Superstition by Karen Robards

her crew to have to rent cars and drive from Atlanta, which had gotten them to their hotel on the mainland less than two hours ago—just in time to catch part of the regularly scheduled Twenty-four Hours Investigates for which Nicky had done the big (taped) setup for tonight’s special.
    Live at nine—or not.
    Nicky shuddered.
    “Leonora, you’re going to hyperventilate.” Having apparently been monitoring the action in the front seat at the same time as he’d been contributing to the turbulence in the back, Uncle John leaned forward and passed Leonora a small paper bag. If it wasn’t the one he’d been holding over her mouth and nose in the house, it was its twin.
    “Remember,” he said. “Just put it over your nose and mouth and breathe normally. Like I showed you in the house.”
    Leonora grabbed it, pressed it to her face, and started breathing into it.
    “Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale . . .” John encouraged her.
    “Oh, God, I can’t let anybody see me like this,” Livvy wailed. “I look like Moby Dick. I know I wanted to come, but . . . Nick, you’ve got to take me home.”
    Nicky was willing to bet that working for 60 Minutes was never like this.
    “Livvy—” Nicky broke off as the car crested a rise and the Old Taylor Place came into view. To her left, the western fringe of the island was swampy near-jungle. Tall marsh grass crowded close to the road, and the still waters of the creek beyond it gleamed faintly in the moonlight. To her right, the higher ground on which the houses were built was shaded by a thick canopy of live oaks, pines, and cypress. Unlike the pretty pastel bungalows in the center of the island where the year-round residents tended to live, the houses along Salt Marsh Creek were mostly big, older ones that predated the turn of the century. At present, most of them were still empty, awaiting their summer residents. In other words, except for the Honda’s headlights, the area should have been as dark as the inside of a cave.
    But it wasn’t. The Old Taylor Place was lit up like the Washington Monument. Every light inside the house seemed to be turned on. Bright klieg lights illuminated the exterior. Half a dozen vehicles were parked in the driveway.
    Nicky felt a small lessening of tension as she realized that everything looked just as it should for the upcoming broadcast—until she noticed the pair of police cars, blue lights flashing, that were parked on the shoulder in front of the house.
    She was just frowning at them when her cell phone, which she had stowed in the console between the seats, started to ring.
    “Yes?” she said into it, shooting an encouraging smile at her mother, who had lowered the paper bag and was now, with a cautious expression on her face, seemingly trying to breathe without it.
    “Nicky, you’re not going to believe this,” Karen whispered over the phone. “They’re shutting us down.”

3
     
     
     
     
    B RIAN WAS GONE BY the time they got to the Old Taylor Place. That made Joe feel marginally—but not a whole hell of a lot—better. It had been almost two years now. He was beginning to think—fear—that Brian might be a permanent part of his existence.
    The ramifications of which he didn’t even want to think about.
    “They don’t have a permit. I told ’em to pack it up.” Vince greeted Joe and Dave on the porch with that information, one hand in his pocket jingling his keys, his shrewd little black eyes snapping with satisfaction. A massive man, he was about six-four and nearly as wide, with huge shoulders, chest, and belly atop oddly short legs. He had a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, pugnacious features, and a lot of trouble just being still. Even after years spent in this motivation-sapping climate, he still brimmed with the kind of raw vigor and nervous energy that was as foreign to South Carolina as kudzu was to the North. At the moment, he was wearing a coat and tie and dress slacks, which made Joe think that—devout