She had tentatively hoped it would be Randall. It was a dash of cold water in the face to see Sheriff Galton.

Oh, go away, she told him silently. I had gotten all settled, and here I am mad again.

“I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday, Catherine, but I’ve thought of a few more questions I want to ask you.”

Galton looked as immovable as a transport truck.

Suddenly Catherine was no longer angry. She felt flat and depressed. She saw in James Galton the grinning man who had swept her to the ceiling in a deliciously frightening game, when he and his wife came to visit Glenn and Rachel Linton.

There was nothing fun about being frightened now. There was nothing fun about being the sheriff, either. James Galton’s face had been sanded down with exhaustion.

“Please come in,” she said quietly, standing aside.

He sank down onto the couch with a barely audible sigh of relief. Catherine took the chair Tom had occupied the afternoon before.

For a minute or two they were silent. Galton was lost in some dark alley of thought. Catherine watched him, lit a cigarette, tried to relax. The feeling of being fifteen and in first crush had utterly died away, leaving her hardened, old, and alone. She resolved to behave like a normal, sane, balanced woman-a resolution that immediately made her nervous and fidgety.

“Well, I’ll keep this as short as I can,” the sheriff began. “I know you probably want to be by yourself”-and Catherine winced as her idea of her image in Lowfield was confirmed-“but you know, Catherine, I don’t enjoy this.”

She felt remorseful, receptive, and wary, all at once.

“Now, when you were driving to the shack yesterday, did you see anyone you know, anyone at all?”

Catherine reflected obediently.

“No. Well, yes I did,” she said, surprised. A blue pickup had been coming toward Lowfield as she was going to the shack. She remembered a friendly wave through a bug-spattered windshield.