“I haven’t confirmed anything.”

“Your face did.” She picked up her recorder, turned it off. He wasn’t going to tell her anything today. Cautious man, Caleb Hawkins. “I need to get into town, check into the hotel, get a lay of the land. Why don’t I buy you that dinner tonight?”

She moved fast, and he made a habit of taking his time. “Why don’t you take some time to settle in? We can talk about dinner and so on in a couple days.”

“I love a man who’s hard to get.” She slipped her recorder, her notepad back in her bag. “I guess I’ll need my coat.”

After he’d brought it to her, she studied him as she shrugged it on. “You know, when you first came outside, I had the strangest sensation. I thought I recognized you, that I’d known you before. That you’d waited for me before. It was very strong. Did you feel anything like that?”

“No. But maybe I was too busy thinking, she looks better than her picture.”

“Really? Nice, because I looked terrific in that picture. Thanks for the coffee.” She glanced back to the dog who’d snored lightly the entire time they’d talked. “See you later, Lump. Don’t work so hard.”

He walked her out. “Quinn,” he said as she started down the stairs. “Don’t get any ideas about Lois Laning it and trying to find the Pagan Stone on your own. You don’t know the woods. I’ll take you there myself, sometime this week.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I can’t, I’ve got a full plate. Day after if you’re in a hurry.”

“I almost always am.” She walked backward toward her car so she could keep him in view. “What time?”

“Let’s say we’ll meet here at nine, weather permitting.”

“That’s a date.” She opened her car door. “The house suits you, by the way. Country boy with more style than pretention. I like it.”

He watched her drive off-strange and sexy Quinn Black.

And he stood for a long time watching the light go dimmer in the woods where he’d made his home.

CAL HEADED FOX OFF WITH A PHONE CALL AND arranged to meet him at the bowling alley. Since the Pin Boys and the Alley Cats were having a league game on lanes one and two, he and Fox could have dinner and a show at the grill.

Added to it, there was little as noisy as a bowling alley, so their conversation would be covered by the crash of balls against pins, the hoots and hollers.

“First, let’s backtrack into the land of logic for a minute.” Fox took a swig of his beer. “She could’ve made it up to get a reaction.”

“How did she know what to make up?”

“During the Seven, there are people who see it-who’ve said they did before it starts to fade on them. She got wind.”

“I don’t think so, Fox. Some talked about seeing something-boy, man, woman, dog, wolf-”

“The rat the size of a Doberman,” Fox remembered.

“Thanks for bringing that one back. But no one ever claimed they’d seen it before or after the Seven. No one but us, and we’ve never told anyone.” Cal arched his brow in question.

“No. You think I’m going to spread it around that I see red-eyed demons? I’d just rake in the clients that way.”

“She’s smart. I don’t see why she’d claim to have seen it, outside the norm-ha-ha-if she hadn’t. Plus she was psyched about it. Juiced up. So, let’s accept she did and continue to dwell in the land of logic. One logical assumption is that the bastard’s stronger, we know he will be. But strong enough to push out of the Seven into the between time.”

Fox brooded over his beer. “I don’t like that logic.”

“Second option could be she’s somehow connected. To one of us, the town, the incident at the Pagan Stone.”

“I like that better. Everyone’s connected. It’s not just Kevin Bacon. If you work at it, you can put a handful of degrees between almost any two people.” Thoughtful, Fox picked up his second slice of pizza. “Maybe she’s a distant cousin. I’ve got cousins up the wazoo and so do you. Gage, not so much, but there’s some out there.”

“Possible. But why would a distant cousin see something none of our immediate family has? They’d tell us, Fox. They all know what’s coming better and clearer than anyone else.”

“Reincarnation. That’s not off the Planet Logic, considering. Besides, reincarnation’s big in the family O’Dell. Maybe she was there when it all happened. Another life.”

“I don’t discount anything. But more to the point, why is she here now? And will it help us put a goddamn end to this?”

“It’s going to take more than an hour’s chat in front of the fire to figure that out. I don’t guess you heard from Gage.”

“Not yet. He’ll be in touch. I’m going to take her out to the stone day after tomorrow.”

“Leaping forward fast, Cal.”

Cal shook his head. “If I don’t take her soon enough, she’ll try it on her own. If something happened…We can’t be responsible for that.”

“We are responsible-isn’t that the point? On some level it’s on us.” Frowning now, he watched Don Myers, of Myers Plumbing, make a seven-ten split to appropriate hoots and shouts. All three hundred twenty pounds of Myers did a flab-wriggling victory dance that was not a pretty sight.

“You go on,” Fox said quietly, “day after day, doing what you do, living your life, making your life. Eating pizza, scratching your ass, getting laid if you’re lucky. But you know, on some level you try to keep buried just to get through, that it’s coming back. That some of the people you see on the street every day, maybe they won’t make it through the next round. Maybe we won’t. What the hell.” He rapped his beer against Cal ’s. “We’ve got the now, plus five months to figure this out.”

“I can try to go back again.”

“Not unless Gage is here. We can’t risk it unless we’re together. It’s not worth it, Cal. The other times you only got bits and pieces, and took a hell of a beating for it.”

“Older and wiser now. And I’m thinking, if it’s showing itself now-our dreams, what happened to Quinn-it’s expending energy. I might get more than I have before.”

“Not without Gage. That’s…Hmm,” he said as his attention wandered over his friend’s shoulder. “Fresh flowers.”

Glancing back, Cal saw Quinn standing behind lane one, her coat open and a bemused expression on her face as she watched Myers, graceful as a hippo in toe shoes, make his approach and release his lucky red ball.

“That’s Quinn.”

“Yeah, I recognized her. I read the books, too. She’s hotter than her picture, and that was pretty hot.”

“I saw her first.”

Fox snorted, shifted his eyes to sneer at Cal. “Dude, it’s not about who saw her first, it’s who she sees. I pull out the full power of my sexual charm, and you’ll be the Invisible Man.”

“Shit. The full power of your sexual charm wouldn’t light up a forty-watt bulb.”

Cal pushed off the stool when Quinn walked toward him.

“So this is why I got the brush-off tonight,” she said. “Pizza, beer, and bowling.”

“The Hawkins Hollow hat trick. I’m on manager duty tonight. Quinn, this is Fox O’Dell.”

“The second part of the triad.” She shook Fox’s hand. “Now I’m doubly glad I decided to check out what seems to be the town’s hot spot. Mind if I join you?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way. Buy you a beer?” Fox asked.

“Boy, could you, but…make it a light one.”

Cal stepped back to swing around the counter. “I’ll take care of it. Anything to go with it? Pizza?”

“Oh.” She looked at the pizza on the counter with eyes that went suddenly dewy. “Um, I don’t suppose you have any with whole-wheat crust and low-fat mozzarella?”

“Health nut?” Fox asked.

“Just the opposite.” Quinn bit her bottom lip. “I’m in a lifestyle change. Damn it, that really looks good. How about if we cut one of those slices in half.” She sawed the side of her hand over the plate.

“No problem.”

Cal got a pizza cutter and slid it down a slice.

“I love fat and sugar like a mother loves her child,” Quinn told Fox. “I’m trying to eat more sensibly.”