Hide and Seek

In the moonlight Kim's panties looked to be a very light shade of

blue.

I listened again. The room was silent. I walked to the closet and

flung open the door. Wire hangers rattled at me like budget wind

chimes.

I closed it again. I got on my hands and knees and peered under the

bed. That was empty too, except for thick gray waves of dust. There

was nobody under the dresser and no way to fit in behind it. So where

the hell was she?

There was nothing left in the room.

Steven's either wrong or she got by me, I thought. Damn.

I heard a rattling sound behind me. The distance was odd. It sounded

muted, like it was here in the room with me but not here, exactly. A

shadow fell across me. I whirled around.

It was the second time I'd jumped tonight. And much worse than the

first one. Much worse.

She was framed in the corner of the window from the waist up, at an

angle, right shoulder low and right arm dangling limp at her side. She

seemed to sway, brushed by the wind. Her head lolled off to the right,

thrown slightly back. Her mouth was open and her eyes stared blankly

into the room.

The stocking cut deep into the flesh of her neck. It ran taut behind

her head to some point out of sight.

I felt a jolt inside me that was somewhere between adrenaline and heart

attack. Then suddenly I was at the window, flinging it up and open.

I reached for her, touched cool flesh.

She smiled.

"Gotcha," she said.

I looked down. She was standing on top of the woodshed. On tiptoe.

The end of the stocking was in her left hand. Both the outstretched

arm and the end of the stocking had been out of my line of vision. She

laughed and let the stocking fall, twirled it like a scarf, bumped at

me like a stripper.

I could easily have wrung her neck.