Hide. That was all they could do right now. They had to go where no one could follow or find them.

Laura grabbed the pencil and wrote: Where will we go? Where will we go?

'Later,' he said softly. 'Now, we've got to hurry.'

It was coming. was coming.

In the bedroom, he helped Laura pack two suitcases, one for Melanie and one for herself.

It was coming. And the fact that she didn't know what It was - that she even felt slightly foolish for believing It existed in the first place - did nothing whatsoever to alleviate her fear of It. was coming. And the fact that she didn't know what It was - that she even felt slightly foolish for believing It existed in the first place - did nothing whatsoever to alleviate her fear of It.

When the bags were packed, when they had their coats on, Laura repeatedly called Pepper. The cat wouldn't respond to her, and a quick tour of the house didn't turn it up anywhere. Pepper was hiding, being difficult, as any self-respecting cat would have been in those circ.u.mstances.

'Leave it,' Earl whispered. 'Someone can stop by to feed it tomorrow.'

They went through the laundry room into the garage. They didn't switch off any lights behind them, because that might have signaled their intentions. Earl put the suitcases in the trunk of Laura's blue Honda.

She didn't need to ask why they were taking her car instead of his. His was parked outside, at the curb, and if those FBI agents across the street saw Laura and Melanie heading for it, they'd want to know where they were going and why; they might even prevent them from leaving.

Of course, their hurried flight might be a mistake because the FBI might want nothing more than to help. Or it might not. In either case, their best hope was to trust only in Earl Benton.

He put Melanie in the backseat and fastened the belt across her lap.

From the front seat, Laura glanced back and was startled by her daughter's appearance. In the closed garage, illuminated only by the car's ceiling light, the girl's gaunt face was fleshed out by shadows; the harsh lines and sharp bones were softened by the moon-pale glow. For the first time, Laura realized how very pretty her little girl would be when she had gained some weight. She would be utterly and miraculously transformed by a few pounds and by peace of mind, both of which would come with time. Abruptly, Laura was able to see the potential within the battered clay, the familiar within the alien, the beauty within the grayness. Time, like a painter's brush, would layer other experiences and emotions over Melanie's now-bright agony, and when the paint of days and weeks and years had become sufficiently thick to all but conceal the horror of her ordeal with her father, she would no longer be a skeletal, angular, strange creature with death-pale skin and wounded eyes; she would, in fact, be quite lovely. That realization made Laura's breath catch, and it renewed her hope.

More important, the kind light and caressing shadows allowed her to perceive much of herself in her daughter, and that perception had an even more profound effect on her. Intellectually, she had known that Melanie resembled her - evidence of her genes was clear in the child's haunted face, in spite of the abuse that had pulled it into a tortured mask - but until now she had not quite related to that likeness on a deep emotional level. Seeing herself in her daughter, she had a more intense awareness that her child's suffering was her own suffering, that her child's future was her own future, and that she could have no happiness until Melanie was happy too. Whereas the realization of the girl's underlying beauty had renewed Laura's hope, this second insight renewed her determination to find the truth and to beat their enemies even if the whole d.a.m.ned world was was aligned against them. aligned against them.

Earl got behind the wheel. He looked over at Laura and said, 'It's going to get a little wild for the next few minutes.'

'It's already gotten wild,' she said, buckling her seat belt.

'I've had a driving course that teaches avoidance of terrorists and kidnappers, so I'm not being as reckless as it's going to seem.'

'Recklessness won't bother me in the least,' she said. 'Not after seeing that wind-thing smash its way into my kitchen. Besides, I've always thought it would be a lot of fun to drive like James Bond.'

He smiled at her. 'You've got grit.'

As he started the engine, she picked up the automatic garage-door opener that lay on the console tray between the seats.

He said, 'Now.'

Laura pressed the b.u.t.ton on the remote-control device, and the garage door started to swing up. Before the door had lifted all the way, Earl threw the car into reverse and backed under it with only an inch to spare, moving fast.

Laura expected to crash through the rising door, but they slipped out of the garage and reversed away from the house at high speed. They slowed where the driveway met the street, but not much, and Earl pulled the steering wheel hard right, so they were facing down the long hill.

The FBI, in its fake telephone-company van, had not yet reacted. Earl hit the brakes, shifted the Honda out of reverse into drive, jammed his foot down on the accelerator. Tires squealed, and the car seemed to stick to the pavement, but then they rocketed forward, down the dark and sloping street.

Two blocks downhill, Earl glanced at the rearview mirror and said, 'They're coming.'

Laura looked through the rear window, and saw the van just pulling away from the curb.

Earl tapped the brakes and swung the steering wheel hard to the right, and the Honda half turned, half slid around the corner, into the cross street. At the next intersection, he turned left, then right again at the end of that block, speeding and weaving through the quiet residential neighborhood, finally out of Sherman Oaks altogether, to the top of the valley wall, over the ridge line, into Benedict Canyon, and down the forested slopes, through the darkness, toward the distant lights of Beverly Hills and Los Angeles beyond.

'We've lost them,' he said happily.

Laura was not completely relieved. She wasn't convinced that they could lose their inhuman enemy - the unseen It It - as easily as they had shaken the FBI van. - as easily as they had shaken the FBI van.

25.

Dan watched Regine closely, trying to figure how he could force her to tell him what she knew. She was so pliable that he could surely bend her to his purposes if he could only determine how and where to apply pressure.

Regine was no longer biting on her knuckle. She had slipped a thumb into her mouth and gently sucked on it. Her pose was so provocative - innocence waiting to be despoiled - that he was certain it was something that Hoffritz had taught her to do. Something he had programmed programmed her to do? But it was clear that she also was soothed by the thumbsucking; her inner torment was so severe that it had driven her to seek solace in the simplest, most infantile rituals of rea.s.surance. her to do? But it was clear that she also was soothed by the thumbsucking; her inner torment was so severe that it had driven her to seek solace in the simplest, most infantile rituals of rea.s.surance.

From the moment that she had put her thumb in her mouth, she had stopped sitting erect and ladylike. Now she slumped into the corner of the sofa. The neckline of her robe had parted, revealing deep, smooth, shadowed cleavage.

Dan had a pretty good idea how to make her talk, but he didn't like doing what he would have to do.

She took her thumb out of her mouth long enough to say, 'I can't help you. I really can't. Will you go now? Please?'

He didn't answer. He got up from the armchair, walked around the coffee table, and stood over her, frowning down at her.

She kept her head bowed.

Sternly, almost harshly, he said, 'Look at me.'

She looked at him. In a tremulous voice that indicated she expected to be ignored, she said, 'Will you go now? Please? Will you go now?'

'You're going to answer my questions, Regine,' he said, scowling at her. 'You're not going to lie to me. If you won't answer, or if you lie to me ...'

'Will you hit me?' she asked.

He was confronted not by a woman any longer but by a sick, lost, miserable creature. Not a frightened creature, however. The prospect of being struck did not fill her with terror. Quite the opposite. She was sick, lost, miserable - and hungry. Hungry for the thrill of being hit, starving for the pleasure of pain.

Repressing his revulsion, making his voice as cold as he could, he said, 'I won't hit you. I won't touch you. But you'll tell me what I want to know because that's the reason you exist right now.'

Her eyes shone with a curious light, like those of an animal seen at night.

'You always do what's wanted of you, right? You are what you're expected to be. I expect you to be cooperative, Regine. I want you to answer my questions, and you will, because that's the only d.a.m.ned thing you're good for - answering questions.'

She stared up at him expectantly.

'Have you ever met Ernest Andrew Cooper?'

'No.'

'You're lying.'

'Am I?'

Suppressing all the sympathy and compa.s.sion he felt for her, he made his voice even colder, and he raised one fist over her, although he had no intention of using it. 'Do you know Cooper?'

She didn't answer, but her eyes focused on his big fist with an unholy adoration that he couldn't bear to contemplate.

With sudden inspiration, he feigned an anger that he didn't feel and said, 'Answer me, you b.i.t.c.h!'

She flinched at the derogatory address, but not because it hurt or surprised her. She flinched, instead, as if a shock of delight had pa.s.sed through her. Even that meager verbal abuse had been a key that unlocked her.

Gazing at his fist, she said, 'Please.'

'Maybe.'

'You'd like to.'

'Maybe ... if you tell me what I want to know. Cooper.'

'They don't tell me their last names. I knew an Ernie somebody, but I don't know if it was Cooper.'

He described the dead millionaire.

'Yeah,' she said, her gaze shifting between his fist and his eyes. 'That was him.'

'You met him through w.i.l.l.y?'

'Yes.'

'And Joseph Scaldone?'

'w.i.l.l.y ... introduced me to this guy named Joe, but I never knew his last name, either.'

Dan described Joseph Scaldone.

She nodded. 'That was him.'

'And Ned Rink?'

'I don't think I ever met him.'

'A short, stocky, rather ugly man.'

As he fleshed out that description, she began to shake her head. 'No. I never met that one.'

'You've seen the gray room?'

'Yes. I dream of it sometimes. Of sitting in that chair, and they do it to me, the shocks, the electricity.'

'When did you see it? The room, the chair?'

'Oh, a few years ago, when they were first painting the room, putting in the equipment, getting it ready ...'

'What were they doing with Melanie McCaffrey?'

'I don't know.'

'Don't lie to me, d.a.m.n it. You are what you're expected to be, and you do what's wanted of you, always what's wanted of you, so cut the s.h.i.t and answer me.'

'No, really. I don't know,' she said meekly. 'w.i.l.l.y never told me. It was secret. An important secret. It'd change the world, he said. That's all I know. He didn't include me in those things very much. His life with me was separate from his work with those other men.'

Dan continued to stand over her, and she continued to cower in a corner of the sofa, and although the threat he posed to her was entirely theatrical, he nevertheless felt uncomfortably like a bully. 'What did the occult have to do with their experiments?'

'I haven't any idea.'

'Did w.i.l.l.y believe in the supernatural?'

'No.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Well ... because Dylan McCaffrey believed indiscriminately in it - all of it, ghosts and seances and even goblins for all I know - and w.i.l.l.y used to make fun of him, said he was gullible.'

'Then why was he working with McCaffrey?'

'w.i.l.l.y thought Dylan was a genius.'

'In spite of his superst.i.tions?'

'Yeah.'

'Who was funding them, Regine?'

'I don't know.'

She moved in such a way that her robe parted further, revealing more cleavage, most of one full breast.

'Come on,' he said impatiently. 'Who's been paying their bills? Who, Regine?'

'I swear, I don't know.'

He sat on the couch beside her. He took her by the chin, held her face, not gently, not with erotic intention, but as an extension of the threat first embodied by his raised fist.

Meaningless as the threat was, she nevertheless responded to it. This was what she wanted: to be intimidated, to be commanded, and to obey.