Rainy City by Earl Emerson

was using me, and maybe I was using her, and using was not what I wanted my life to be about. I decided, amenable or not, she would be better off with a comforter rather than with me on top of her.
    Before she dozed off, Kathy ran a warm hand across my face and said, “You awake, chum?”
    I grunted. I was more awake than she. The thought had occurred to me that the prowler might backtrack and try to finish the job.
    “I was thinking about it today. I did tell Angus Crowell your name: Remember when you asked me about that? I saw him Friday morning at his office in south Seattle. He works for Taltro Incorporated. He was a real peach. I only saw him for a few moments, but I do remember telling him your name. Why? Was that important?”
    “Go to sleep.”
    “I just want to know how you’re doing on this case.”
    “Yeah, maybe it was important. It’s possible he was so upset about somebody butting in on what he considered his own business that he came here Saturday night and killed my dog as a warning. Or had someone do it. It’s possible, but it sounds goofy, even to me.”
    “Or he might have paid someone to break in here for the same reason. To warn you off?”
    “That’s what I was thinking.”
    “Thomas?”
    “Go to sleep.”
    “Isn’t that a little farfetched?”
    “Yeah, it is.”
    “I think the dog and the burglar are coincidental. Sometimes these things just happen, you know?” “I know.”
    “I saw a body. Some bones, that is, in a pit. And a little girl was there, crying.”
    “Is this your vision?”
    “Yes.”
    “Go on.”
    “There was a terrified little girl. And some bones at the bottom of this pit.”
    “Who was the girl? Angel?”
    “I don’t know. Angel. Or maybe Melissa. You have to find her. There is something dangerous going on, something involving Melissa. I know it. Do you believe me, Thomas?”
    “I believe you.”
    “What do you think it could be about?”
    “Sleep. Go to sleep.” Outside I could hear the wind riling up the night. We both drifted off.
    I awoke bolt upright, the .45 in my fist. It was cocked and the safety had been thumbed off. I was pointing it at the window. It was a quarter to four in the morning. In my sleep, I thought I had heard something chafing the windowpane. There it was again. A bush swayed against the pane to the tune of the wind. If only it had been a face in a ski mask, I could have let fly. I could have fired. I think I could have.
    My body was bathed in a cold sweat, and I knew it would be a good half hour before I would saw any more zzzs.
    Quietly, I uncocked the automatic and snicked the safety on, sliding it back under the Doubleday. Outside, roly-poly clouds scudded across a low sliver of a moon. A thin chalky light fissured through the bush at the window and marbled the bedroom with light.
    I brushed a hand across Kathy’s hair. It was thick, almost wiry.
    She was breathing heavily, her mouth slack. She stirred and one of her feet poked out from beneath her homemade comforter. She had stitched it herself. She was interested in all the old-fashioned arts, adept at most of them, and gathered new hobbies into her fold every year. She even had a loom.
    For a long while I lay awake on one elbow and watched her sleep. In the moonlight, her oval face took on an almost boyish grace, an innocence. There was a chameleon quality about her. People she knew could bump into her in the street and not recognize her. It wasn’t only her costumes and lavish collection of historical clothing, it was her. It was difficult to describe. She had a smooth, oval face and she could make it up a hundred different ways. Beautiful. Silly. Plain. The vamp. She tried them all.
    It took me an hour to get back to sleep. It was the second time in my life I had slept all night with Kathy. We had never made love. ?

Chapter Seven
    MINDLESSLY, I MENDED THE TWO DOORS THE NEXT MORNING, first the back door, which had merely been rifled, and then the door which led to the