See No Evil by Gayle Roper Page A

flick of my hand and a smile on my face. “I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, girl, so good night.”
    Lucy paused in my bedroom doorway. “Be sure you dream of Ed.”
    Right. Last time I dreamed of a man, he left me. Boom. Gone. Pain. Still, there was something about Ed. Gray.
    I eyed my bed and the black furry boneless creature filling half of it. “Luce, you forgot Tipsy.”
    I put a hand under the cat and pushed. “Off, buddy.” Moving not an inch, he turned his great head and showed me his fangs. I pushed harder.
    The cat smiled, I’m positive, as Lucy gathered all twenty pounds of him close.
    Moments later, snuggled under the floral print Martha Stewart sheets and summer blanket from Kmart, I found I couldn’t sleep. Every creak of the house, every chug of the refrigerator’s motor, every snore that came from Meaghan’s room, every hum of the air-conditioning system going on or off made me go rigid.
    He’s not here, my practical self assured me.
    How do you know that? my irrational self countered.
    He doesn’t know who you are or where to find you.
    But he saw me. How spooky is that?
    Very. Now go to sleep!
    I wish.
    The whole situation was preposterous. I was an art teacher, for goodness sakes, the original good girl. I painted on the side, and not even all that well if the truth be told, though I’d never admit it to my father. I sewed curtains and drapes for people for extra cash. I made fabric pictures—“fabric mosaics” Lucy called them—for the fun of it. I spent more time at church than I did at the mall. Any previous dealings with bad guys were absolutely nonexistent, any run-ins with law-enforcement authorities almost nonexistent. Almost.
    Once I’d called in a child abuse report about one of my students. Once I’d gotten a ticket I couldn’t afford because of my penchant for being heavy-footed. Once when I’d glanced at my watch and seen I was going to be late for a date, I’d accidentally walked out of a store with a pair of gloves in my hand. I’d rushed right back in to pay for them, probably passing the store detective coming after me to arrest me.
    I’d committed one of my two serious offenses when I was six years old. I lifted a chocolate bar at a Wawa mini-mart. When I climbed into the car eating it, Dad marched me right back to the store and made me apologize. He paid for the candy, then made me work off the price by helping him with his annual garage cleaning. He made certain the task took all day.
    You’d think that between the mortification and the sore muscles over the chocolate-bar incident I’d have learned my lesson, but I guess I’m just slow. Once, as a teen, I kept too much change at Kmart, using the undeserved five dollars to buy a colorful scarf. I still had the scarf, but I had yet to wear it. I kept it to remind myself of the fine line between evil and good, guilt and grace. I’d returned the five dollars as soon as I’d gotten my next babysitting job.
    That was about as close as I ever came to lawbreaking and lawbreakers, Skip Schumann excepted, if mouthiness anddisrespect were breaking the law. Evil people, really bad guys, couldn’t usually be bothered with ordinary goody-goody people like me. They thought we weren’t any fun, and we sort of thought the same about them. We went our separate ways.
    Until tonight.
    I squeezed my eyes shut again and tried to get comfortable in my very comfortable bed. Lucy sneezed, Meaghan snored and I sat bolt upright, trying to see through the darkness. I told myself over and over that it was only Luce and Meg, but my nerves, busy jitterbugging up and down my spine, didn’t seem to grasp that truth.
    Light. I needed light. If he came after me, I wanted to see him, rather than be taken unawares. I reached for my bedside lamp. As soon as I snapped it on, all the shadows dissipated, and all my fears quieted. Just seeing that