And again.

He heard himself make whimpery noises as he panted for breath.

And thought he heard someone else whimpering in the night behind him.

Cut it out! Nobody's after me!

I'm gonna get down to the road and find John's lousy heap of a car and he'll be waiting in it, laughing at me.

At last, Owen found a road And finally, he found John's car.

Wheezing, whimpering, hardly able to stay on his feet, he staggered down the narrow road toward the rear of the old Ford Granada. He stumbled to the passenger door. Crouching, he looked through the open window.

Where the hell ARE you?

He opened the door. The overhead bulb cast a dim, yellowish light through the car's interior.

No John in the front seat.

No John in the back seat.

No key in the ignition.

Where is be? What'll I do?

Feeling confused, worn out and helpless, Owen climbed into the car. He sat down on the crunched copy of Fangoria and pulled his door shut.

The overhead light went out.

He waited in darkness for John's return.

Chapter Forty-four.

SANDY'S STORY-June, 1997 She drove down Front Street, looking for the blue Ford Granada. There were only a couple of cars parked on the street near Beast House, and neither fit Dana's description.

So maybe its owner hadn't vanished, after all.

But a lot of funny stuff had gone on recently inside Beast House.

Worth checking out, Sandy thought.

She turned her Range Rover around and drove back into town.

A block past Beast House, she made a right turn and headed up a sidestreet. She parked at the curb. On both sides of the street, all the places of business were closed for the night.

This time, she didn't leave her flashlight behind.

Though she carried it, she didn't turn it on.

Staying a block east of Front Street, she made her way back toward Beast House.

She was shivering, but doubted that it had much to do with the chilly breeze or her damp hair or the fact that she'd just spent more than an hour in the steaming hot water of a spa. The shivers, she was sure, had mostly to do with Eric.

What if he's in there?

Ever since the day he ran off, five years ago, she'd looked forward with terrible hope and dread to the time when they might meet again.

If he hadn't fled, she would have shot him. She was pretty sure of that.

But now?

I'll still shoot him, she told herself. For what he did to Terry. For what he did to me. To stop him from hurting anyone else.

I'll kill him, all right.

If I find him.

At the rear of the Beast House grounds, Sandy came to the old iron fence with the spikes along the top. A lot had been changed over the years, but this section of fence remained the same.

Standing close to the bars, she scanned the area ahead.

She remembered a time when there'd been no paved patio area behind the house. No snack stand. No tables and chairs. No gift shop. No restrooms. None of this. Just the old gazebo-now on display in Janice Crogan's museum-and a big, grassy lawn that Wick used to mow once a week. She remembered times when she would sit in the gazebo in the evenings, all alone. And times when she made love on the dewy grass late at night. With Seth. With Jason.

Eric might very well have been conceived on such a night, his father gleaming white as snow in the moonlight.

Sandy liked to think that Seth was Eric's father. Seth was such a sweetheart. And gentle. Not like Jason. Seth probably was the father, but she couldn't be sure.

Doesn't matter, she told herself, suddenly feeling a pain of loss. They're both dead, anyway. And Eric'll be dead, too, if I find him.

Crouching, she slipped the flashlight between the iron bars of the fence. She set it on the grass, then climbed the iron bars. At the top, she imagined falling onto the spikes, feeling one or two of them drive up through her jeans and into...

Stop it!

She leaped, dropped to the grass, and rolled. Then she retrieved her flashlight. Its ribbed casing was wet with dew.

She wiped it with the tail of her outer shirt, then ran across the moonlit grass. She entered the paved patio through a gap between the gift shop and snack stand.

Warren's snack stand, If it was really teenagers that jumped him, she thought, why the big secret?

Because it wasn't teenagers. It was a beast. It was Eric. And Warren was afraid somebody might find out Eric did more than just beat him up-so he concocted a lie.

That explains a lot, Sandy thought.

Explains why Warren quit being a Beast House guide and how he suddenly became the owner of the snack stand.

Janice must've bribed him with it.

Which would mean she knew the truth.

Which would mean she's been letting the tours continue-even the How could she do a thing like that? Sandy wondered.

The answer came to her mind in the old, familiar voice of Maggie Kutch-"Easy: m-o-n-e-y."

No, Sandy thought. Janice isn't like that. She wouldn't risk the lives of innocent people that way. So maybe she doesn't know what really happened to Warren.

Or maybe it was teenagers.

Eric would've killed him.

Sandy climbed the wooden stairs to the back porch of Beast House.

Warren would be dead, she told herself, if Eric had attacked him. Dead like Terry and all the others. So obviously, Eric wasn't responsible for...

He didn't kill me.

That's different, she thought. I'm his mother. He hardly hurt me at all-a few scratches, a few bites, nothing major.

Everybody else, he rips apart He would've shredded Warren, killed him.

So maybe it was teenagers, after all.

The porch door was locked. Clamping the flashlight between her thighs, Sandy dug into a front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a folding Buck knife. She opened the four-inch blade and slipped it into the crack between the screen door and its frame.

A simple hook and eye secured the door.

She couldn't see them, but she knew they were there. They'd been there in the old days when she was a guide. And they'd still been there the last time she'd secretly entered Beast House to search for Eric.

After first returning to Malcasa Point in early 1993, she'd gone into the house two or three nights a week. But that hadn't lasted long. Soon, she'd tapered off to once or twice a month as she began to give up her theory that Eric would return to the town of his birth, the home of his ancestors.

He's not a homing pigeon, she used to tell herself.

But then she would think of all the stories she'd heard about cats and dogs finding their way home from enormous distances...

Their cabin to Malcasa Point wouldn't be any great trick.

A person could walk the distance in less than a week, no trouble at all.

Eric, apparently, hadn't.

Maybe he just wasn't interested in returning to Malcasa Point. Or maybe he didn't know how. Or he couldn't return because he'd been injured or killed.

Maybe I'm the reason he hasn't come. He might've figured thal I'd be here, waiting to kill him.

Though Sandy could only guess at the reason, the fact was that she never found Eric-or any trace of his presence-during her clandestine visits to Beast House.

She'd made her last illegal entry near the end of 1994.

Here we go again, she thought.

With a flick of the knife, she tapped the unseen hook out of its unseen eye. She folded the knife, slipped it into her pocket, then took the flashlight from between her thighs and opened the screen door. Inside the porch, she eased the door shut. She fastened its hook.

Turning around slowly, flashlight off, she scanned the dark porch. During the day, it served as a makeshift lounge area for Beast House staff members. She knew there was a sofa, a card table, a couple of old lounge chairs and a small refrigerator. Now, they made a jumble of motionless shadows. She smelled a faint, stale odor of cigarette butts.

Facing the back door of the house, Sandy listened. She heard the quick thumping of her own heart. Off in the hills, an owl hooted. She also noticed a quiet shhhhh that might be the breeze or might be a car rushing down Front Street.

Nobody here but me.

She stepped to the wooden door. Again, she clamped the flashlight between her legs. Hands free, she removed a slim leather case from a breast pocket of her outer shirt. She opened it and drew out her pick and tension bar.

She felt for the door knob, found the lock hole, then slipped her tools into it.

She needed no light for picking the lock Inside the kitchen of Beast House-the door shut and locked behind her back-Sandy put away the tools. Then she took slow, deep breaths, trying to calm down.

This was another reason she'd given up the break-ins.

Too damn rough on the nerves.

Her heart was trying to smash its way out of her chest. Sweat trickled down her face and neck. The flashlight felt slippery in her hand.

With the tail of her outer shirt, she wiped her face.

Then she made her way slowly through the kitchen.

Nothing to be afraid of, she told herself.

I'm the baddest son-of-a-bitch in the Valley.

She smiled, but her smile trembled.

She knew that she wasn't afraid of physical harm to herself...and she certainly didn't fear "the beast." She had no reason to fear being caught trespassing, either; not only was she a police officer, but she was one of Lynn Tucker's best friends. If taken for a prowler, she could simply explain that she'd entered to investigate something. Maybe she'd noticed a flicker of light in one of the windows...

She feared none of that. What terrified her was the possibility of confronting her son.

Her baby.

Eric.

She had always loved him. Even before his birth, when he was an unseen force slumbering in her womb, she'd loved him.

After his birth, she'd cherished him even more. She would've done anything for him. She would've died for him. She did kill for him, and he had killed for her.