"Look, I"ve got a wild bug up my-"

"Really? You?"

Fanshawe chuckled. "I want you to have the research people check something out for me. I want to know about a guy named Eldred Karswell-"

"Who"s he?"

"Just...a guy. He drives an old black Cadillac," and then Fanshawe read off the vehicle"s license plate number.

Artie sighed through a pause. "Got it. Not gonna tell me the deal with the guy-this...Karswell?"

Fanshawe smiled. "No. Just run a make on him because...well, because I"m the boss." Fanshawe didn"t want to reveal that Karswell had actually been murdered, or at least killed, if the police were wrong. Artie would go ballistic... They would find out soon enough.

"I"m hearing you loud and clear...boss."

"Good. Just ring me on my cell when you"ve got it, okay?"

"Sure. Say, aren"t you going to ask how things are going with all your astronomically successful businesses?"

"I don"t have to ask, because I have the utmost confidence in you." Fanshawe liked Artie but he just didn"t feel like talking right now. "Thanks, Artie. Take the office out on the company card tonight. Anyplace you want."

"Uh..."

"A simple thank you will suffice."

"Uh, thanks, boss!"

"Later, Artie."

"Yeah, sure, I-"

Fanshawe hung up, feeling satisfied in some inexpressible way. He couldn"t imagine what goaded his curiosity about Karswell, but then there were a number of things he felt intensely curious about in Haver-Towne, things that wouldn"t ordinarily pique him. It"s because my life has changed now...for the better. I"m essentially retired; my managers run my businesses, so I need new interests, and with that he began to walk. He"d done lots of walking since he"d arrived, and he found that he liked it. It cleared his head...

He began to walk back toward the trails.

It occurred to him that police might still be around. I hope they don"t think I had something to do with it... Still, he felt like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime. But he couldn"t quell the urge to see the trails again, and the scenery off the most elevated of the hillocks. He didn"t think for a minute there was a subconscious motive, the joggers, for instance. After what they saw today, they"ll NEVER come back out here. Before he knew it, he was ascending the hillocks.

No surprise there, he thought when he saw that the trail where Karswell"s body had been found was cordoned off completely with yellow tape. Only when he discerned that the police had left did he realize how unwise coming here might be. Whoever killed Karswell might still be out here...

But how likely was that?

At any rate, Fanshawe wasn"t convinced it had been murder, missing wallet or not. The Wild Animal Theory seemed much more plausible; then someone coming along afterward (someone disreputable, of course) could easily have taken Karswell"s wallet after the fact.

I don"t know...

The sun was descending, drawing smoldering orange light across the horizon. The vision was spectacular, and he realized then it had been ages since he"d seen such a sunset-just one more of nature"s wonders he"d been deprived of in New York. They"re all back in the Rat Race, but here I am, watching the sun set on Witches Hill... It almost seemed funny.

Sometime later, once darkness had drained into the hills, Fanshawe had turned.

Toward town.

That daze he"d felt earlier only magnified. It was as though the glittering lights of the Haver-Towne had puppeted him, had made him turn, like a hypnotist"s pocket watch. Fanshawe"s guts sunk; he knew what was behind the impulse.

The windows.

Was it this perverse desire that had been brewing in him all day, without his conscious recognition? In the past, too, he could remember times when his obsession had taken him out with seemingly no volition of his own. His eyes locked on the Travelodge, and its neat, enticing rows of picture-gla.s.s windows. Useless, he reminded himself. The joke"s on me. Even if he had come up here with the subconscious intent of peeping, he already knew he was too far away to see anything.

Then a noxious question slipped into his mind. Yeah, but what would I do-right now, right this second-if I had a pair of binoculars on me?

His guts sunk further when still another impulse fed his hand into his jacket pocket. In a hushed shock, his fingers touched something, then gripped it.

He grit his teeth, his eyelids reduced to slits, when he withdrew his hand and found it gripping the looking-gla.s.s from the inn. He held it as though he were holding a rancid body part. It felt heavier than it should, like a bar of solid metal.

Oh my G.o.d, my G.o.d, what have I done?

There was only one way to explain the device"s presence in his pocket...

I put it there, without ever realizing it...

After all, he had been looking at it over the past few days. How would I do that and not remember it? Am I that oblivious? Indeed, it seemed that his id had overruled his conscious will and prompted him to steal the instrument. He didn"t have to wonder what for...

His hand shook as he held the looking-gla.s.s. I"m not crazy, he convinced himself. I KNOW I"m not crazy. I"m just a little wrung out, that"s all. I"m in a strange place where I don"t know anybody, and now I"m suffering from some delayed-stress thing... His chest felt tight when he raised his hand and stared at the looking-gla.s.s.

I WANT to scope some windows, but I"m NOT going to, he determined. What I"m going to do instead is go back to the inn and put this d.a.m.n gla.s.s back in the d.a.m.n display case.

He turned on his feet, then began to walk back down the gra.s.s-lined path which would lead him back to the inn. In twenty minutes I"ll be in my room, he thought, and this ridiculous looking-gla.s.s will be back where it belongs.

That"s when his will began to fade. He sensed himself continuing to walk, but was cognizant of nothing else. He heard his feet crunching gravel on the trails, and he sensed some aspect of excitement but he couldn"t grasp that aspect"s nature, save that it seemed very far away.

As the night-sounds of crickets gained dominion over his surroundings, a drone entered his head...

Next thing he knew, his heart was racing, and his right eye felt dry from being open so long. The most delicious images swirled in the back of his mind. No, Fanshawe had not returned to the hotel- Instead, he"d gained a better vantage point for the intent he"d failed to admit to himself.

He was standing at the highest point of Witches Hill, spying on the town with the looking-gla.s.s. The drone in his head amplified. He could not turn away from what he was doing...

In the gla.s.s"s viewing circle, he scanned the Travelodge pool, which now wobbled extra-dimensionally blue with its underwater lights. Mostly children waded about but several attractive mothers accompanied them. Fanshawe found that a ring on the gla.s.s would zoom the image surprisingly close. Oh, G.o.d... One woman"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s filled the circle now, water droplets glittering in her cleavage. Through the wet bikini top"s baby-blue fabric, he could see the darkened plugs of her nipples. Fanshawe swerved the gla.s.s, to another unknowing mother climbing out of the water. The contrast of this one"s black bikini against the luxuriant white curves of flesh left him breathless. She turned, standing still to talk cheerily to someone in a lounge chair; Fanshawe exploited this as any competent voyeur would, and scanned her entire body from her neck to her toes.

He raised the looking-gla.s.s then, to the upper-level windows...

Time turned to a smear along with Fanshawe"s free will. He only vaguely noticed his watch beeping, signaling eleven p.m. From this point on, he floated on a squalid euphoria, as myriad images found their way into his famished psyche; it seemed as though the looking-gla.s.s itself were injecting the hot crush of glimpses deep into the substance of his brain, like marinade into the middle of a rump roast: shapely women in underwear or less striding across rooms; a melon-breasted college student stepping out of the shower; a man and woman having rowdy intercourse on their bedroom dresser-top, and a half-dozen more, all commingling into a single, inflamed kaleidoscope that existed solely to stoke Fanshawe"s idiosyncratic l.u.s.t.

He couldn"t imagine how long he"d stood there sampling so many visual delicacies; time didn"t exist, only the most vivid, lascivious succession of images. When he"d exhausted the Travelodge windows of everything his eye could pilfer, the drone in his head swelled, and he moved the h.o.a.ry spygla.s.s to the Wraxall Inn.

Silence shrouded him. Had the incessant night-sounds ceased, or had his craving shut them out? Indeed, like last night"s dream, all he could hear were his own heated breaths and the quickened thuds of his heart.

And through the elaborate windows of the inn, Fanshawe"s smorgasbord marched on, a visual feast the likes of which he"d not experienced in over a year. People are naked a lot, his thoughts broke through his fever, when they don"t think anyone can see... He started at the top floor, then slowly moved the gla.s.s one window at a time from left to right. The window of the corner suite stood dark-of course, it was his own-but next to it a slightly overweight woman with robust curves and shining blond hair stood nude before her open closet, hunting for the desired nightgown. Eventually she turned, showing all that plush, soft flesh and the exorbitant substance of her bosom, just as Fanshawe zoomed in to scrutinize in every detail. Oh, Christ... On the next floor a window displayed a bed that was empty until a clearly excited male suitor approached with his nude girlfriend or wife-her feet wagging aloft as she silently giggled-dropped her into the middle of the bed, then slid briskly on top of her. The man"s mouth moved from one nipple to the other; evidently, he was biting, for the woman"s back arched, and she clenched, but the look on her tense face was one of pleasure, not discomfort. The man disappeared for a moment, only to return with handcuffs and a blindfold, but after applying these things to his lover, he turned off the lamp, leaving only ghostly television light. More pay-dirt, thought Fanshawe, for deeper along the floor, a shimmering sight slammed into his eye: a svelte woman, nude, on her belly with her legs wishboned. Her skin shined from an obvious application of oil, while another naked woman, just as shapely, straddled her and slowly ma.s.saged her back. Fanshawe"s hands shook when he crudely zoomed the gla.s.s close between both women"s legs. The motherlode, he thought.

When the sultry ma.s.seuse leaned for the bottle of oil, he caught the sides of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, like a model in one of the cla.s.sier men"s magazines, but he also saw enough of her face...

Harvard, he realized. And they"re about to...

-after a few moments, the ma.s.seuse hopped up, laughing, then quickly closed the curtains as if her partner had casually mentioned that it might be a good idea. How"s that for some b.u.m luck? Fanshawe thought, frustrated and now painfully aroused; he grew light-headed when he considered what he"d be missing. But at least the pair of lovers seemed to have recovered from their gory shock on the trails.

Now his crude excitement left him disordered. I"m such a sc.u.mbag! he yelled at himself, but only continued to manipulate the gla.s.s. Through a careless curtain gap, he zoomed in a young brunette wearing only panties; she stood before a narrow, full-length mirror, and seemed to be grinning at what she saw: wide hips and a flat stomach; long, sleek legs; small b.r.e.a.s.t.s that swooped upward, topped by dense nipples. The woman"s grin deepened; next, she drew her hands up her abdomen, cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then began to vise each nipple between forefinger an thumb...

Fanshawe made an aggravated fist with his free hand, his self-disgust simmering. Sc.u.mbag... Pervert...

He moved the viewing circle past several dark windows on the second floor, then stopped when the last of them went alight. He held the gla.s.s fast, waiting, heart thudding. No movement revealed itself, yet Fanshawe seemed to sense that patience, as far as this window was concerned, would be well rewarded. The room appeared smaller than the others; he thought he detected heather-green carpet, then walls papered in flowery, neutral tones. In a split-second, then, a shape strode past. Fanshawe only made out jeans and a light top, but he knew it was a woman.

Patience, patience, he insisted.

The shape returned, and a hot breath suddenly seemed trapped in Fanshawe"s chest. Now the woman was bereft of jeans and top, and was skimming off her panties and bra. Of all the women he"d spied on tonight, this woman possessed the most exorbitant curves. But her back was to him. Was she getting something from a closet?

He couldn"t tell, and the lower angle blocked all detail of her from the shoulders up; he could only tell her hair was not blond but lighter than brunet.

It was then that she turned, offering a delectable side-glance. At once Fanshawe"s wooziness doubled. The woman"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s were heavy but high, her waist fatless. A tuft of b.u.t.terscotch public hair showed. Next, she turned only a trifle, such that Fanshawe could see the large, dark circles of her nipples and the jutting papillae. He zoomed only to be astonished to near disbelief. These optics are incredible.

It was uncanny how closely the looking-gla.s.s could bear in on an image. Just then, the unknowing woman"s nipple nearly filled the viewing field. Every detail was there before his eye, the stark demarcation of the nipple"s rim against the white flesh of the breast, even the finest hair follicles, and even the papilla"s lactation ducts. It was akin to microscopy... But- Was she about to lean over?

Fanshawe backtracked the zoom to bring the entire window back into frame.

Yeah... Contact lenses...

The woman was leaning slightly, finger on one hand widening her eyelids while those of her other hand slipped out the lenses. It was during this pose that Fanshawe received his most vivid shock of the night. The woman was absolutely voluptuous, and now he could see her face.

It was Abbie.

The sudden noise spun him abruptly around like someone caught by surprise on a barstool. He"d heard a dog growl.

He stood frozen, staring into the clearing. What he noticed first was the old rain barrel, but it almost looked as though it were shimmering. Some aspect of the moonlight seemed to over-substantiate details much in the same way as the looking-gla.s.s. Everything he saw-the high gra.s.ses and wild flowers, the small stones on the ground, and even the dirt"s grit-looked excessively crisp. As for the barrel, even from yards away he easily detected the pits and water-damage grooves of its body beneath its protective coat.

But as he might expect, there was no dog.

Not this s.h.i.t again.

It hadn"t sounded as precise as when he"d heard it earlier that day-just before the scream. It only took a few moments for him to feel sure there was no dog, but remembering how Eldred Karswell"s body had been found didn"t afford much relief. What IS this? he wondered, close to being angered. I"m hearing growling dogs, for G.o.d"s sake. But there"d be other evidence of a dog in the vicinity, wouldn"t there? Panting, moving through the brush, etc.? There"d been none of that. I CAN"T be hearing things, can I? He could only hope that the sound had carried from far away, via some fluke he didn"t understand. When he was fully convinced that no dog was present, his l.u.s.t took him back to previous activities.

Abbie...

He lined the gla.s.s right back up on her window, but- d.a.m.n it!

It stood dark now.

Here, his id railed. Naked, she"d proved even more alluring that he"d imagined; her body had stunned him; the prospect of looking at her again filled him with an edgy thrill. But even before he"d seen that her window was now dark, the more decent side of his character groaned at him, How low can I get? I"m peeping on a woman I"ve got a date with! Some force tried to urge him to put the looking-gla.s.s away, but he never quite got to that point. I"m a sc.u.mbag peeping-tom loser... He noticed several other windows still lit, but as he would put the gla.s.s back to his eye- The minuscule alarm on his Brietling watch began to beep, signaling midnight.

More self-scorn rained down on him. My G.o.d, it"s midnight already. I wasted the whole night up here. Looking in windows, eyeballing nude women behind their backs. What a piece of s.h.i.t I am. When he considered Dr. Tilton"s reaction, he couldn"t have felt more crushed. He could almost see her ice-cold face hanging right there before him like a semi-palpable shadow, not frowning but simply blank, which was much worse.

He presumed to leave at once, his watch still beeping its electronic tolls. But then he was wincing, struggling against the beggardly temptation. Leave! Leave this hill right now and never come back! Only low-lifes do this, only perverts and dirt-bags! but even as this bleak truth socked home, his hand raised the looking-gla.s.s to his eye- All right, d.a.m.n it... This is it, just one more minute and then I go back to the hotel, and I will never do this again...

There were two odd things that he immediately recognized, but the order of the recognition reversed. In only that short period of time, all the remaining lit windows of the Wraxall Inn had gone out, almost as if they"d been extinguished simultaneously. A sweep of the gla.s.s showed him that the rest of the town, too, seemed much darker than before...

The toll of midnight drew on, but not via the electric beep of his watch...

It now sounded as a deep, sonorous bell.

I haven"t heard bells ringing here, have I? He felt certain, in fact, that the town"s church had no bell.

When he momentarily lowered the gla.s.s to think...the beep of his watch continued.

And the bell-peals disappeared.

What on earth?

He put the gla.s.s back to his eye, then felt a chill, for the peals somehow revitalized themselves. Each toll, though heavy, deep, sounded oddly brittle as well, the way bells sometimes sounded on still, hot nights.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

Then silence. His attention, splayed as it may have been, switched back to the visual: the town.

His mouth fell open.

What he saw now was impossible, yet he saw it just the same...

The town was different.

Haver-Towne not only appeared darker in the sheen of moonlight, it appeared smaller. A power failure? he considered. A brownout? But no, half the buildings on Back Street weren"t there, and those that were did not coincide with his memory. And were there no street lights burning at all now? He zoomed and squinted, then with an incredulous realization saw that there were no street lamps. And the light in the few windows that remained lit shone duller, less intense, and somehow flickering, like...

Like candles, he realized.

Looking again to the inn, he scrutinized the walls, the gables, and the roof. This is crazy... The once-clean white walls looked streaked now, shoddy, as if whitewashed or painted with inferior product. Flaws, splits, and cracks were apparent in the wall-slats, and on the roof...

The shingles were definitely not the same as they had been.

Fanshawe squeezed his viewing eye shut, rubbed it, then shook his head as if to dislodge some cerebral misfire. I"m tired, I"m burned out, he forced the idea. And I"m p.i.s.sed off at myself for relapsing. Certainly the stress of such things combined could urge eyes to play tricks on their owner, that and the crisp blocked out shadows that the bright moonlight generated about the town.

He took a heavy breath. I"ll look again and everything will be normal- He looked again.

Fanshawe"s heart seemed to squeal, like some small, agitated animal in a trap. The town did not look normal.

Impossible...

Haver-Towne looked corroded now. As Fanshawe stared, he let his eyes adjust, then could"ve sworn that Main Street was no longer paved, and in it a lone figure walked slowly, hesitantly, holding what had to have been a candle-lantern. Fanshawe trembled in place, then homed the looking-gla.s.s again on the Wraxall Inn.

Abbie"s window hung dark now, but then some peripheral light elsewhere urged his instincts to raise the gla.s.s, to the top floor. Another window was indeed alight when it hadn"t been a moment ago. The bow window on the end...

That"s not...MY room, is it? No, no, that"s impossible. He was sure he hadn"t left the lights on. Why would he? Next, Fanshawe froze.

A part in the curtains formed a wide cleft of light in the window; Fanshawe was sure that these curtains were darker and more ragged than the curtains he knew the room to have. And it was candlelight-he was sure-that wanly filled the cleft.