The dog stopped.

“Don’t just stand there, Eugene! Control that animal!”

Eugene immediately perked up. He took two steps toward the dog and flung out a flimsy arm. “Damon! Bad dog! Get back. Get back immediately.”

The dog just stared at them.

“Try it with your horse training accent,” Balinda said. “Put some authority in your voice.”

Kevin stared at them. It had been a long time since he’d seen them like this. They’d slipped into their role-playing on the fly. For the moment he didn’t even exist. It was hard to imagine he grew up with these two.

Eugene stood as tall as his short frame would allow and expanded his chest. “I say, dog! To the kennel or the whip it’ll be. Be gone! Be thou gone immeeediately!”

“Don’t just stand there; go after him like you mean it!” Balinda snapped. “And I really don’t think thouis appropriate with an animal. Growl or something!”

Eugene crouched and took several long steps toward the dog, growling like a bear.

“Not like an animal, you idiot!” Balinda said. “You look foolish! He’s the animal; you’re the master. Act like one. Growl like a man! Like a ruler.”

Eugene pulled himself up again and thrust out an arm, snarling like a villain. “Back in the cage, you foul-mouthed vermin!” he cried hoarsely.

Damon whimpered and ran back into his house.

“Ha!” Eugene stood up, triumphant.

Balinda clapped and giggled, delighted. “You see, didn’t I tell you? Princess knows—”

A muffled explosion suddenly lifted the doghouse a foot into the air and dropped it back to the ground.

They stood, Balinda at the corner, Bob in the window, Eugene by the porch, and Kevin in the middle of the yard, staring with incredulity at the smoldering doghouse.

Kevin could not move. Damon?

Balinda took a step forward and stopped. “Wha . . . what was that?”

“Damon?” Kevin ran for the doghouse. “Damon!”

He knew before he arrived that the dog was dead. Blood quickly darkened the ash at the door. He looked in and immediately recoiled. Bile crept up his throat. How was it possible? Tears sprang into his eyes.

A screech filled the air. He looked back to see Balinda flying for the doghouse, face stricken, arms outstretched. He jumped back to avoid her rush. On the porch, Eugene was pacing and mumbling incoherently. Bob had his face planted on the window, wide-eyed.

Balinda took one look into Damon’s smoking house and then staggered back. Eugene stopped and watched her. Kevin’s mind spun. But it wasn’t Damon that now made him dizzy. It was Princess. Not Princess—Mother!

No! No, not Princess, not Mother, not even Auntie! Balinda.The poor sick hag who’d sucked the life out of him.

She turned to Kevin, eyes black with hate. “You!” she screamed. “You did this!”

“No, Mother!” She’s not your Mother! Not Mother.

“I—”

“Shut your lying mouth! We hate you!” She flung her arm toward the gate. “Get out!”

“You don’t mean that . . .” Stop it, Kevin! What do you care if she hates you? Get out.

Balinda balled both hands to fists, dropped them to her sides, and tilted her head back. “Leave! Leave, leave, leave!” she screamed, eyes clenched.

Eugene joined in, chanting with her in a falsetto voice, mimicking her stance. “Leave, leave, leave, leave!”

Kevin left. Without daring to look at what Bob might be doing, he whirled around and fled for his car.

6

THE AIR IS STUFFY. Too hot for such a cool day. Richard Slater, as he has decided to call himself this time, strips out of his clothes and hangs them in the one closet beside the desk. He crosses the dark basement in his bare feet, pulls open the old chest freezer, and takes out two ice cubes. Not really cubes—they are frozen into small balls instead of squares. He found the unusual ice trays in a stranger’s refrigerator once and decided to take them. They are wonderful.

Slater walks into the center of the room and sits down on the concrete. A large white clock on the wall ticks quietly. It’s 4:47. He will call Kevin in three minutes, unless Kevin himself makes a phone call, in which case he’ll remotely terminate the connection and then call Kevin back. Short of that, he wants to give Kevin a little time to digest things. That is the plan.

He lies back, flat on the cool cement, and places one ice ball in each eye socket. He’s done a lot of things over the years—some of them horrible, some of them quite splendid. What do you call tipping a waitress a buck more than she deserves? What do you call tossing a baseball back to the kid who mistakenly throws it over the fence? Splendid, splendid.

The horrible things are too obvious to dwell on.

But really his whole life has been practice for this particular game. Of course, he always says that. There’s something about being in a contest of high stakes that makes the blood flow. Nothing quite compares. Killing is just killing unless there’s a game to the killing. Unless there is an end game that results in some kind of ultimate victory. Extracting punishment involves making someone suffer, and death ends that suffering, cheating the true pain of suffering. At least this side of hell. Slater shivers with the excitement of it all. A small whimper of pleasure. The ice hurts now. Like fire in his eyes. Interesting how opposites can be so similar. Ice and fire.

He counts off the seconds, not in his conscious mind, but in the background, where it doesn’t distract him from thought. They have some pretty good minds on their side, but none quite like his. Kevin is no idiot. He will have to see which FBI agent they send. And of course the real prize exudes brilliance: Samantha.

Slater opens his mouth and says the name slowly. “Samantha.”

He’s been planning this particular game for three years now, not because he needed the time, but because he’s been waiting for the right timing. Then again, the wait has given him more than enough opportunity to learn far more than he needs to know. Kevin’s every waking move. His motivations and his desires. His strengths and his weaknesses. The truth behind that delightful little family of his.

Electronic surveillance—it’s amazing how technology has advanced even in the last three years. He can put a laser beam on a window at a great distance and pick up any voices inside the room. They will find his bugs, but only because he wants them to. He can talk to Kevin any moment of the day on his own phone without being detected by a third party. When the police get around to finding the transmitter he affixed to the telephone line down from Kevin’s house, he will resort to alternatives. There are limits, of course, but they won’t be reached before the game expires. Pun intended.

Two minutes have passed and his eyes are numb from the ice. Water leaks down his cheeks and he reaches his tongue up to touch it. Can’t. One more minute.

The fact is, he’s thought of everything. Not in a criminal kind of let’s-do-a-bank-robbery-and-think-of-everything-so-they-won’t-catch-us way. But in a more fundamental way. Precise motivations and countermoves. Like a chess match that will be played in response to another’s moves. This method is far more exhilarating than taking a club to someone else’s pieces and declaring yourself the victor.

In a few days, Kevin will be a shell of himself, and Samantha . . .

He chuckles.

There is no way they can possibly win.

Time’s up.

Slater sits up, catches what’s left of the ice balls as they fall from his eyes, tosses them into his mouth, and stands. The clock reads 4:50. He walks across the room to an old metal desk lit by a single shadeless lamp. Thirty watts. A policeman’s hat sits on the desk. He reminds himself to put it in the closet.

The black phone is connected to a box, which will prevent tracing. Another remote box hides at the hub that services this house. The cops can trace all they like. He is invisible.