She picked up her purse, stood, and went inside FoodSaver. Forcing herself to walk at a normal pace in order not to draw any attention, she made her way to the back of the store. There was no exit for customers here, but there was a pair of swinging doors with Employees Only written on them. She pushed through the doors without hesitation and found herself in FoodSaver’s storage area. She saw stacks of empty cardboard boxes that hadn’t been broken down yet, as well as wooden pallets containing boxes of non-perishable items. The boxes were labeled – paper towels, breakfast cereal, potato chips – but there was no one present to open them and remove their contents. She figured that whoever had been working back here had gone out front to watch the action after the accident had happened. This meant there was no one to see her, let alone stop her, as she walked toward the receiving dock. The dock’s large door was shut, but there was a regular-sized door next to it, and this was the one she went to. She found it unlocked and she opened it, half expecting an alarm to sound, but she didn’t hear anything. She stepped outside and closed the door behind her. There were several dumpsters back here, some for trash, some for recycling cardboard. The trash stank of rotten meat and sour milk, and her stomach roiled at the smell. She hurried past the dumpsters toward the west side of the building. She walked around the corner and continued on, going slowly, careful to remain close to the wall. She kept going until she could peek out into the parking lot.

She saw the reporter speaking to the police, one of the men recording her with a camera while the other stood by, watching. The paramedics had strapped the old man to a backboard and lifted him onto a gurney. They wheeled him to their vehicle and got him inside. One of the medics remained in the back with the old man, while the other closed the rear doors, jogged to the front, and climbed into the driver’s seat. A second later, the vehicle’s engine roared to life, its emergency lights came on, and its siren began blaring. The vehicle started moving, slowly at first, but once the driver pulled onto the street, he hit the accelerator and sped off. Lori knew they would take the man to the nearest hospital, which was in Ash Creek, about fifteen miles away. The news cameraman had stopped filming the reporter’s discussion with the police officer and shot footage of the paramedics leaving. When they were gone, the firefighters started preparing to wash away the gasoline that had leaked from the Volvo, and the cameraman began filming them.

She drew back and, as she’d done before, she sat on the ground, back to the wall, knees hugged to her chest, purse resting next to her. She wondered what it must be like for the paramedics, knowing that the patient you were transporting was almost assuredly nothing more than a collection of bones and dead meat, but needing to pretend that some small spark of life might be hiding somewhere within him in order to do your job properly. She couldn’t imagine anything more depressing, and she was glad she was a physical therapist. The patients she worked with might be in pain – sometimes quite a lot – but they were alive. They could heal, maybe not all the way, and maybe their bodies would never get back to the point they were before whatever had happened to break them. But they could get better. They could improve. That was a hell of a lot more than the old man would ever be capable of.

She’d ridden in the back of a paramedic vehicle only once in her life – back in high school – and once was enough. She unconsciously reached down to rub her right knee, and although there was no reason for it to hurt, she felt a distant, dull throb. The pain drew her attention to her hand, and she quickly removed it from her knee.

Look forward, push onward, she reminded herself.

* * *

Lori remained hidden until everyone – the police, the firefighters, the reporters – had left, and both the Volvo and the minivan it had struck had been towed away. As she left her hiding place and walked to her Civic she kept watch for the goat-eyed woman, but thankfully she was nowhere in sight. Lori got into her car and pulled out onto the street, and she was halfway home before she realized she had no idea what had happened to the groceries she’d bought for dinner. She didn’t remember dropping them when she’d run to avoid being hit by the old man, but she must have. Someone probably picked them up and threw them away when cleaning the accident scene. It wasn’t much of a loss. She had no appetite whatsoever.

She thought of the old man and wondered if the doctors in the ER had been able to revive him, or if he was – and this seemed far more likely – lying on a table in the hospital’s morgue, waiting to be autopsied. The idea saddened her. She wished the man no ill will. Sure, he’d almost run her down, but that had been an accident.

Hadn’t it?

It was close to nine o’clock when she pulled into the ridiculously named Emerald Place. Whoever had come up with the name had been going for some kind of Wizard of Oz vibe, as if this was a place of enchantment instead of a collection of dull-looking brown-and-gray buildings housing cramped one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Be it ever so crumbled, there’s no place like home.

It wasn’t especially late, but all the parking spots in front of her building had been taken, and she was forced to park two buildings down. She trudged to her building – which lay uphill from where she’d parked – her legs protesting with every step. As a physical therapist, she was usually on her feet during work hours, and today had been no exception. Plus, she felt emotionally drained from the events at FoodSaver so, all in all, she was wiped out. No longer did she want to sit on the couch and watch television. All she wanted to do was climb into bed, curl up under the covers, and sleep for a week. Maybe two.

The sidewalk was lit by a series of lampposts that gave off dim yellow light. She wasn’t certain if the effect was supposed to be aesthetic, or if the company that owned the complex kept the outside lights low at night to save on electricity. She’d never been comfortable with the meager light the sidewalk lights provided. It left too many shadows untouched around the trees and hedges that were positioned between the sidewalk and the buildings. Shadows in which anyone could be lurking – muggers, rapists, goat-eyed women who made cryptic pronouncements…. She remained alert as she walked, continually swept her gaze around to check her surroundings, listened intently for the slightest sound that might indicate someone was watching her from the concealment of darkness.

After what had happened at FoodSaver tonight, she was even more nervous about the shadows than usual. She pictured the dark form that she’d seen right before the old man’s car had come racing toward her. The thing had been like an omen of ill fortune, or a harbinger of doom. Yes, she’d managed to escape unscathed, but that had been a matter of luck as much as anything else. If she’d hesitated so much as a split second, she might well be lying on an autopsy table in the hospital morgue, next to the old man in the Volvo.

Instead of looking away from the shadows, she peered more closely at them, trying to discern any distinct shapes within their mass of black. She had the impression of silent, squirming movement, of dozens of dark forms writhing over and around each other. It reminded her of when she was a child and her parents would take her and her younger sister, Reeny, to play miniature golf. The course was set up as a twisting, turning maze of fake miniature mountains, and a pond wound in and around the holes. There were large koi in the water, and for a dime you could buy tiny brown pellets from a vending machine to feed them. She and Reeny would always beg their parents for change to buy fish food, and once their hands were filled with the hard little pellets, they would walk to the wooden railing that separated the course from the pond and throw the food out over the water as far as they could. The pellets would come pattering down like raindrops, and the koi would rise up from the water in a roiling mass to fight over the food in mindless desperation. That’s what the shadows seemed like to her now – giant, over-eager black fish, all squirming hungry energy as their slick surfaces slid over each other with wet whispers.

She wondered which she’d rather see again the least: the shadow creature or the goat-eyed woman. She decided it was a toss-up. They’d both been equally disturbing in their own way.

The shadows remained where they were as she continued walking, and she didn’t feel the itchy-crawly sensation on the back of her neck that indicated someone’s eyes were on her. She walked up to her building without incident, opened the door – which creaked on old, dry hinges – and stepped inside. The building was small and had no real lobby, just a narrow hallway and a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. The lights inside were fluorescent, much brighter than those outside, almost too bright. Even during the daytime she had to squint when she came and went from her apartment. The building’s interior exuded a faint chemical smell, as if some kind of cleaning fluid had been used recently. She’d never seen anyone washing the faded, threadbare carpet, though, and she had no idea what caused the smell. It was always present and always the same, never stronger, never weaker. She only really noticed the odor when she was out in the hall, though, so she could live with it.

The residents’ mailboxes were located in a central area outside the rental office, but she hadn’t felt like stopping and checking hers tonight. Whatever bills and junk mail that waited for her would keep until tomorrow.

The building only had two levels, and her apartment was located on the second floor. She held on to the thin metal railing as she ascended the stairs, more out of habit than any real need for support. There were two apartments on the ground floor and two on the second. Hers was 2B. She walked to her door – which was painted a particularly ugly avocado green – fished her keys out of her purse, opened the door, stepped inside, then quickly closed and locked it behind her. She didn’t consider herself paranoid exactly, but leaving the door unlocked, even for a short time, seemed like an unnecessary risk to her. And after what had happened tonight, she wanted the feeling of security being in her own place, locked door between her and the rest of the world, provided.

She flipped the light switch next to the door, and the floor lamp in the living room came on. This light was soft and warm, much better than the hallway’s fluorescents, and she sighed, relieved to be home. But her relief was short-lived. As she walked into the living room, she saw it was a mess. A comforter lay in a bunched-up mass on the couch, and a bed pillow lay on the floor between the couch and the glass coffee table. The table was littered with detritus – empty corn chip bag, a bowl coated with salsa residue, a half-eaten chocolate bar, and three empty cans of a highly caffeinated energy drink, along with several books and magazines stacked in a lopsided pile. She knew from experience that the pages in the reading material would be dog-eared, and probably stained with salsa, too. Larry was far from the tidiest roommate she’d ever had. She didn’t want to go into the kitchen. God only knew what sort of state he’d left it in before heading out to play his gig.

A duffel bag lay on the floor next to the couch. It was open and clothes – T-shirts and underwear, mostly – stuck partway out of it. Back when they’d both shared the same bed, she’d spent too much time picking up after him. But since they’d broken up, he’d become more considerate. Yes, he’d left a mess behind when he’d gone off to play his gig, but at least it was a contained mess. That was a major improvement.

The first time she’d confronted Larry about being a slob, he’d tried to play it off as no big deal. I’m a creative type. We live in our heads, not in the real word, you know? Besides, what does it matter where stuff is? On a shelf, on the floor…. Is one place inherently better than the other?

She’d felt like strangling him then. Sometimes she wished she had.

She’d first met Larry Ramirez when he’d accompanied one of his clients – a deaf man who’d undergone multiple back surgeries – to physical therapy. Larry was a sign language interpreter in his day job, and he served as the communication channel between his client and Lori. She’d found him funny and charming, not to mention handsome, and after the fourth PT session for his client, she’d asked him out. He wasn’t her patient so it wasn’t exactly unethical for her to go out with him, but it did skirt the boundaries of professionalism. They’d had dinner then gone back to her place to have a drink. She made it a rule not to sleep with guys on the first date, but she’d broken that rule with Larry. They started dating regularly after that, and three months later, when the lease on his apartment was up, she asked him to move in with her.

Larry didn’t only sign for the deaf; he was also a jazz guitarist who sometimes played with a group and sometimes played solo. She wasn’t the biggest fan of jazz, but she thought he played beautifully, and she loved to watch him perform, whether in a group or on his own.

She’d learned one other thing about him early on. He was bisexual. He’d told her not to worry, that he was currently in a ‘girl phase’. She’d never dated anyone who was bisexual before, and she was worried. She feared he’d eventually get tired of her and go into a ‘guy phase’, but she decided to put her fears aside and see where their relationship went. It lasted for the better part of three years before she’d decided they made better friends than lovers. When she told Larry, he’d agreed at once, and while she’d been relieved that he’d taken it so well, she’d also been disappointed that he didn’t seem at least a little bit sad. He’d always been a go-with-the-flow type, but she would’ve liked to think their relationship had meant something more to him.

Larry didn’t have a steady job. As both an interpreter and a musician he got paid by the gig and, after they broke up, he hadn’t been able to afford his own place right away. She’d told him he could continue to stay with her until he’d saved up enough money to move out. That had been nine months ago, and he was still sleeping on her couch every night. Not counting those nights when he stayed out partying with friends or having sex with whoever he was seeing at the time. She kept hoping he’d enter into a long-term relationship with someone and move into their place, but he rarely slept with anyone more than a handful of times in a row.

She’d once asked him why he kept moving from one short-term relationship to another.

It’s hard to find anyone who holds my interest very long, you know? He’d smiled and added, You were the last interesting person I dated.

The last part had probably been bullshit, but it had made her feel good nonetheless.

It was sometimes frustrating – and more than a little weird – to have her ex as a roommate, but they made it work, more or less. And while she wanted him to get back on his feet and leave, she knew she’d miss him when he was gone.

She sighed.

“Girl, you ought to have your head examined.”

She thought of the goat-eyed woman and the shadow thing she’d seen lurking in FoodSaver’s parking lot and regretted her choice of words.

Chapter Two

She got ready for bed, a process that normally took half an hour, but she hurried and was done in fifteen minutes. She usually slept in her panties and an oversized T-shirt, and tonight she had on a XXL red-and-gray OSU shirt so large it hung down to her knees. She’d only just gotten into bed and slid under the covers when her phone rang. She’d forgotten to turn the ringer off when she’d placed it on her nightstand, and she was tempted to ignore it, but what if it was important, maybe even an emergency?

“Fuck,” she muttered. She snatched the phone off the nightstand and answered it without checking the display to see who it was.

“Hello?”

“Hey, beautiful.”

It was Justin. She hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, but now that she heard his voice, she was glad he’d called, and even more glad she’d chosen to answer.

“Hey yourself.”

“Sorry I didn’t call earlier. I just got home from work. We had a backlog of tests that needed to be done, and Arlene insisted the techs stay late tonight and get caught up. You know how she is when we get even a little bit behind.”

Arlene was Justin’s supervisor at BioChem Diagnostics, and while Lori had never met her, she’d heard Justin complain about the woman on numerous occasions.

Lori was tempted to tell Justin everything that had happened to her that night, but she was reluctant to talk about the goat-eyed woman, the shadow thing, and the old man in the Volvo. When you put all three together, they sounded outlandish, and Justin was too logical to accept the trifecta of weirdness she’d experienced tonight. And even if he were inclined to believe everything she said, she still didn’t want to talk about it, not yet. She wanted to try to forget it all, at least for now.

A few weeks after she and Larry had decided to be just friends, Lori had been ready to date again. She’d never tried a dating service before, but Reeny swore by them, since that’s how she’d met her husband, Charles, so Lori decided to give it a try. She researched which online dating services had the highest success rate in matching people, chose one, signed up to the service, and filled out a profile. When it came time to upload a photo, she couldn’t decide which one to use, so she’d ended up asking Larry to help her pick one – which was all kinds of weird. He told her to go with a picture of her that appeared on the PT practice’s website. In it, she was wearing her uniform and working with a patient. Don’t worry about privacy issues, Larry had said. We can blur the guy’s face. She was looking at the camera and smiling while she held the patient’s feet to the floor so he could do some sit-ups. It’s a good picture. You look really pretty in it, and it shows you’re a caring person.

She hadn’t been certain the photo was a good choice, but she decided to trust Larry’s opinion and uploaded it. She received her first message from a potential suitor within fifteen minutes. She received a lot of messages over the next few days, and while she’d been encouraged at first by the responses, they soon became overwhelming – and there were more than a few creepers in the mix. One guy asked if she would send him pictures of her feet, and another asked if she was into breast bondage. She hadn’t known that was a thing, and when she looked it up on the Internet she immediately regretted it. Not only did it not look like any fun, it looked like it hurt.

She was about to cancel her account and give up on the entire idea of online dating when she received a message from a man named Justin Nguyen. She almost didn’t open it, but she had a friend in middle school named Justin. His last name had been Reed, but he’d been a good kid, so she figured, what the hell. Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something. She opened the message, which was a friendly, polite one – no inquiries about which fetishes she might be into – so she checked out his profile. She liked what she saw, sent him a message, and they met for coffee several days later. It wasn’t love at first sight or anything, and she didn’t feel any immediate sexual attraction toward him. But he was nice and funny and smart, and unlike Larry, he seemed to have his shit together. She decided to go out with him a second time, then a third, and they’d been dating steadily ever since, coming up on seven months now. She still wasn’t sure she was in love with him, but she cared for him a great deal and she enjoyed his company, and that was enough for now.

“Want to have coffee tomorrow morning before work?” she asked. “My treat.”

They both worked in offices downtown, but their buildings were a couple of blocks apart. There was a Starbucks between them, and they’d often meet there around seven a.m., especially if they hadn’t seen each other the day before. They’d have coffee and breakfast – a scone for him, a piece of fruit or yogurt for her – and they’d chat about anything and everything, from work to world events. Getting together like this always reminded her of their first date, and she loved starting her day this way. She hoped Justin would say yes. After tonight, she could use a little normalcy.

“Sorry, I can’t.”