“I suppose so,” Katie said. “To themselves.”

“Oh good,” Molly said as she signed the petition, “because I know that Stevie could move up to the Red Jets reading group if he could sacrifice a chicken to Vigoth the Worm God, but the teacher won’t let him.” Why did I say that? Why did I say that? What if they ask where Stevie is?

“Mrs. Michon!”

“What? He’d do it at recess,” Molly said. “It’s not like it would cut into study time.”

“We are working on behalf of the One True God, Mrs. Michon. The Coalition is not an interfaith organization. I’m sure that if you had felt the power of His spirit, you wouldn’t talk that way.”

“Oh, I’ve felt it.”

“You have?”

“Of course. You can feel it too. Right now.”

“What do you mean?”

Molly handed the clipboard back to Katie and stood up. “Come next door with me. It’ll only take a second. I know you’ll feel it.”

Theo’s hopes of finding Mikey Plotznik rose as he drove through the residential areas of Pine Cove. Nearly every neighborhood had two or three people out searching with flashlights and cell phones. Theo stopped and took reports from each search party, then made suggestions as if he had the slightest idea what he was doing. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t even find his car keys half the time.

Most of Pine Cove’s neighborhoods were without sidewalks or street-lights. The canopy of pine trees absorbed the moonlight and darkness drank up Theo’s headlights like an ocean of ink. He plugged his handheld spot-light in the lighter socket and swept it across the houses and into the vacant lots, spotting nothing but a pair of mule deer eating someone’s rosebuds. As he drove by the beach park—a grass playground the size of a football field, surrounded by cypress trees and blocked from the Pacific wind by an eight-foot redwood fence—he spotted a flash of white moving on one of the picnic tables. He pulled into the parking strip beside the park and pointed the Volvo’s headlights, as well as the spotlight, at the table.

A couple was going at it right there on the table. The flash of white had been the man’s bare ass. Two faces turned into the light, eyes as wide as the two deer Theo had surprised earlier. Normally, Theo would have driven on. He was used to finding people “in the act” in cars behind the Head of the Slug, or parked along the more rugged strips of coastline. He wasn’t the sex police, after all. But tonight he was irritated by the scene. It had been almost a whole day since he’d had a hit from his Sneaky Pete. Maybe it’s a symptom of withdrawal, he thought.

He turned off the Volvo and got out, taking his flashlight with him. The couple scrambled into their clothes as he approached, but didn’t try to es-cape. There was nowhere for them to go except over the fence, where a narrow beach was bordered on both sides by cliffs and washed by treach-erous, freezing rip tides.

When he was halfway across the park, Theo recognized the fornicators and stopped. The woman, a girl really, was Betsy Butler, a waitress down at H.P.‘s Cafe. She was struggling to pull down her skirt. The man, bald ing and slack-chested, was the newly widowed Joseph Leander. Theo flashed on the image of Bess Leander hanging from a peg in the spotless dining room.

“A little discretion’s in order here, you think Joe?” Theo shouted as he walked toward them.

“Uh, it’s Joseph, Constable.”

Theo felt his scalp go hot with anger. He wasn’t an angry man by nature, but nature hadn’t been working the last few days. “No, It’s Joseph when you’re doing business or when you’re grieving over your dead wife. When you’re boning a girl half your age on a picnic table in a public park, it’s Joe.”

“I—we—things have been so difficult. I don’t know what came over us—I mean, me. I mean…”

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen a kid around here tonight? A boy, about ten?”

The girl shook her head. She was covering her face with one hand and staring into the grass at her feet. Joseph Leander’s gaze darted around the park as if a magic escape hatch would open up in the dark if he could only spot it. “No, I haven’t seen a boy.”

Technically, Theo knew he could arrest them both on the spot for indecent exposure, but he didn’t want to take the time to process them into County Justice. “Go home, Joe. Alone. Your daughters shouldn’t be by themselves right now. Betsy, do you have a ride?”

Without uncovering her face, she said, “I only live two blocks away.”

“Go home. Now.” Theo turned and walked back to the Volvo. No one had ever accused Theo of being clever (except for the time at a college party when he fashioned an emergency bong out of a two-liter Coke bottle and a Bic pen), but he was feeling somewhat less than clever for not having investigated Bess Leander’s death more carefully. It was one thing to be hired because you’re thought to be a fool, it’s quite another to live up to the reputation. Tomorrow, he thought. First find the kid.

Molly stood in the mud with the two pastel Christian ladies looking at the dragon trailer.

“Can you feel it?”

“Why, whatever do you mean?” Marge said. “That’s just a dirty old trailer—excuse me—mobile home.” Until a second ago, she had only been concerned with her powder-blue high heels sinking into the wet turf. Now she and her partner were staring at the dragon trailer, wide-eyed.

They could feel it, Molly could tell. She could feel it too: a low-grade sense of contentment, something vaguely sexual, not quite joy, but close. “You’re feeling it?”

The two women looked to each other, trying to deny that they were feeling anything. Their eyes were glazed over as if they’d been drugged, and they fidgeted as if suppressing giggles. Katie, the pink one, said, “Maybe we should visit these people.” She took a tentative step toward the dragon trailer.

Molly stepped in front of her. “There’s no one there. It’s just a feeling. You two should probably go fill out your petition.”

“It’s late,” said powder blue. “Maybe one more visit, then we have to go.”

“No!” Molly blocked their path. This wasn’t as fun as she thought it would be. She had wanted to freak them out a little, not harm them. She had the distinct feeling that if they got any closer to the dragon trailer, school prayer would be losing two well-groomed votes. “You two need to get home.” She took each by a shoulder and led them back to the street, then pushed them toward the entrance of the trailer park. They looked longingly over their shoulders at the dragon trailer.

“I feel the spirit moving in me, Katie,” Marge said.

Molly gave them another push. “Right, that’s a good thing. Off you go.” And she was supposed to be the crazy one.

“Go, go, go,” Molly said. “I have to get Stevie’s dinner ready.”

“We’re sorry we missed meeting your little boy,” Katie said. “Where is he?”

“Homework. See ya. Bye.”

Molly watched the women walk out of the park and climb into a new Chrysler minivan, then she turned back to the dragon trailer. For some reason, she was no longer afraid.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you, Stevie?”

The dragon trailer shifted shape, angles melting to curves, windows going back to eyes, but the glow wasn’t as intense as it had been in the early dawn. Molly saw the burned gill trees, the soot and blistered flesh between the scales. Soft blue lines of color flashed across the dragon’s flanks and faded. Molly felt her heart sink in sympathy. This thing, whatever it was, was hurting.

Molly took a few steps closer. “I have a feeling you’re too old to be a Stevie. And the original Stevie might be offended. How about Steve? You look like a Steve.” Molly liked the name Steve. Her agent at CAA had been named Steve. Steve was a good name for a reptile. (As opposed to Stevie, which was more of a frozen goldfish name.)