steps, into the kitchen, out the door, around the house, and into the street. The car was moving away, gaining speed, heading downhill, and Violet wanted to pursue it not only by air but on foot, to ensure that she would not lose track of it.

CANDY ARRIVED in the reception lounge at Dakota & Dakota Cool cross-drafts circulated from the broken window in the next room and two open doors in this one, setting up oppose currents. The faint sounds announcing his arrival had evidently been masked by the bursts of static and harsh voices coming from the portable police radios that the cops had clipped to their belts. One policeman stood in the entrance Julie and Bobby's private office, and the other was at the door to the sixth-floor corridor. Each of them was talking someone out of sight, and both had their backs turned Candy, which Candy knew was a sign that G.o.d was still looking out for him.

Though he was angered by this obstacle to his search the Dakotas, he got out of there at once, materializing in bedroom, nearly a hundred and fifty miles to the north. He needed time to think if there was some way that he could pick up their trail again, a place where they had been tonight-besides their office and their house-at which he could seek more visions of them.

WHEN they backtracked to the Union 76 station, the longhaired, mustachioed man who had given them directions to Pacific Hill Road was able to tell them how to find the street on which Fogarty lived. He even knew the man.

"Nice old guy. Stops by here for gas now and then." :,Is he a medical doctor?"

Bobby asked.

'Used to be. Been retired quite a while." Shortly after ten o'clock, Bobby parked at the curb in front of Lawrence Fogarty's house. It was a quaint Spanish two story with the style of French windows that had been featured in the study to which Bobby and Frank had twice traveled, and lights were on throughout the first floor. The gla.s.s in the many panes was beveled, at least on the front of the house, and the lamplight inside was warmly refracted by those cut edges. When Bobby and Julie got out of the car, he smelled woodsmoke, and saw a homey white curl rising from a chimney into the still, cool, humid pre-storm air. In the odd and vaguely purple, crepuscular glow of a nearby street lamp, a few pink flowers were visible on the azaleas, but the bushes were not as laden with early blooms as those farther south in Orange County. An ancient tree with a multiple trunk and enormous branches loomed over more than half the house, so it seemed like a wonderfully cozy and sheltered haven in some Spanish version of a Hobbity fantasy world.

As they followed the front walkway, something dashed between two low Malibu lights, crossed their path, and startled Julie. It stopped on the lawn after pa.s.sing them, and studied them with radiant green eyes.

"Just a cat," Bobby said.

Usually he liked cats, but when he saw this one, he shivered.

It moved again, vanishing into shadows and shrubs at the side of the house.